US Should Complete Policy Review
Principled Diplomacy, Aid, and Targeted Sanctions Can Spur Change
(New York) - The Obama administration should promptly conclude its Burma policy review and adopt initiatives to make its policies on diplomacy, sanctions and humanitarian aid more effective, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton released today.
"Delays in announcing a new Burma policy could encourage Burmese military leaders to believe the US is weakening its commitment to human rights and pluralism," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Although the situation in Burma seems intractable, an energetic and revitalized approach to Burma from the Obama administration could help bring positive change."
Human Rights Watch recommended that the United States appoint its own special envoy on Burma, who would have a direct line to the secretary of state and specific instructions to engage in a principled way with the Burmese government and key bilateral and multilateral actors. Vigorous diplomacy is specifically needed with China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan.
Human Rights Watch also recommended the establishment of a Burma Contact Group or similar form of multilateral grouping to meet and regularly discuss diplomatic engagement with the Burmese government on a range of issues. This could have the effect of converging the views and policies of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, the European Union, and the United Nations, and gradually minimize the ability of Burma to play states off against each other. There is considerable common ground on a range of issues, including the need for political reform and credible elections involving the political opposition, concern over Burma's trafficking in heroin and methamphetamines, and the need for a regional approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Such a grouping would demand that the US remain firm on fundamental human rights principles and not engage in diplomatic horse-trading on core issues of reform.
As the UN has long been the focal point for diplomacy on Burma, Human Rights Watch urged the US to support the continuation of a special envoy of the secretary-general. It is crucial that the secretary-general and the special envoy not accept access or high-level meetings as the goal or a sign of progress in Burma, as they have in the past. The envoy should be an individual with the principles, skills, and backing of the international community to make an impact.
"More high-level diplomacy is welcome, so long as the US stands by its principles to uphold the basic rights of the Burmese people and work for a genuine and credible process of political reform," said Adams. "But there should be no wishful thinking or illusions that more conciliatory talk from the US and others will somehow cause Burma's generals to alter their plans."
Human Rights Watch said that generalized sanctions on Burma that have had little or no impact and have not been targeted on key decision-makers and human rights abusers should be reconsidered and phased out at an appropriate time. At the same time, properly imposed, targeted sanctions - such as financial sanctions on individuals and entities, investment and trade sanctions that are specifically focused on companies or economic sectors of greatest concern, arms embargoes, restrictions on military assistance, and travel bans on individuals -should be tightened, as they can be effective in bringing about improvements in human rights.
Human Rights Watch particularly urged the United States to expand, strengthen, and fully implement financial sanctions. The US should take the lead in coordinating efforts among the US, EU, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada to target key individuals, both military and civilian, who bear responsibility for abuses; their business interests; and the individuals and entities whose considerable financial support of the Burmese government could undermine these sanctions. These individuals are at the apex of the system inside Burma and susceptible to this kind of pressure. More effective coordination could also lead to greater support from other key states, such as Japan and Singapore. EU states have been noticeably slow to implement full financial sanctions; the US should take the lead and then press European countries to follow suit. Slow implementation by the US and poor coordination internationally have undermined financial and other sanctions, and kept them from realizing their potential.
"The US has legal tools it is not yet using - for example, to deny foreign banks access to the US financial system if they are holding targeted Burmese accounts or otherwise undermining US measures, and going after transactions by the oil and gas authority, the key revenue-generating entity in Burma," said Adams. "This requires the dedication of intelligence resources and continual monitoring and adjustment by US officials."
Human Rights Watch has long called for increased assistance to deal with acute humanitarian needs in Burma. US and other donor funding should increase, but in a coordinated and realistic manner. The military government spends next to nothing on the welfare of its people. Combined social spending is estimated to be a paltry 0.8 percent of GDP for 2008-2009, making public expenditures on health and education in Burma among the lowest in the world. Huge numbers of Burmese live in grinding poverty, resulting from decades of government economic mismanagement and corruption. Donors will need to stress the importance of transparency and accountability in the delivery of humanitarian aid, including the need for approaches that strengthen civil society rather than existing corrupt power structures and that respond to the views and needs of ordinary people.
"The US and other donors offer to provide more humanitarian aid with appropriate oversight, but they should also insist that their contributions are matched by a genuine commitment from the military government to use its vast revenues from natural resources to help the Burmese people," said Adams.
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Letter to Secretary Clinton
Re: Burma Policy Review
Dear Secretary Clinton:
We write to you again about the human rights and political situation in Burma and the current US policy review. We believe it is important for the US government to conclude the policy review you announced in February so that American policy and strategy towards Burma will be clear to all concerned. We also believe that as intractable as the situation in Burma may seem, the United States does have options that could have a positive impact on the human rights and political situation in Burma.
As you know, Burma remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. There are strict limits on basic freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. The intelligence and security services are omnipresent. Censorship is draconian. More than 2,100 political prisoners suffer in Burma's squalid prisons. These prisoners include many members of the political opposition, courageous protestors who peacefully took to the streets in August and September 2007, and individuals who criticized the government for its poor response to Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. All have been sentenced after sham trials, summary hearings that often take place in the prisons themselves. The recent conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi on ridiculous charges reminded the world of the despotic nature of the military government that has been in power since 1962.
At the same time, military abuses connected to armed conflicts in ethnic minority areas continue. Human Rights Watch has for many years documented the recruitment and deployment of child soldiers, the use of forced labor, and summary killings, rape, and other abuses against minority populations, including the Rohingya, Chin, Shan, and Karen. Recent attacks against Shan and Karen communities have once again led to large-scale displacement of ethnic communities and needless death and hardship. Fighting between the Burmese army and ethnic militias has also driven thousands of refugees from northern Shan state into China.
In addition to rampant violations of civil and political rights, corruption and mismanagement have meant that under military rule Burma has become one of the poorest countries in Asia. The government seems to care little for the basic welfare of its people; to give but one example, while the Burmese government received an estimated US$150 million per month in gas export revenue in 2008, its last announced annual budget to address its AIDS crisis in 2007 was a mere $172,000. While most Burmese struggle to subsist, the country's leaders have the comfort of "5 star" lives of luxury generated through corruption from the plunder of the country's natural resources.
There is no mystery in the military's long-term intentions, as the ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has been totally open about its plans to stage-manage an electoral process that will ensure continued military rule with a civilian face. Burma's generals have learned from their resounding defeat by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in 1990 and periodic protest movements that it cannot risk staging a credible election (indeed, last year the government announced a 98 percent turnout and a 92 percent vote in favor of a new constitution, just months after the 2007 street protests that rocked the country). They doubtlessly hope that this will mollify the United States, European governments, and other countries that oppose military rule, end the pressure from ASEAN states to make progress on political reform and national reconciliation, and encourage large-scale international aid flows.
Based on the experience of the 2008 referendum, the harsh prison sentences handed down to activists, the lack of serious dialogue with the political opposition and Burma's many ethnic groups, the stonewalling of United Nations and ASEAN efforts to discuss political and human rights issues, the lack of any reform measures, and the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi on ridiculous charges, it is clear that there will be no meaningful change in the political direction of the country before or after the 2010 elections unless concerned governments and international bodies take steps to change the SPDC's calculations.
We recognize the scale of this challenge. The military government has close relations with its neighbors China, India, and Thailand, and has large revenue streams from these countries from the sale of gas, timber, gems, and other natural resources. China, Russia, and even South Africa have protected the government from action at the United Nations Security Council. In short, while much of the world sees Burma's rulers as isolated, ruthless, and despised, from the SPDC's perspective it has influential friends in the region that provide massive resources through the purchase of energy and other commodities, and shield Burma from concerted action at the UN, ASEAN, and other international fora on subjects like effective arms embargoes or targeted sanctions.
We largely agree with your statement that "the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta," but that "reaching out and trying to engage them hasn't influenced them either." We suggest that the policy review should, therefore, aim at making more effective all three prongs of US policy - diplomacy, sanctions and humanitarian aid - and not placing one ahead of the others.
Diplomacy
On diplomacy, as a starting point there should be no wishful thinking or illusions that more conciliatory talk from the US and others will somehow cause Burma's senior leadership to alter its plans. It is committed to remaining in complete control, whether through managed elections or the current system. Yet, as in other countries with which the Obama administration is now talking or attempting to open better lines of communication, Human Rights Watch supports US government efforts to speak to the Burmese government at the highest levels. While it is far from clear that the Burmese leadership has any interest in meaningful discussions with the US or any other critical actors, such a policy would remove the perception that the US and others are not willing to engage or be reasonable. Should the leadership be willing to have serious talks, there is nothing to be lost from talking so long as the US stands by its principles to uphold the basic human rights of the Burmese people.
But a couple of cautions: first, it is important that more intensive diplomacy does not lead into the trap of making improved relations the primary goal of US policy. The protection of the rights of Burmese and a genuine and credible political reform process needs to be the primary goal for US policy.
Second, the US should keep in mind that the Burmese officials who normally speak to foreigners - whether the foreign minister or the functionaries involved in the post-Nargis reconstruction - have no real authority in the government and are probably as scared of Than Shwe and other senior leaders as anyone else. Many foreign diplomats and others who have invested a great deal of time and energy in pursuing relations with the second tier of leadership have told us that it was time largely wasted. Those who do have the authority - Senior General Than Shwe, Vice-Senior General Maung Aye, Lt. General Thura Shwe Mann, Prime Minister Thein Sein, and key regional commanders - usually don't engage with outsiders. Talking to the deputy health minister and mid-level civil servants can be useful in facilitating humanitarian relief and resolving discrete practical problems on the ground. But it is not a way of addressing the fundamental issues in the country or causes of friction between Burma and the US.
On key political matters, the engagement that has taken place thus far has not been very meaningful and in some cases has even been counterproductive. During the crackdown following the 2007 demonstrations, for instance, diplomatic action merely allowed the SPDC to buy time and pretend that it was engaged in serious discussions. For example, the efforts of the UN Secretary-General's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, have failed to achieve anything of substance. The situation has devolved to the point that at times getting a visa or a short meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi was treated as a success, with the unintended but predictable consequence of being used by the SPDC for its own propaganda. Ban's most recent visit also failed to achieve anything of substance; he was not even allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and was given empty promises to release political prisoners.
Human Rights Watch recommends that the United States appoint its own special envoy, as called for in the Block Burmese JADE Act of 2008. That envoy should have a direct line to the Secretary of State and specific instructions to engage in a principled way with the SPDC and other key bilateral and multilateral actors. Vigorous diplomacy is needed with China, India, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and other influential actors to ensure that new revenue streams are not made available to the government.
We also encourage you to consider the establishment of a Burma Contact Group or some form of multilateral grouping to meet and regularly discuss diplomatic engagement with the Burmese government on a range of issues. This could have the effect of converging the views and policies of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, the EU and UN, and gradually minimize the ability of the SPDC to play states off against each other. There is considerable common ground on a range of issues, including the need for political reform and credible elections involving the political opposition, concern over Burma's trafficking in heroin and methamphetamines, and the need for a regional approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Such a grouping would, of course, have to be predicated on the US sticking to its principles and not engaging in diplomatic horse-trading on core issues of reform.
As the United Nations has long been the focal point for diplomacy on Burma, we urge the US to support the continuation of a special envoy of the secretary-general. It is crucial that the secretary-general and the special envoy not get sucked into the game of access or high-level meetings being the goal or a sign of progress. The envoy must be an individual with the principles, skills, and backing of the international community to make an impact.
Sanctions
There is now a strong and even emotional debate on sanctions against Burma. Some argue that sanctions have not had any discernible impact on the military government and should be lifted. Others argue that for political and technical reasons they have never been properly implemented and, therefore, more pressure should be applied by imposing sanctions on additional companies and individuals, and also by encouraging countries and institutions that have not imposed sanctions to do so.
Part of the problem is that this debate tends to treat all sanctions as the same, when in fact they should be differentiated. In our work in various countries around the globe, we have found that properly imposed targeted sanctions can be effective in bringing about improvements in human rights. Targeted sanctions include arms embargoes and restrictions on military assistance, travel bans on individuals, financial sanctions on individuals and entities, and investment and trade sanctions that are specifically focused on companies or economic sectors of greatest concern.
Perhaps the most effective of these are financial sanctions, which we urge the United States to expand, strengthen, and fully implement. The United States has authorities it is not yet using - for example, to deny foreign banks access to the US financial system if they are holding targeted Burmese accounts or otherwise undermining US measures, and going after transactions by the oil and gas authority, the key revenue-generating entity in Burma. This requires the dedication of intelligence resources and continual monitoring and adjustment by US officials - another reason why it's important to have a senior envoy in place.
Targeted sanctions don't impose hardship on ordinary people, but do provide leverage if effectively implemented. One approach to make targeted sanctions more effective is for the US to take the lead in coordinating efforts among the US, EU, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada to target key individuals, both military and civilian, who bear responsibility for abuses; their business interests; and the individuals and entities whose considerable financial support of the SPDC could undermine these sanctions. These individuals are at the apex of the system inside Burma and susceptible to this kind of pressure. More effective coordination could also lead to greater support from other key states such as Japan and Singapore. EU states have been noticeably slow to implement full financial sanctions; the US should first set a good example and then press European countries to follow suit. Slow implementation by the US and poor coordination internationally have undermined financial and other sanctions, and kept them from realizing their potential.
Human Rights Watch also believes the US should pursue openings for targeted military sanctions through the UN Security Council's agenda on children and armed conflict. The Security Council has stated in two resolutions (SC Res. 1539 and Res. 1612) that it will consider bans on the export and supply of small arms, light weapons, and other military equipment and assistance to parties that refuse to end their recruitment and use of child soldiers. The Burmese military retains thousands of children in its ranks and has been identified repeatedly since 2002 by the UN secretary-general for its continued recruitment and use of child soldiers. While the imposition of sanctions by the Security Council against Burma has proven nearly impossible, the children and armed conflict agenda provides a useful avenue for stronger Security Council action. A credible threat of military sanctions can be used as leverage to gain concrete improvements in ending the widespread recruitment and use of children as soldiers.
While we strongly support targeted measures, Human Rights Watch recognizes that generalized sanctions are less likely to be effective and may hurt large numbers of ordinary people, while not having significant impact on governments in targeted countries. In the case of Burma, the existing ban on garment imports has had no discernible impact on the SPDC. We think the US ban on all imports from Burma as it applies to garments should, at the right time, be suspended, lifted, or phased out -- so long as the exporting companies and their contractors meet international labor standards, these companies and associated individuals are not themselves targeted for sanctions because of their close ties to the generals, and the companies in question are not otherwise directly linked to the SPDC or armed forces.
However, in light of the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi and the lack of political reform, we do not think now is the right time to change these sanctions, as it would send the wrong signal to the SPDC, suggesting that the United States or others have lost their will or commitment to keep up the pressure for democratic reform. Further, it is critical that when the import sanctions as they apply to garments are suspended, lifted, or phased out that this take place only at the same time that new, more effective, targeted sanctions are imposed on key individuals and types of business activity that sustain the regime and existing related sanctions are strengthened.
Aid
On humanitarian aid, Human Rights Watch has long called for increased assistance to deal with acute humanitarian needs in Burma. US funding should increase. But, again, some cautions. First, the cause of Burma's humanitarian problems is not a lack of available resources. Burma has made gas deals with Thailand that provides the government its largest source of revenue, worth approximately $2 billion annually. A new deal to supply natural gas to China via an overland pipeline will significantly add to that sum. Burma's leaders also count on large earnings from sales of gems and timber, and ongoing hydroelectric projects are expected to generate additional lucrative export revenue.
Despite these large revenue sources, the military government spends next to nothing on the welfare of its people. The largest share of the state budget is allocated to the military, as much as 40 percent, while combined social spending is estimated to be a paltry 0.8 percent of GDP for 2008/09, making public expenditures on health and education in Burma among the lowest in the world. Huge numbers of Burmese live in grinding poverty, brought upon by decades of government economic mismanagement and corruption. For this reason, the suggestion that Western business investment in Burma would somehow open up the country is fallacious. Foreign investment in Burma is concentrated on the extraction of natural resources and building of hydropower projects. The resulting revenues are largely squandered, stolen, or used for military spending instead of to meet humanitarian and development needs, ,thereby resulting in the strengthening of those in power and robbing the Burmese people of their patrimony.
Donor discussions with the SPDC over the provision of humanitarian assistance should not neglect the government's ability to contribute substantially to such assistance. Donors should also remember that the purpose of humanitarian aid is humanitarian - to keep people alive and healthy - not political. No one should expect humanitarian aid itself to have a significant political effect in opening up the country or changing the government's policies. Donors will also need to stress the importance of transparency and accountability in the delivery of humanitarian aid, including the need for approaches that strengthen civil society rather than existing corrupt power structures and that respond to the views and needs of ordinary people.
The SPDC does not want to be totally dependent on China. For this reason, it also wants assistance from the US, EU, and Japan. Development aid is a very important incentive for change in Burma. However, we do not believe development aid from the US or other countries should be made available until there is significant political reform, progress on human rights, better governance, and the possibility of consulting civil society and local communities in setting development goals. Likewise, World Bank lending for development should also not be resumed until these conditions are met. Unfortunately, the SPDC gives priority to development projects that are "vanity projects" for its leaders, facilitate abusive military campaigns, and help generate funds to strengthen military rule, when what is needed is development that would alleviate the poverty and deprivation of ordinary citizens.
Helping the Burmese people is one of the most difficult and intractable problems the world has faced in recent decades. We don't underestimate the challenge, but we think a revitalized approach with strong US leadership can make a significant difference in the years ahead.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Roth
Executive Director
Dear Secretary Clinton:
We write to you again about the human rights and political situation in Burma and the current US policy review. We believe it is important for the US government to conclude the policy review you announced in February so that American policy and strategy towards Burma will be clear to all concerned. We also believe that as intractable as the situation in Burma may seem, the United States does have options that could have a positive impact on the human rights and political situation in Burma.
As you know, Burma remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. There are strict limits on basic freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. The intelligence and security services are omnipresent. Censorship is draconian. More than 2,100 political prisoners suffer in Burma's squalid prisons. These prisoners include many members of the political opposition, courageous protestors who peacefully took to the streets in August and September 2007, and individuals who criticized the government for its poor response to Cyclone Nargis in May 2008. All have been sentenced after sham trials, summary hearings that often take place in the prisons themselves. The recent conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi on ridiculous charges reminded the world of the despotic nature of the military government that has been in power since 1962.
At the same time, military abuses connected to armed conflicts in ethnic minority areas continue. Human Rights Watch has for many years documented the recruitment and deployment of child soldiers, the use of forced labor, and summary killings, rape, and other abuses against minority populations, including the Rohingya, Chin, Shan, and Karen. Recent attacks against Shan and Karen communities have once again led to large-scale displacement of ethnic communities and needless death and hardship. Fighting between the Burmese army and ethnic militias has also driven thousands of refugees from northern Shan state into China.
In addition to rampant violations of civil and political rights, corruption and mismanagement have meant that under military rule Burma has become one of the poorest countries in Asia. The government seems to care little for the basic welfare of its people; to give but one example, while the Burmese government received an estimated US$150 million per month in gas export revenue in 2008, its last announced annual budget to address its AIDS crisis in 2007 was a mere $172,000. While most Burmese struggle to subsist, the country's leaders have the comfort of "5 star" lives of luxury generated through corruption from the plunder of the country's natural resources.
There is no mystery in the military's long-term intentions, as the ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has been totally open about its plans to stage-manage an electoral process that will ensure continued military rule with a civilian face. Burma's generals have learned from their resounding defeat by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in 1990 and periodic protest movements that it cannot risk staging a credible election (indeed, last year the government announced a 98 percent turnout and a 92 percent vote in favor of a new constitution, just months after the 2007 street protests that rocked the country). They doubtlessly hope that this will mollify the United States, European governments, and other countries that oppose military rule, end the pressure from ASEAN states to make progress on political reform and national reconciliation, and encourage large-scale international aid flows.
Based on the experience of the 2008 referendum, the harsh prison sentences handed down to activists, the lack of serious dialogue with the political opposition and Burma's many ethnic groups, the stonewalling of United Nations and ASEAN efforts to discuss political and human rights issues, the lack of any reform measures, and the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi on ridiculous charges, it is clear that there will be no meaningful change in the political direction of the country before or after the 2010 elections unless concerned governments and international bodies take steps to change the SPDC's calculations.
We recognize the scale of this challenge. The military government has close relations with its neighbors China, India, and Thailand, and has large revenue streams from these countries from the sale of gas, timber, gems, and other natural resources. China, Russia, and even South Africa have protected the government from action at the United Nations Security Council. In short, while much of the world sees Burma's rulers as isolated, ruthless, and despised, from the SPDC's perspective it has influential friends in the region that provide massive resources through the purchase of energy and other commodities, and shield Burma from concerted action at the UN, ASEAN, and other international fora on subjects like effective arms embargoes or targeted sanctions.
We largely agree with your statement that "the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta," but that "reaching out and trying to engage them hasn't influenced them either." We suggest that the policy review should, therefore, aim at making more effective all three prongs of US policy - diplomacy, sanctions and humanitarian aid - and not placing one ahead of the others.
Diplomacy
On diplomacy, as a starting point there should be no wishful thinking or illusions that more conciliatory talk from the US and others will somehow cause Burma's senior leadership to alter its plans. It is committed to remaining in complete control, whether through managed elections or the current system. Yet, as in other countries with which the Obama administration is now talking or attempting to open better lines of communication, Human Rights Watch supports US government efforts to speak to the Burmese government at the highest levels. While it is far from clear that the Burmese leadership has any interest in meaningful discussions with the US or any other critical actors, such a policy would remove the perception that the US and others are not willing to engage or be reasonable. Should the leadership be willing to have serious talks, there is nothing to be lost from talking so long as the US stands by its principles to uphold the basic human rights of the Burmese people.
But a couple of cautions: first, it is important that more intensive diplomacy does not lead into the trap of making improved relations the primary goal of US policy. The protection of the rights of Burmese and a genuine and credible political reform process needs to be the primary goal for US policy.
Second, the US should keep in mind that the Burmese officials who normally speak to foreigners - whether the foreign minister or the functionaries involved in the post-Nargis reconstruction - have no real authority in the government and are probably as scared of Than Shwe and other senior leaders as anyone else. Many foreign diplomats and others who have invested a great deal of time and energy in pursuing relations with the second tier of leadership have told us that it was time largely wasted. Those who do have the authority - Senior General Than Shwe, Vice-Senior General Maung Aye, Lt. General Thura Shwe Mann, Prime Minister Thein Sein, and key regional commanders - usually don't engage with outsiders. Talking to the deputy health minister and mid-level civil servants can be useful in facilitating humanitarian relief and resolving discrete practical problems on the ground. But it is not a way of addressing the fundamental issues in the country or causes of friction between Burma and the US.
On key political matters, the engagement that has taken place thus far has not been very meaningful and in some cases has even been counterproductive. During the crackdown following the 2007 demonstrations, for instance, diplomatic action merely allowed the SPDC to buy time and pretend that it was engaged in serious discussions. For example, the efforts of the UN Secretary-General's special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, have failed to achieve anything of substance. The situation has devolved to the point that at times getting a visa or a short meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi was treated as a success, with the unintended but predictable consequence of being used by the SPDC for its own propaganda. Ban's most recent visit also failed to achieve anything of substance; he was not even allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and was given empty promises to release political prisoners.
Human Rights Watch recommends that the United States appoint its own special envoy, as called for in the Block Burmese JADE Act of 2008. That envoy should have a direct line to the Secretary of State and specific instructions to engage in a principled way with the SPDC and other key bilateral and multilateral actors. Vigorous diplomacy is needed with China, India, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and other influential actors to ensure that new revenue streams are not made available to the government.
We also encourage you to consider the establishment of a Burma Contact Group or some form of multilateral grouping to meet and regularly discuss diplomatic engagement with the Burmese government on a range of issues. This could have the effect of converging the views and policies of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, the EU and UN, and gradually minimize the ability of the SPDC to play states off against each other. There is considerable common ground on a range of issues, including the need for political reform and credible elections involving the political opposition, concern over Burma's trafficking in heroin and methamphetamines, and the need for a regional approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Such a grouping would, of course, have to be predicated on the US sticking to its principles and not engaging in diplomatic horse-trading on core issues of reform.
As the United Nations has long been the focal point for diplomacy on Burma, we urge the US to support the continuation of a special envoy of the secretary-general. It is crucial that the secretary-general and the special envoy not get sucked into the game of access or high-level meetings being the goal or a sign of progress. The envoy must be an individual with the principles, skills, and backing of the international community to make an impact.
Sanctions
There is now a strong and even emotional debate on sanctions against Burma. Some argue that sanctions have not had any discernible impact on the military government and should be lifted. Others argue that for political and technical reasons they have never been properly implemented and, therefore, more pressure should be applied by imposing sanctions on additional companies and individuals, and also by encouraging countries and institutions that have not imposed sanctions to do so.
Part of the problem is that this debate tends to treat all sanctions as the same, when in fact they should be differentiated. In our work in various countries around the globe, we have found that properly imposed targeted sanctions can be effective in bringing about improvements in human rights. Targeted sanctions include arms embargoes and restrictions on military assistance, travel bans on individuals, financial sanctions on individuals and entities, and investment and trade sanctions that are specifically focused on companies or economic sectors of greatest concern.
Perhaps the most effective of these are financial sanctions, which we urge the United States to expand, strengthen, and fully implement. The United States has authorities it is not yet using - for example, to deny foreign banks access to the US financial system if they are holding targeted Burmese accounts or otherwise undermining US measures, and going after transactions by the oil and gas authority, the key revenue-generating entity in Burma. This requires the dedication of intelligence resources and continual monitoring and adjustment by US officials - another reason why it's important to have a senior envoy in place.
Targeted sanctions don't impose hardship on ordinary people, but do provide leverage if effectively implemented. One approach to make targeted sanctions more effective is for the US to take the lead in coordinating efforts among the US, EU, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada to target key individuals, both military and civilian, who bear responsibility for abuses; their business interests; and the individuals and entities whose considerable financial support of the SPDC could undermine these sanctions. These individuals are at the apex of the system inside Burma and susceptible to this kind of pressure. More effective coordination could also lead to greater support from other key states such as Japan and Singapore. EU states have been noticeably slow to implement full financial sanctions; the US should first set a good example and then press European countries to follow suit. Slow implementation by the US and poor coordination internationally have undermined financial and other sanctions, and kept them from realizing their potential.
Human Rights Watch also believes the US should pursue openings for targeted military sanctions through the UN Security Council's agenda on children and armed conflict. The Security Council has stated in two resolutions (SC Res. 1539 and Res. 1612) that it will consider bans on the export and supply of small arms, light weapons, and other military equipment and assistance to parties that refuse to end their recruitment and use of child soldiers. The Burmese military retains thousands of children in its ranks and has been identified repeatedly since 2002 by the UN secretary-general for its continued recruitment and use of child soldiers. While the imposition of sanctions by the Security Council against Burma has proven nearly impossible, the children and armed conflict agenda provides a useful avenue for stronger Security Council action. A credible threat of military sanctions can be used as leverage to gain concrete improvements in ending the widespread recruitment and use of children as soldiers.
While we strongly support targeted measures, Human Rights Watch recognizes that generalized sanctions are less likely to be effective and may hurt large numbers of ordinary people, while not having significant impact on governments in targeted countries. In the case of Burma, the existing ban on garment imports has had no discernible impact on the SPDC. We think the US ban on all imports from Burma as it applies to garments should, at the right time, be suspended, lifted, or phased out -- so long as the exporting companies and their contractors meet international labor standards, these companies and associated individuals are not themselves targeted for sanctions because of their close ties to the generals, and the companies in question are not otherwise directly linked to the SPDC or armed forces.
However, in light of the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi and the lack of political reform, we do not think now is the right time to change these sanctions, as it would send the wrong signal to the SPDC, suggesting that the United States or others have lost their will or commitment to keep up the pressure for democratic reform. Further, it is critical that when the import sanctions as they apply to garments are suspended, lifted, or phased out that this take place only at the same time that new, more effective, targeted sanctions are imposed on key individuals and types of business activity that sustain the regime and existing related sanctions are strengthened.
Aid
On humanitarian aid, Human Rights Watch has long called for increased assistance to deal with acute humanitarian needs in Burma. US funding should increase. But, again, some cautions. First, the cause of Burma's humanitarian problems is not a lack of available resources. Burma has made gas deals with Thailand that provides the government its largest source of revenue, worth approximately $2 billion annually. A new deal to supply natural gas to China via an overland pipeline will significantly add to that sum. Burma's leaders also count on large earnings from sales of gems and timber, and ongoing hydroelectric projects are expected to generate additional lucrative export revenue.
Despite these large revenue sources, the military government spends next to nothing on the welfare of its people. The largest share of the state budget is allocated to the military, as much as 40 percent, while combined social spending is estimated to be a paltry 0.8 percent of GDP for 2008/09, making public expenditures on health and education in Burma among the lowest in the world. Huge numbers of Burmese live in grinding poverty, brought upon by decades of government economic mismanagement and corruption. For this reason, the suggestion that Western business investment in Burma would somehow open up the country is fallacious. Foreign investment in Burma is concentrated on the extraction of natural resources and building of hydropower projects. The resulting revenues are largely squandered, stolen, or used for military spending instead of to meet humanitarian and development needs, ,thereby resulting in the strengthening of those in power and robbing the Burmese people of their patrimony.
Donor discussions with the SPDC over the provision of humanitarian assistance should not neglect the government's ability to contribute substantially to such assistance. Donors should also remember that the purpose of humanitarian aid is humanitarian - to keep people alive and healthy - not political. No one should expect humanitarian aid itself to have a significant political effect in opening up the country or changing the government's policies. Donors will also need to stress the importance of transparency and accountability in the delivery of humanitarian aid, including the need for approaches that strengthen civil society rather than existing corrupt power structures and that respond to the views and needs of ordinary people.
The SPDC does not want to be totally dependent on China. For this reason, it also wants assistance from the US, EU, and Japan. Development aid is a very important incentive for change in Burma. However, we do not believe development aid from the US or other countries should be made available until there is significant political reform, progress on human rights, better governance, and the possibility of consulting civil society and local communities in setting development goals. Likewise, World Bank lending for development should also not be resumed until these conditions are met. Unfortunately, the SPDC gives priority to development projects that are "vanity projects" for its leaders, facilitate abusive military campaigns, and help generate funds to strengthen military rule, when what is needed is development that would alleviate the poverty and deprivation of ordinary citizens.
Helping the Burmese people is one of the most difficult and intractable problems the world has faced in recent decades. We don't underestimate the challenge, but we think a revitalized approach with strong US leadership can make a significant difference in the years ahead.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Roth
Executive Director
An 'Election' Burma's People Don't Need
An 'Election' Burma's People Don't Need
By U Win Tin
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Much attention has been focused on Sen. James Webb's recent visit to my country and his meetings with Senior Gen. Than Shwe and incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. I understand Webb's desire to seek a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese ruling authorities. Unfortunately, his efforts have been damaging to our democracy movement and focus on the wrong issue -- the potential for an "election" that Webb wants us to consider participating in next year as part of a long-term political strategy. But the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent.
In our last free election, the Burmese people rejected military rule in a landslide, awarding our National League for Democracy party more than 80 percent of the seats in parliament. Yet the military has refused to allow the NLD to form a government. In the 19 years since that election, Burmese democracy activists have faced imprisonment, intimidation, torture and death as they have peacefully voiced demands for justice, individual and ethnic rights, and a democratic form of government that is representative of all Burma's people.
While never ending our struggle for democracy, the NLD has continually sought to engage the regime and open a dialogue -- based on peace and mutual respect -- that could address Burma's critical political as well as social problems. Make no mistake -- these two issues are linked. Burma was once the rice bowl of Asia. Today, because of the regime's destructive economic policies and its use of oppression to maintain military rule, Burma is a shattered, poverty-stricken country.
The regime is seeking to place a veneer of legitimacy on itself through showcase "elections" and claiming that "disciplined democracy" will be instituted next year. Yet in May 2008, just days after a massive cyclone devastated Burma and killed more than 100,000 people, the regime used a farcical process to claim that 93 percent of voters chose to adopt a constitution that permanently enshrines military rule and prevents those with undefined "foreign ties" from holding public office -- catch-all provisions that would bar Suu Kyi and democracy activists from seeking office.
Some international observers view next year's planned elections as an opportunity. But under the circumstances imposed by the military's constitution, the election will be a sham. We will not sacrifice the democratic principles for which many millions of Burmese have marched, been arrested, been tortured and died to participate in a process that holds no hope whatsoever for bringing freedom to our country.
The demands of the NLD are reasonable. In April we issued another declaration to encourage engagement with the military that called for the release of all political prisoners, a full review of the constitution, reopening of all NLD offices and the right to freely organize. The regime's answer is the continued jailing of Suu Kyi and 2,000 other activists, massive military offensives against ethnic groups and the enforcement of rules to gag democracy.
How can the international community play a meaningful role? First, officials such as Webb should stop fear-mongering about China. His language about containing China, and working with Burma's regime to do so, is based on an outdated and unrealistic thesis. Suu Kyi rejected such notions by informing Webb that "we will not deal with anyone with fear and insecurity. We will deal with anyone, China, America, India, equally and friendly. As we can't choose our neighbors, we understand that we need to have a good relationship with China." Second, the NLD encourages other countries and international organizations to engage with Burma's military leaders to persuade them to engage with us and Burma's ethnic groups. The United States and many other nations have imposed sanctions on Burma. That is their decision and in keeping with their justified solidarity with the democratic values that we all hold so dear. If the regime genuinely engages with the NLD and ethnic representatives, releases political prisoners, ceases attacks against ethnic minorities and takes additional steps to build a true democratic state, these sanctions will be repealed at the right time.
In the meantime, let no one doubt our resolve. The NLD is a reflection of Burmese society. We will not be cowed or coerced into participating in a fatally flawed political process that robs the Burmese people of the freedom for which we struggle. We stand ready to engage, but we are more than willing to continue our struggle for the democratic values that so many have given their lives and their freedom to achieve.
U Win Tin is a member of the Central Executive Committee and a founder of Burma's National League for Democracy party. He was a political prisoner from 1989 to 2008.
Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Current Burma Policy Review
September 9, 2009
Related Materials: Burma: US Should Complete Policy Review
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
By U Win Tin
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Much attention has been focused on Sen. James Webb's recent visit to my country and his meetings with Senior Gen. Than Shwe and incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. I understand Webb's desire to seek a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese ruling authorities. Unfortunately, his efforts have been damaging to our democracy movement and focus on the wrong issue -- the potential for an "election" that Webb wants us to consider participating in next year as part of a long-term political strategy. But the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent.
In our last free election, the Burmese people rejected military rule in a landslide, awarding our National League for Democracy party more than 80 percent of the seats in parliament. Yet the military has refused to allow the NLD to form a government. In the 19 years since that election, Burmese democracy activists have faced imprisonment, intimidation, torture and death as they have peacefully voiced demands for justice, individual and ethnic rights, and a democratic form of government that is representative of all Burma's people.
While never ending our struggle for democracy, the NLD has continually sought to engage the regime and open a dialogue -- based on peace and mutual respect -- that could address Burma's critical political as well as social problems. Make no mistake -- these two issues are linked. Burma was once the rice bowl of Asia. Today, because of the regime's destructive economic policies and its use of oppression to maintain military rule, Burma is a shattered, poverty-stricken country.
The regime is seeking to place a veneer of legitimacy on itself through showcase "elections" and claiming that "disciplined democracy" will be instituted next year. Yet in May 2008, just days after a massive cyclone devastated Burma and killed more than 100,000 people, the regime used a farcical process to claim that 93 percent of voters chose to adopt a constitution that permanently enshrines military rule and prevents those with undefined "foreign ties" from holding public office -- catch-all provisions that would bar Suu Kyi and democracy activists from seeking office.
Some international observers view next year's planned elections as an opportunity. But under the circumstances imposed by the military's constitution, the election will be a sham. We will not sacrifice the democratic principles for which many millions of Burmese have marched, been arrested, been tortured and died to participate in a process that holds no hope whatsoever for bringing freedom to our country.
The demands of the NLD are reasonable. In April we issued another declaration to encourage engagement with the military that called for the release of all political prisoners, a full review of the constitution, reopening of all NLD offices and the right to freely organize. The regime's answer is the continued jailing of Suu Kyi and 2,000 other activists, massive military offensives against ethnic groups and the enforcement of rules to gag democracy.
How can the international community play a meaningful role? First, officials such as Webb should stop fear-mongering about China. His language about containing China, and working with Burma's regime to do so, is based on an outdated and unrealistic thesis. Suu Kyi rejected such notions by informing Webb that "we will not deal with anyone with fear and insecurity. We will deal with anyone, China, America, India, equally and friendly. As we can't choose our neighbors, we understand that we need to have a good relationship with China." Second, the NLD encourages other countries and international organizations to engage with Burma's military leaders to persuade them to engage with us and Burma's ethnic groups. The United States and many other nations have imposed sanctions on Burma. That is their decision and in keeping with their justified solidarity with the democratic values that we all hold so dear. If the regime genuinely engages with the NLD and ethnic representatives, releases political prisoners, ceases attacks against ethnic minorities and takes additional steps to build a true democratic state, these sanctions will be repealed at the right time.
In the meantime, let no one doubt our resolve. The NLD is a reflection of Burmese society. We will not be cowed or coerced into participating in a fatally flawed political process that robs the Burmese people of the freedom for which we struggle. We stand ready to engage, but we are more than willing to continue our struggle for the democratic values that so many have given their lives and their freedom to achieve.
U Win Tin is a member of the Central Executive Committee and a founder of Burma's National League for Democracy party. He was a political prisoner from 1989 to 2008.
Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Current Burma Policy Review
September 9, 2009
Related Materials: Burma: US Should Complete Policy Review
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
နအဖ ဘာေတြ လုပ္ေနလဲ
နအဖ ဘာေတြ လုပ္ေနလဲ
“ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ဤသုိ႔” ဆိုတဲ့ ေျဖရွင္းခ်က္ေတြကို နအဖ စစ္အုပ္စု ေန႔တိုင္းနီးပါး မရပ္မနား လုပ္ေပးေနရတယ္။
တရုတ္ကို ဖားရတယ္၊ ကခ်င္ကို နားခ်ရတယ္၊ ၀ ကို ကတိေပးရတယ္၊ ျပည္သူကို လိမ္ေနရတယ္။
ကိုးကန္႔ကို တိုက္လိုက္တာ လြယ္ေပမယ့္ ေနာက္ပိုင္း ရွင္းရတာေတြက ပိုခက္ေနတယ္။
- နအဖ စစ္ေကာင္စီ ေၾကညာခ်က္ ၁/၂၀၀၉ ထုတ္ျပီး ရွင္းေနရတယ္။
- ကိုးကန္႔ေဒသမွာ စိတ္ၾကြေဆးျပားေတြ၊ စက္္ရံုေတြ၊ လက္နက္ေမွာင္ခိုလုပ္ငန္းေတြ ေတြ႔ရွိရေၾကာင္း (အခုမွ) ထုတ္ေျပာေနရတယ္။
ျပီးခဲ့တဲ့လ အထိက အဲဒီေဒသမွာ ဘိန္းအစားထိုးလုပ္ငန္းေတြ ေအာင္ျမင္ေနေၾကာင္း မူးယစ္ေဆး၀ါး ကင္းစင္ပေပ်ာက္ေနျပီျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း
ေဒသတည္ျငိမ္ေအးခ်မ္းေနေၾကာင္း နအဖ ေရးခဲ့ေျပာခ့ဲ့ေသးတယ္။ အခုမွ ျဗဳန္းစားၾကီး WYေဆးျပားေတြ ဘိန္းေတြ ေဆးေျခာက္ေတြ M 21 - 22 ေတြ ဘယ္ကထြက္လာလဲ။
- အခုလို ကိုးကန္႔ေဒသမွာ မူးယစ္ေဆး၀ါးကို အသည္းအသန္တိုက္ဖ်က္ေနေပမယ့္ အိမ္နီးခ်င္းႏုိင္ငံေတြ အေနာက္ အင္အားၾကီးႏုိင္ငံေတြက
သတိမျပဳမိတာ ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္မွုမလုပ္ၾကတဲ့အေပၚ နအဖ ၀မ္းနည္းေနေၾကာင္း ေလွ်ာက္ေျပာ ေလွ်ာက္ေရး လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- တရုတ္ျပည္ထဲေျပး၀င္သြားတဲ့ လူေတြကို ျပန္ျပီးလက္ခံဖို႔နဲ႔ နယ္စပ္ေဒသမွာ တည္ျငိမ္မွဳရွိဖို႔ တရုတ္အစိုးရကို ကတိေတြေပးေနရတယ္။
တရုတ္ႏြယ္ဖြား ကိုးကန္႔ေတြအေပၚ လူမ်ဳိးတံုး စစ္ဆင္တာ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း တရုတ္ၾကီး ကို ရွင္းျပတာ ေရႊနားေတာ္သြင္းတာ လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- ထြက္ေျပးသြားတဲ့ အရပ္သားေတြရဲ ႔ပိုင္ဆိုင္မွုေတြကို စစ္တပ္က ယူငင္လုယက္ေနလို႔ ေျဖရွင္းခ်က္ေတြ ထုတ္ေန ရတယ္။
ဘယ္တုန္းကဖမ္းထားမွန္းမသိ ဘယ္ကမွန္းမသိတဲ့ လူေတြက သူခိုးတံဆိပ္ ကပ္ေပးျပီး တရားခံျပ လုပ္ ေနရတယ္။
ခ်င္းေရႊေဟာ္မွာ တရားခံေတြကိုဖမ္းခ်ဳပ္ထားေၾကာင္း ယခု ေထာင္ဒဏ္ ၂ ႏွစ္စီ ခ်လိုက္ေၾကာင္း စာလံုးမဲနဲ႔ေခါင္းၾကီးသတင္းေတြ ေဖာ္ျပေနရတယ္။
- အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ဆဲထားတာ က်ဳိးေပါက္သြားတာမဟုတ္ေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ “၀” ေတြ “ကခ်င္” ေတြအေပၚ စစ္ေရးတိုက္ခိုက္ က်ဴးေက်ာ္မွဳေတြ လုုပ္မွာမဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း
၃ ၾကိမ္ထက္မနည္း ကတိေတြေပးေနရတယ္။ (၀ နယ္ကိုေတာ့ စစ္အင္အား ၃ ေသာင္းထက္မနည္း လက္နက္ၾကီး လက္နက္ငယ္ေတြနဲ႔ ၀ိုင္းပတ္ေနရာယူထားတယ္)
- သတင္းစာထဲမွာ “ေလာက္ကိုင္မွာသာတဲ့လ” လို “ကိုးကန္႔ေဒသ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းၿမဲ - စိမ္းလန္းစိုျပည္ စည္ကားဆဲ” လုိ ေခါင္းစဥ္မ်ဳိးေတြနဲ႔
အျမီးအေမာက္မတည့္တဲ့ ေဆာင္းပါးေတြ ေရးထည့္ျပီး တႏိုင္ငံလံုးသိေအာင္ ၀ါဒျဖန္႔ေနရတယ္။
- နယ္ျခားေစာင့္တပ္အသြင္ေျပာင္းေရးလက္မခံလို႔ အခုလို ဘိန္းျပျပီး စစ္ေရးအရ ေျဖရွင္းလိုက္တာ မဟုတ္ရ ပါေၾကာင္း
ေျမာက္ပိုင္းက အပစ္အခတ္ ရပ္ထားတဲ့အဖြဲ ႔ေတြကို လုိက္ရွင္းျပေနရတယ္။
- သူခိုးလူမိျဖစ္သြားလို႔ ဘက္စံု ရွင္း လင္းပြဲေတြ လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- ျမန္မာျပည္ ေတာင္ပိုင္းမွာ ကရင္ေတြကို အျပဳတ္တိုက္ဖို႔ ငါးၾကင္းဆီနဲ႔ ငါးၾကင္းေၾကာ္ေနတယ္။ ဒီေကဘီေအ ၀တ္စံု၀တ္
သစ္ခုတ္သမား အေယာင္ေဆာင္္ျပီး ကရင္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးနယ္ေျမထဲ၀င္ ကရင္ ကရင္ ျခင္း သတ္ခိုင္း ေနတယ္။
ကရင္ ကရင္ျခင္းသတ္ျပီး ျပန္လာတဲ့ ဒီေကဘီေအ တပ္မွဳးကို သံလြင္ျမစ္ထဲမွာေဖ်ာင္ခဲ့ဘူးတယ္။
- ေလာေလာဆယ္ သတင္းေပါက္ၾကားမွုျဖစ္ပြားသြားတဲ့အတြက္ ထိုးစစ္ကို ေခတၱရပ္ထားတယ္။ ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသား အစည္းအရံုးဘက္က
ထိုးစစ္ဆင္လာေတာ့မယ့္ သတင္းရလို႔ ဖာပြန္-ကမာေမာင္းလမ္းကို ျဖတ္ေတာက္ ပိတ္ဆို႔ ထားတယ္။
ဒီလမ္းက တပ္မဟာ ၅ ကို ထိုးစစ္ဆင္မယ္ဆိုရင္ အေရးပါတဲ့လမ္းျဖစ္ေနတယ္ ဒီလမ္းကေန ေထာက္ပို႔လုပ္ငန္းေတြသြားမယ္။
တိုက္မယ္ဆိုရင္ တိုက္ပြဲၾကီးေတြေတာ့ တုိက္မွာမဟုတ္။ ေျမာက္ပိုင္းအေရးက ပူပူေႏြးေႏြးရွိေသးတယ္။
ေျမာက္ပိုင္းမွာတပ္ေတြ စုပံုေအာထားရလို႔ တိုက္မွာမဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုတဲ့ အျမင္မ်ဳိးျဖစ္ေပၚ လာတဲ့ အခ်ိန္ကို နအဖ ေစာင့္ေနတယ္။
အလစ္အငိုက္မွာ တိုက္လိမ့္မယ္။
- ရွမ္းျပည္နယ္ ေတာင္ပိုင္းမွာရွိတဲ့ ေတာင္ပိုင္း ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ေတြကို ရန္စတာေတြလုပ္ေနတယ္။ စစ္တပ္က လားဟူ ျပည္သူ႔စစ္ ယူနီေဖာင္း၀တ္ျပီး
ကင္းလွည့္တာ ရွာေဖြစစ္ေဆးတာေတြလုပ္ေနတယ္။ ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ေတြနဲ႔ ျပႆနာ တက္ ရင္ စစ္တပ္က လားဟူ ဘက္ကေန
ခ်က္ခ်င္းအားျဖည့္ေပးမယ္ေျပာျပီး ၀ ကို တိုက္ဖို႔ လားဟူကို ေျမွာက္ေပး ေန တယ္။ လားဟူ ျပည္သူ႔စစ္ တပ္ဖြဲ႔မွာ လူအင္အာ ၄၀ ၀န္းက်င္ရွိတယ္။
စစ္တပ္က ေနာက္ထပ္ လူအင္အား ၂၀ နဲ႔ လက္နက္ခဲယမ္း ေတြ ျဖည့္ ထားတယ္။
လူ ၅၀ - ၆၀ ေလာက္နဲ႔ ငါးစာ ခ်ထားတာ ငါးမွ်ားခ်ိတ္ကို ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ ေတြ မျမင္ပါေစနဲ႔လို႔ နအဖ ဆုေတာင္းေနတယ္။
- ေတာင္းပိုင္း ၀ တပ္ ဖြဲ႔ဟာ ၀ ျပည္ တပ္မေတာ္ရဲ့ အသက္ေသြးေၾကာ တခုျဖစ္တယ္။ တရုတ္အစိုးရကို နအဖ က ကပ္ႏုိင္လို႔ တရုတ္ျပည္က
၀ ေတြ အေပၚ ေဆး၀ါး ရိကၡာ လက္နက္ခဲယမ္း မကူညီခဲ့ရင္ ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀ နယ္က လိုအပ္ခ်က္ေတြကို ထိုင္းနယ္ထဲကေန ျဖည့္ဆည္းႏုိင္တယ္။
ေတာင္ပိုင္း ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ဟာ ၀ အမ်ဳိးသားေတြနဲ႔ ၀ တပ္မေတာ္ အတြက္ Logistics ျဖစ္တယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ နအဖ က ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀ နယ္
ထိုင္းနယ္စပ္တေလ်ာက္ မွာ အင္အားတိုးခ်ဲ ့ခ်ထားျပီး ျဖတ္ေတာက္ဖို႔ ၾကံေနတယ္။ ထိုးစစ္အရလဲ အေရးပါတယ္။ ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀နယ္က
လွဳပ္ရွားနယ္ေျမအရ ေသးငယ္တယ္ အင္အားနည္းတယ္။ စစ္ျဖစ္ျပီဆိုတာနဲ႔ ေျမာက္ပိုင္း၀နယ္ကို စစ္ေရး အရ ျခိမ္းေျခာက္ထားမယ္၊
ေတာင္ေျမာက္အဆက္ျဖတ္မယ္၊ ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀ နယ္ကို သိမ္းမယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ စစ္ေရး ၾကံစည္ခ်က္ ရွိေနႏုိင္တယ္။
- ကိုးကန္႔ အေရးမွာ သင္ခန္းစာ ရသြားတဲ့ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ဆဲေရးအဖြဲ႔ေတြက ၾကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္မွဳေတြ လုပ္ထားၾကလို႔
ထင္သေလာက္ လြယ္ကူမွာမဟုတ္မွန္း နအဖ တြက္ခ်က္မိေနတယ္။ နအဖ အင္အားတိုးခ်ထားျပီး ဒုတ္ျပ ခဲျပ လုပ္ေနတာ
၀ လူထုက တအိမ္တေယာက္ စစ္ထဲလိုက္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ ကတိေပးလိုက္သလို ၀ တပ္မေတာ္ စစ္ဦးစီး အဖြဲ႔ကလည္း
အသက္ေပး ကာကြယ္မယ္ဆုိတဲ့အတြက္ ေရွ႔တလွမ္းတိုးရမလား - ေနာက္ ျပန္ဆုတ္ရမလား ျဖစ္ေန တယ္။
- အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ထားတဲ့အဖြဲ႔ေတြက ေျမြမေသ ဒုတ္မက်ဳိးလုပ္ေနတာ နအဖ အခံရခက္ေနတယ္။ နအဖ လက္ ေအာက္ခံ နယ္ျခားေစာင့္တပ္ လုပ္တာထက္
ကခ်င့္လက္နက္ ကခ်င့္လက္ထဲမွာထားျပီး ကခ်င္ေဒသ ကိုယ္ပိုင္ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးတပ္ဘဲ လုပ္မယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ ေကအုိင္အိုရဲ့ သေဘာထားနဲ႔
ေကအိုင္အို မဖ်က္ဘဲ ပါတီသစ္တခုဖြဲ႔ျပီး ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၀ယ္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေၾကာင့္ နအဖ အငိုက္မိသြားတယ္။
ဒါကို လတ္တေလာ ေျဖရွင္းဖို႔ မရႏုိင္ ေသးဘူး။ နည္းလမ္းမေတြ႔ ေသးဘူး။ လတ္တေလာ မေျဖရွင္းႏုိင္ေပမယ့္ မူ အရ နအဖ လံုး၀ လက္မခံႏုိင္ဘူး ဆိုတာ သိသာထင္ရွားတယ္။
ကိုယ္ပိုင္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး ကိုယ္ပိုင္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ခြင့္ဆိုတဲ့ အသံုးအႏွုန္းမ်ဳိး နအဖ ေရးဆြဲ ထားတဲ့ ဖြဲ ႔စည္းပံုထဲမွာ မပါဘူး။
၆၃ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲ ေခၚတုန္းက ေန၀င္းစစ္အုပ္စုရဲ့ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ဗိုလ္မွဴးၾကီးလွဟန္က ဗကပ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေတြတင္တဲ့
ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ေတြနဲ႔ ပက္သက္ျပီး ႏွစ္လံုးထဲနဲ႔ ေဘာင္းဘီညပ္ခဲ့ဘူးတယ္။ ဗကပ ေတာင္းဆိုခဲ့တာက “တိုင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ဳိးစုမ်ားအေပၚ စစ္ဆင္ေနမွဳ ရပ္ဆိုင္းရန္”
စစ္အုပ္စု ကိုယ္စားလွယ္က ဘာ တင္ျပလဲဆိုေတာ့ “တိုင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ဳိးစုမ်ားအေပၚ“လို႔ မသံုးပါနဲ႔
ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲ ဆိုေတာ့ သူတို႔နဲ႔ ဘတျပန္က်ားတျပန္ တိုက္ေနရလို႔ပါတဲ့။
အခုလည္း “ကခ်င္ေဒသ ကိုယ္ပိုင္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးတပ္” ဆိုတာနဲ႔ ပါတ္သက္ျပီး နအဖ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ဘာေတြေျပာရမယ္ဆိုတာ စဥ္းစားေနမွာျဖစ္တယ္။
- ေရွ ႔တန္းစစ္မ်က္ႏွာမွာ ျပႆနာေသာင္းေျခာက္ေထာင္ တက္ေနခ်ိန္မွာ - စစ္ေနာက္ပိုင္း ေဒသလို႔ ေျပာလို႔ရတဲ့
ရန္ကုန္ မႏၱေလး ပဲခူး ပခုကၠဴ မံုရြာ ျမင္းျခံ စစ္ေတြ ေမာ္လျမိဳင္ျမိဳ ႔ေတြမွာ ျမိဳ႔တြင္းလွုပ္ရွားမွဳေတြျဖစ္ေပၚလာေနေတာ့ နအဖ ေနာက္ေၾကာမလံုျဖစ္ေနတယ္။
- စက္တင္ဘာေရႊ၀ါေရာင္ေတာ္လွန္ေရး တေက်ာ့ျပန္ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ တာစူေနၾကသလို၊ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရး
လွဳပ္ရွားမွဳေတြကလည္း အရွိန္တက္လာေနေတာ့ စစ္ေနာက္ပိုင္းေဒသေတြမွာလည္း စစ္အင္အားေတြ တိုးခ်ထားေနရတယ္။
- ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ကိုေထာင္ခ်လိုက္လို႔ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြက နအဖ အေပၚ အေရးယူမွဳ မူလီ ထပ္ၾကပ္ လိုက္တာကို အခံရခက္ေနတယ္။
ဒါ့အျပင္ ဒီအမွဳက ဒီမွာတင္ မျပီးဘဲ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ျပန္ျပီး ခုခံ ေခ်ပ ခြင့္ေတာင္းတာ အယူခံတင္တာ ေရွ ႔ေနေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ ႔ဆံုခြင့္ေတာင္းတာေတြက
သတင္းမီဒီယာေတြ ေပၚ တေက်ာ့ ျပန္တက္လာေတာ့ နအဖ စိုးရိမ္ေနတယ္။ အစကေတာ့ ေက်းဇူးရွင္ၾကီး ယက္ေတာ၊ ခုက် ဂ်ဳိေမႊတဲ့ ယက္ေတာ တဲ့ နအဖ စစ္အုပ္စုေျပာေနျပီ။
- နအဖ ဘက္က ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒနဲ႔ ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီ ဥပေဒေတြကို ခုခ်ိန္ထိ မထုတ္ျပန္ႏုိင္ေသးတဲ့အေပၚ ေအးလြင့္တို႔ အုပ္စုေတြကပါ စိတ္မရွည္ေတာ့ဘူး။
ခပ္တည္တည္နဲ႔ဆိုင္းဘုတ္ေထာင္ ရံုးဖြင့္ျပီး စည္းရံုးေနၾကျပီ။ နအဖ ဘက္ကလည္း အနည္းဆံုးေတာ့ (ဒီခ်ဳပ္ မပါရင္ေတာင္) အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ထားတဲ့အဖြဲ႔ေတြ
တိုင္းရင္းသားေတြ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၀င္မွ ျဖစ္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ လ်ာထားခ်က္ရွိေလေတာ့ ျငိမ္းအဖြဲ႔ေတြကို အရင္ျငိမ္းေအာင္လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- အခုလို အခ်ိန္မွာ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္က တရား၀င္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီတခုရဲ့ လြပ္လပ္စြာ စည္းရံုး လွဳပ္ရွား ခြင့္ေတြကို ခြင့္ျပဳဖုိ႔ ေတာင္းဆိုလိုက္တဲ့အခါမွာ နအဖ
အေတာ္ မေၾကမနပ္ျဖစ္သြားတယ္။ အရွဳိက္အထိုးခံလိုက္ ရတယ္။ ဒီခ်ဳပ္ဘက္က ဒီေတာင္းဆိုမွဳကို ႏိုင္ငံေရးတိုက္ကြက္တခုလို တိုးခ် ဲ႔လုပ္ကိုင္လာခဲ့ရင္ဆိုတဲ့
စိုးရိမ္ခ်က္ နအဖ မွာ ျဖစ္ေပၚေနတယ္။ ဒီခ်ဳပ္ရဲ့ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ကို ဆူပူမွဳေတြ လုပ္ေတာ့မယ္။ လူထုအံုၾကြမွုေတြ ျဖစ္ေတာ့ မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္နဲ႔ ပယ္ခ်ဖို႔ ၾကံစည္ေနတယ္။
- အံုၾကြမွဳေတြက တကယ္ျဖစ္လာေတာ့မယ့္ အလားအလာေတြရွိေနျပီ။ ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ တာစူေနျပီ။ အခုတေခါက္ျဖစ္ လာရင္ အရင္လို ထိမ္းႏုိင္မွာမဟုတ္ဘူး။
မျဖစ္ခင္ ၾကိဳျပီး ရွင္းပစ္ဖို႔ နအဖ အမိန္႔ထုတ္ထားတယ္။ တျပည္လံုး စစ္မ်က္ႏွာျဖစ္ေနျပီ။ ေနရာတိုင္း လက္နက္ကိုင္ေတြခ်ထားရတယ္။
တျပည္လံုး လူဖမ္းပြဲေတြ လုပ္ေနတယ္။ သံဃာေတြကို ဖမ္းေနတယ္။ ေက်ာင္းသားေတြကို ဖမ္းေနတယ္။ ေလာက္ေလးဂြ တပ္ေတြ ဖြဲ႔ေနတယ္။
- နအဖ အေၾကာက္ဆံုးက ေရႊ၀ါေရာင္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးအျပီးမွာ ေခတ္စားလာတဲ့ ျမိဳ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကား အယူအဆနဲ႔ ျမိဳ႔ျပ ေပ်ာက္ၾကား လွဳပ္ရွားမွဳ။
ျမိဳ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကား မီးဒုတ္ ကိုင္လိမ့္မယ္။
ျမိဳ ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကားရဲ ့ အဓိက ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္က ရန္သူ႔ေနာက္ေက်ာမွာ လွဳပ္ရွားတယ္။
ရန္သူ႔စစ္ေနာက္ပိုင္းေဒသေတြမွာ အဖ်က္လုပ္ငန္းေတြလုပ္တယ္။ ရန္သူ႔ ပစၥည္းေတြ ဖ်က္ဆီးပစ္တယ္။
ဂိုေထာင္ေတြ မီးတိုက္ပစ္တယ္။ ေမာ္ေတာ္ယဥ္ေတြ မီးရွဳိ ႔ပစ္တယ္။
ရန္သူ႔ သတင္း ေပးေတြ သစၥာေဖာက္ေတြကို ဆံုးမပစ္တယ္။
ျမိဳ ႔ျပယဥ္ေက်းမွဳထဲက ျမိဳ ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကားေတြ ေပၚထြက္လာမွာ နအဖ အစြမ္းကုန္ ေၾကာက္ေနတယ္။
ေတြးေလေလ တစိမ့္စိမ့္ေၾကာက္ေလေလဘဲ။
(သားေဆြ)
“ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ဤသုိ႔” ဆိုတဲ့ ေျဖရွင္းခ်က္ေတြကို နအဖ စစ္အုပ္စု ေန႔တိုင္းနီးပါး မရပ္မနား လုပ္ေပးေနရတယ္။
တရုတ္ကို ဖားရတယ္၊ ကခ်င္ကို နားခ်ရတယ္၊ ၀ ကို ကတိေပးရတယ္၊ ျပည္သူကို လိမ္ေနရတယ္။
ကိုးကန္႔ကို တိုက္လိုက္တာ လြယ္ေပမယ့္ ေနာက္ပိုင္း ရွင္းရတာေတြက ပိုခက္ေနတယ္။
- နအဖ စစ္ေကာင္စီ ေၾကညာခ်က္ ၁/၂၀၀၉ ထုတ္ျပီး ရွင္းေနရတယ္။
- ကိုးကန္႔ေဒသမွာ စိတ္ၾကြေဆးျပားေတြ၊ စက္္ရံုေတြ၊ လက္နက္ေမွာင္ခိုလုပ္ငန္းေတြ ေတြ႔ရွိရေၾကာင္း (အခုမွ) ထုတ္ေျပာေနရတယ္။
ျပီးခဲ့တဲ့လ အထိက အဲဒီေဒသမွာ ဘိန္းအစားထိုးလုပ္ငန္းေတြ ေအာင္ျမင္ေနေၾကာင္း မူးယစ္ေဆး၀ါး ကင္းစင္ပေပ်ာက္ေနျပီျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း
ေဒသတည္ျငိမ္ေအးခ်မ္းေနေၾကာင္း နအဖ ေရးခဲ့ေျပာခ့ဲ့ေသးတယ္။ အခုမွ ျဗဳန္းစားၾကီး WYေဆးျပားေတြ ဘိန္းေတြ ေဆးေျခာက္ေတြ M 21 - 22 ေတြ ဘယ္ကထြက္လာလဲ။
- အခုလို ကိုးကန္႔ေဒသမွာ မူးယစ္ေဆး၀ါးကို အသည္းအသန္တိုက္ဖ်က္ေနေပမယ့္ အိမ္နီးခ်င္းႏုိင္ငံေတြ အေနာက္ အင္အားၾကီးႏုိင္ငံေတြက
သတိမျပဳမိတာ ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္မွုမလုပ္ၾကတဲ့အေပၚ နအဖ ၀မ္းနည္းေနေၾကာင္း ေလွ်ာက္ေျပာ ေလွ်ာက္ေရး လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- တရုတ္ျပည္ထဲေျပး၀င္သြားတဲ့ လူေတြကို ျပန္ျပီးလက္ခံဖို႔နဲ႔ နယ္စပ္ေဒသမွာ တည္ျငိမ္မွဳရွိဖို႔ တရုတ္အစိုးရကို ကတိေတြေပးေနရတယ္။
တရုတ္ႏြယ္ဖြား ကိုးကန္႔ေတြအေပၚ လူမ်ဳိးတံုး စစ္ဆင္တာ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း တရုတ္ၾကီး ကို ရွင္းျပတာ ေရႊနားေတာ္သြင္းတာ လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- ထြက္ေျပးသြားတဲ့ အရပ္သားေတြရဲ ႔ပိုင္ဆိုင္မွုေတြကို စစ္တပ္က ယူငင္လုယက္ေနလို႔ ေျဖရွင္းခ်က္ေတြ ထုတ္ေန ရတယ္။
ဘယ္တုန္းကဖမ္းထားမွန္းမသိ ဘယ္ကမွန္းမသိတဲ့ လူေတြက သူခိုးတံဆိပ္ ကပ္ေပးျပီး တရားခံျပ လုပ္ ေနရတယ္။
ခ်င္းေရႊေဟာ္မွာ တရားခံေတြကိုဖမ္းခ်ဳပ္ထားေၾကာင္း ယခု ေထာင္ဒဏ္ ၂ ႏွစ္စီ ခ်လိုက္ေၾကာင္း စာလံုးမဲနဲ႔ေခါင္းၾကီးသတင္းေတြ ေဖာ္ျပေနရတယ္။
- အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ဆဲထားတာ က်ဳိးေပါက္သြားတာမဟုတ္ေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ “၀” ေတြ “ကခ်င္” ေတြအေပၚ စစ္ေရးတိုက္ခိုက္ က်ဴးေက်ာ္မွဳေတြ လုုပ္မွာမဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း
၃ ၾကိမ္ထက္မနည္း ကတိေတြေပးေနရတယ္။ (၀ နယ္ကိုေတာ့ စစ္အင္အား ၃ ေသာင္းထက္မနည္း လက္နက္ၾကီး လက္နက္ငယ္ေတြနဲ႔ ၀ိုင္းပတ္ေနရာယူထားတယ္)
- သတင္းစာထဲမွာ “ေလာက္ကိုင္မွာသာတဲ့လ” လို “ကိုးကန္႔ေဒသ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းၿမဲ - စိမ္းလန္းစိုျပည္ စည္ကားဆဲ” လုိ ေခါင္းစဥ္မ်ဳိးေတြနဲ႔
အျမီးအေမာက္မတည့္တဲ့ ေဆာင္းပါးေတြ ေရးထည့္ျပီး တႏိုင္ငံလံုးသိေအာင္ ၀ါဒျဖန္႔ေနရတယ္။
- နယ္ျခားေစာင့္တပ္အသြင္ေျပာင္းေရးလက္မခံလို႔ အခုလို ဘိန္းျပျပီး စစ္ေရးအရ ေျဖရွင္းလိုက္တာ မဟုတ္ရ ပါေၾကာင္း
ေျမာက္ပိုင္းက အပစ္အခတ္ ရပ္ထားတဲ့အဖြဲ ႔ေတြကို လုိက္ရွင္းျပေနရတယ္။
- သူခိုးလူမိျဖစ္သြားလို႔ ဘက္စံု ရွင္း လင္းပြဲေတြ လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- ျမန္မာျပည္ ေတာင္ပိုင္းမွာ ကရင္ေတြကို အျပဳတ္တိုက္ဖို႔ ငါးၾကင္းဆီနဲ႔ ငါးၾကင္းေၾကာ္ေနတယ္။ ဒီေကဘီေအ ၀တ္စံု၀တ္
သစ္ခုတ္သမား အေယာင္ေဆာင္္ျပီး ကရင္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးနယ္ေျမထဲ၀င္ ကရင္ ကရင္ ျခင္း သတ္ခိုင္း ေနတယ္။
ကရင္ ကရင္ျခင္းသတ္ျပီး ျပန္လာတဲ့ ဒီေကဘီေအ တပ္မွဳးကို သံလြင္ျမစ္ထဲမွာေဖ်ာင္ခဲ့ဘူးတယ္။
- ေလာေလာဆယ္ သတင္းေပါက္ၾကားမွုျဖစ္ပြားသြားတဲ့အတြက္ ထိုးစစ္ကို ေခတၱရပ္ထားတယ္။ ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသား အစည္းအရံုးဘက္က
ထိုးစစ္ဆင္လာေတာ့မယ့္ သတင္းရလို႔ ဖာပြန္-ကမာေမာင္းလမ္းကို ျဖတ္ေတာက္ ပိတ္ဆို႔ ထားတယ္။
ဒီလမ္းက တပ္မဟာ ၅ ကို ထိုးစစ္ဆင္မယ္ဆိုရင္ အေရးပါတဲ့လမ္းျဖစ္ေနတယ္ ဒီလမ္းကေန ေထာက္ပို႔လုပ္ငန္းေတြသြားမယ္။
တိုက္မယ္ဆိုရင္ တိုက္ပြဲၾကီးေတြေတာ့ တုိက္မွာမဟုတ္။ ေျမာက္ပိုင္းအေရးက ပူပူေႏြးေႏြးရွိေသးတယ္။
ေျမာက္ပိုင္းမွာတပ္ေတြ စုပံုေအာထားရလို႔ တိုက္မွာမဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုတဲ့ အျမင္မ်ဳိးျဖစ္ေပၚ လာတဲ့ အခ်ိန္ကို နအဖ ေစာင့္ေနတယ္။
အလစ္အငိုက္မွာ တိုက္လိမ့္မယ္။
- ရွမ္းျပည္နယ္ ေတာင္ပိုင္းမွာရွိတဲ့ ေတာင္ပိုင္း ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ေတြကို ရန္စတာေတြလုပ္ေနတယ္။ စစ္တပ္က လားဟူ ျပည္သူ႔စစ္ ယူနီေဖာင္း၀တ္ျပီး
ကင္းလွည့္တာ ရွာေဖြစစ္ေဆးတာေတြလုပ္ေနတယ္။ ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ေတြနဲ႔ ျပႆနာ တက္ ရင္ စစ္တပ္က လားဟူ ဘက္ကေန
ခ်က္ခ်င္းအားျဖည့္ေပးမယ္ေျပာျပီး ၀ ကို တိုက္ဖို႔ လားဟူကို ေျမွာက္ေပး ေန တယ္။ လားဟူ ျပည္သူ႔စစ္ တပ္ဖြဲ႔မွာ လူအင္အာ ၄၀ ၀န္းက်င္ရွိတယ္။
စစ္တပ္က ေနာက္ထပ္ လူအင္အား ၂၀ နဲ႔ လက္နက္ခဲယမ္း ေတြ ျဖည့္ ထားတယ္။
လူ ၅၀ - ၆၀ ေလာက္နဲ႔ ငါးစာ ခ်ထားတာ ငါးမွ်ားခ်ိတ္ကို ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ ေတြ မျမင္ပါေစနဲ႔လို႔ နအဖ ဆုေတာင္းေနတယ္။
- ေတာင္းပိုင္း ၀ တပ္ ဖြဲ႔ဟာ ၀ ျပည္ တပ္မေတာ္ရဲ့ အသက္ေသြးေၾကာ တခုျဖစ္တယ္။ တရုတ္အစိုးရကို နအဖ က ကပ္ႏုိင္လို႔ တရုတ္ျပည္က
၀ ေတြ အေပၚ ေဆး၀ါး ရိကၡာ လက္နက္ခဲယမ္း မကူညီခဲ့ရင္ ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀ နယ္က လိုအပ္ခ်က္ေတြကို ထိုင္းနယ္ထဲကေန ျဖည့္ဆည္းႏုိင္တယ္။
ေတာင္ပိုင္း ၀ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ဟာ ၀ အမ်ဳိးသားေတြနဲ႔ ၀ တပ္မေတာ္ အတြက္ Logistics ျဖစ္တယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ နအဖ က ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀ နယ္
ထိုင္းနယ္စပ္တေလ်ာက္ မွာ အင္အားတိုးခ်ဲ ့ခ်ထားျပီး ျဖတ္ေတာက္ဖို႔ ၾကံေနတယ္။ ထိုးစစ္အရလဲ အေရးပါတယ္။ ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀နယ္က
လွဳပ္ရွားနယ္ေျမအရ ေသးငယ္တယ္ အင္အားနည္းတယ္။ စစ္ျဖစ္ျပီဆိုတာနဲ႔ ေျမာက္ပိုင္း၀နယ္ကို စစ္ေရး အရ ျခိမ္းေျခာက္ထားမယ္၊
ေတာင္ေျမာက္အဆက္ျဖတ္မယ္၊ ေတာင္ပိုင္း၀ နယ္ကို သိမ္းမယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ စစ္ေရး ၾကံစည္ခ်က္ ရွိေနႏုိင္တယ္။
- ကိုးကန္႔ အေရးမွာ သင္ခန္းစာ ရသြားတဲ့ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ဆဲေရးအဖြဲ႔ေတြက ၾကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္မွဳေတြ လုပ္ထားၾကလို႔
ထင္သေလာက္ လြယ္ကူမွာမဟုတ္မွန္း နအဖ တြက္ခ်က္မိေနတယ္။ နအဖ အင္အားတိုးခ်ထားျပီး ဒုတ္ျပ ခဲျပ လုပ္ေနတာ
၀ လူထုက တအိမ္တေယာက္ စစ္ထဲလိုက္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ ကတိေပးလိုက္သလို ၀ တပ္မေတာ္ စစ္ဦးစီး အဖြဲ႔ကလည္း
အသက္ေပး ကာကြယ္မယ္ဆုိတဲ့အတြက္ ေရွ႔တလွမ္းတိုးရမလား - ေနာက္ ျပန္ဆုတ္ရမလား ျဖစ္ေန တယ္။
- အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ထားတဲ့အဖြဲ႔ေတြက ေျမြမေသ ဒုတ္မက်ဳိးလုပ္ေနတာ နအဖ အခံရခက္ေနတယ္။ နအဖ လက္ ေအာက္ခံ နယ္ျခားေစာင့္တပ္ လုပ္တာထက္
ကခ်င့္လက္နက္ ကခ်င့္လက္ထဲမွာထားျပီး ကခ်င္ေဒသ ကိုယ္ပိုင္ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးတပ္ဘဲ လုပ္မယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ ေကအုိင္အိုရဲ့ သေဘာထားနဲ႔
ေကအိုင္အို မဖ်က္ဘဲ ပါတီသစ္တခုဖြဲ႔ျပီး ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၀ယ္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေၾကာင့္ နအဖ အငိုက္မိသြားတယ္။
ဒါကို လတ္တေလာ ေျဖရွင္းဖို႔ မရႏုိင္ ေသးဘူး။ နည္းလမ္းမေတြ႔ ေသးဘူး။ လတ္တေလာ မေျဖရွင္းႏုိင္ေပမယ့္ မူ အရ နအဖ လံုး၀ လက္မခံႏုိင္ဘူး ဆိုတာ သိသာထင္ရွားတယ္။
ကိုယ္ပိုင္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး ကိုယ္ပိုင္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ခြင့္ဆိုတဲ့ အသံုးအႏွုန္းမ်ဳိး နအဖ ေရးဆြဲ ထားတဲ့ ဖြဲ ႔စည္းပံုထဲမွာ မပါဘူး။
၆၃ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲ ေခၚတုန္းက ေန၀င္းစစ္အုပ္စုရဲ့ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ဗိုလ္မွဴးၾကီးလွဟန္က ဗကပ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေတြတင္တဲ့
ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ေတြနဲ႔ ပက္သက္ျပီး ႏွစ္လံုးထဲနဲ႔ ေဘာင္းဘီညပ္ခဲ့ဘူးတယ္။ ဗကပ ေတာင္းဆိုခဲ့တာက “တိုင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ဳိးစုမ်ားအေပၚ စစ္ဆင္ေနမွဳ ရပ္ဆိုင္းရန္”
စစ္အုပ္စု ကိုယ္စားလွယ္က ဘာ တင္ျပလဲဆိုေတာ့ “တိုင္းရင္းသားလူမ်ဳိးစုမ်ားအေပၚ“လို႔ မသံုးပါနဲ႔
ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲ ဆိုေတာ့ သူတို႔နဲ႔ ဘတျပန္က်ားတျပန္ တိုက္ေနရလို႔ပါတဲ့။
အခုလည္း “ကခ်င္ေဒသ ကိုယ္ပိုင္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးတပ္” ဆိုတာနဲ႔ ပါတ္သက္ျပီး နအဖ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ဘာေတြေျပာရမယ္ဆိုတာ စဥ္းစားေနမွာျဖစ္တယ္။
- ေရွ ႔တန္းစစ္မ်က္ႏွာမွာ ျပႆနာေသာင္းေျခာက္ေထာင္ တက္ေနခ်ိန္မွာ - စစ္ေနာက္ပိုင္း ေဒသလို႔ ေျပာလို႔ရတဲ့
ရန္ကုန္ မႏၱေလး ပဲခူး ပခုကၠဴ မံုရြာ ျမင္းျခံ စစ္ေတြ ေမာ္လျမိဳင္ျမိဳ ႔ေတြမွာ ျမိဳ႔တြင္းလွုပ္ရွားမွဳေတြျဖစ္ေပၚလာေနေတာ့ နအဖ ေနာက္ေၾကာမလံုျဖစ္ေနတယ္။
- စက္တင္ဘာေရႊ၀ါေရာင္ေတာ္လွန္ေရး တေက်ာ့ျပန္ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ တာစူေနၾကသလို၊ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရး
လွဳပ္ရွားမွဳေတြကလည္း အရွိန္တက္လာေနေတာ့ စစ္ေနာက္ပိုင္းေဒသေတြမွာလည္း စစ္အင္အားေတြ တိုးခ်ထားေနရတယ္။
- ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ကိုေထာင္ခ်လိုက္လို႔ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြက နအဖ အေပၚ အေရးယူမွဳ မူလီ ထပ္ၾကပ္ လိုက္တာကို အခံရခက္ေနတယ္။
ဒါ့အျပင္ ဒီအမွဳက ဒီမွာတင္ မျပီးဘဲ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ျပန္ျပီး ခုခံ ေခ်ပ ခြင့္ေတာင္းတာ အယူခံတင္တာ ေရွ ႔ေနေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ ႔ဆံုခြင့္ေတာင္းတာေတြက
သတင္းမီဒီယာေတြ ေပၚ တေက်ာ့ ျပန္တက္လာေတာ့ နအဖ စိုးရိမ္ေနတယ္။ အစကေတာ့ ေက်းဇူးရွင္ၾကီး ယက္ေတာ၊ ခုက် ဂ်ဳိေမႊတဲ့ ယက္ေတာ တဲ့ နအဖ စစ္အုပ္စုေျပာေနျပီ။
- နအဖ ဘက္က ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒနဲ႔ ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီ ဥပေဒေတြကို ခုခ်ိန္ထိ မထုတ္ျပန္ႏုိင္ေသးတဲ့အေပၚ ေအးလြင့္တို႔ အုပ္စုေတြကပါ စိတ္မရွည္ေတာ့ဘူး။
ခပ္တည္တည္နဲ႔ဆိုင္းဘုတ္ေထာင္ ရံုးဖြင့္ျပီး စည္းရံုးေနၾကျပီ။ နအဖ ဘက္ကလည္း အနည္းဆံုးေတာ့ (ဒီခ်ဳပ္ မပါရင္ေတာင္) အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္ထားတဲ့အဖြဲ႔ေတြ
တိုင္းရင္းသားေတြ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၀င္မွ ျဖစ္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ လ်ာထားခ်က္ရွိေလေတာ့ ျငိမ္းအဖြဲ႔ေတြကို အရင္ျငိမ္းေအာင္လုပ္ေနရတယ္။
- အခုလို အခ်ိန္မွာ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္က တရား၀င္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီတခုရဲ့ လြပ္လပ္စြာ စည္းရံုး လွဳပ္ရွား ခြင့္ေတြကို ခြင့္ျပဳဖုိ႔ ေတာင္းဆိုလိုက္တဲ့အခါမွာ နအဖ
အေတာ္ မေၾကမနပ္ျဖစ္သြားတယ္။ အရွဳိက္အထိုးခံလိုက္ ရတယ္။ ဒီခ်ဳပ္ဘက္က ဒီေတာင္းဆိုမွဳကို ႏိုင္ငံေရးတိုက္ကြက္တခုလို တိုးခ် ဲ႔လုပ္ကိုင္လာခဲ့ရင္ဆိုတဲ့
စိုးရိမ္ခ်က္ နအဖ မွာ ျဖစ္ေပၚေနတယ္။ ဒီခ်ဳပ္ရဲ့ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ကို ဆူပူမွဳေတြ လုပ္ေတာ့မယ္။ လူထုအံုၾကြမွုေတြ ျဖစ္ေတာ့ မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္နဲ႔ ပယ္ခ်ဖို႔ ၾကံစည္ေနတယ္။
- အံုၾကြမွဳေတြက တကယ္ျဖစ္လာေတာ့မယ့္ အလားအလာေတြရွိေနျပီ။ ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ တာစူေနျပီ။ အခုတေခါက္ျဖစ္ လာရင္ အရင္လို ထိမ္းႏုိင္မွာမဟုတ္ဘူး။
မျဖစ္ခင္ ၾကိဳျပီး ရွင္းပစ္ဖို႔ နအဖ အမိန္႔ထုတ္ထားတယ္။ တျပည္လံုး စစ္မ်က္ႏွာျဖစ္ေနျပီ။ ေနရာတိုင္း လက္နက္ကိုင္ေတြခ်ထားရတယ္။
တျပည္လံုး လူဖမ္းပြဲေတြ လုပ္ေနတယ္။ သံဃာေတြကို ဖမ္းေနတယ္။ ေက်ာင္းသားေတြကို ဖမ္းေနတယ္။ ေလာက္ေလးဂြ တပ္ေတြ ဖြဲ႔ေနတယ္။
- နအဖ အေၾကာက္ဆံုးက ေရႊ၀ါေရာင္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးအျပီးမွာ ေခတ္စားလာတဲ့ ျမိဳ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကား အယူအဆနဲ႔ ျမိဳ႔ျပ ေပ်ာက္ၾကား လွဳပ္ရွားမွဳ။
ျမိဳ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကား မီးဒုတ္ ကိုင္လိမ့္မယ္။
ျမိဳ ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကားရဲ ့ အဓိက ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္က ရန္သူ႔ေနာက္ေက်ာမွာ လွဳပ္ရွားတယ္။
ရန္သူ႔စစ္ေနာက္ပိုင္းေဒသေတြမွာ အဖ်က္လုပ္ငန္းေတြလုပ္တယ္။ ရန္သူ႔ ပစၥည္းေတြ ဖ်က္ဆီးပစ္တယ္။
ဂိုေထာင္ေတြ မီးတိုက္ပစ္တယ္။ ေမာ္ေတာ္ယဥ္ေတြ မီးရွဳိ ႔ပစ္တယ္။
ရန္သူ႔ သတင္း ေပးေတြ သစၥာေဖာက္ေတြကို ဆံုးမပစ္တယ္။
ျမိဳ ႔ျပယဥ္ေက်းမွဳထဲက ျမိဳ ႔ျပေပ်ာက္ၾကားေတြ ေပၚထြက္လာမွာ နအဖ အစြမ္းကုန္ ေၾကာက္ေနတယ္။
ေတြးေလေလ တစိမ့္စိမ့္ေၾကာက္ေလေလဘဲ။
(သားေဆြ)
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