Burma 2010 Election: Will it be free and fair? Analyzing the 2010 Election Laws

Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) calls for UNSC Emergency Meeting: Time to take immediate action

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Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) calls for United Nations Security Council to convene emergency meeting since Burma crisis is in very critical situation. We must take action decisively and collectively in order to intervene Burma crisis so as to avoid total devastating.

Burmese junta is fully geared up to extinguish democracy, human rights and rule of law in Burma. Junta is touching its final brush to eliminate all the democratic voices by issuing its so-called the electoral law on 8 March 2010 which effectively turning their back on national reconciliation in Burma.
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Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) calls for UNSC Emergency Meeting: Time to take immediate action
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Rigging Myanmar's election

Belt, braces and army boots

The generals leave nothing to chance

Mar 11th 2010 | From The Economist print edition



THE junta ruling Myanmar has had 20 years to digest the lessons from the country’s most recent election. It was trounced by the National League for Democracy, even though the opposition’s charismatic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was already under house arrest. This year on an unnamed date (perhaps its astrologers cannot agree) the junta will hold another election. It will not lose this one.

Election laws published this week do not quite spell out the result. But a “political-parties registration law” bars Miss Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, of whom there are more than 2,000, from belonging to a party because of their criminal convictions. Cut off from politics by her house arrest, Miss Suu Kyi is anyway barred from office as the widow of a foreigner. Her party now has to expel her and other detainees. The law also bans civil servants from joining parties, along with monks, who led anti-government protests in 2007.
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Canada Deeply Concerned by Burmese Election Laws

(No. 102 – March 11, 2010 - 6:30 p.m. ET) The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement expressing Canada’s concern about the new electoral laws promulgated by the Burmese regime:

“Canada is deeply concerned by the new election laws unveiled by the Burmese regime this week. While Canada continues to study the new laws carefully as they are promulgated, what we have seen to date suggests that the Burmese regime is resolutely failing to deliver on its promise of free and fair elections this year.

“Notably, elements of the laws point to a deliberate effort by Burmese military leaders to prevent legitimate democratic actors from participating in the promised elections. Reports suggest that the new laws may bar Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners from the democratic process by virtue of their current prison sentences, which Canada believes are unwarranted and politically motivated.

“Canada urges the Burmese regime to move forward with electoral laws that support a genuine democratic process, based on principles of transparency, fairness and inclusion.

“Canada again calls upon the regime to free all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and to engage in a genuine dialogue with members of the democratic opposition and different ethnic groups in Burma.

“Canada has imposed the toughest sanctions of any country against the Burmese regime to protest its treatment of the Burmese people, and will continue to engage with all stakeholders working toward a democratic Burma.”

For further information, media representatives may contact:

Catherine Loubier
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
613-995-1851

Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874

Erin Koenig

Policy Officer | Burma, Thailand & Regional Human Rights

Agente politique | Birmanie, Thaïlande & droits humains régionaux

Southeast Asia & Oceania Relations Division | Direction des relations avec l'Asie du Sud-Est et l'Océanie

Tél: +1 (613) 995-8596 | Fax/Télécopieur: +1 (613) 944-1604

Burma's leaders have formally annulled the National League for Democracy's 1990 election win, under laws enacted for polls expected later this year.

Authorities said the win was invalid because the poll had taken place under a law repealed by the new legislation.

The new laws have attracted a storm of criticism from international observers.

They banned NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior pro-democracy figures from taking part in the polls. A date for them has not yet been announced.

A US official said the lawsmade a mockery of the democratic process, while a UN spokesman said they fell short of expectations for an inclusive election.

After the 1990 polls, the military did not allow the NLD to take power. These elections will be the first in two decades.

They will be held under a new constitution which critics say is aimed at perpetuating military rule.

'Repressive laws'

The new elections laws were formally approved by Burma's military leaders on Monday and are being published in state media gradually.
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2009 Human Rights Report: Burma

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

March 11, 2010
Burma, with an estimated population of 54 million, is ruled by a highly authoritarian military regime dominated by the majority ethnic Burman group. The State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), led by Senior General Than Shwe, was the country's de facto government. Military officers wielded the ultimate authority at each level of government. In 1990 prodemocracy parties won more than 80 percent of the seats in a general parliamentary election, but the regime continued to ignore the results. In May 2008 the regime held a referendum on its draft constitution and declared the constitution had been approved by 92.48 percent of voters, a figure no independent observers believed was valid. The constitution specifies that the SPDC will continue to rule until a new parliament is convened, scheduled to take place following national elections in 2010. The military government controlled the security forces without civilian oversight.
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1990 Elections overview

Burma has been under totalitarian regimes since 1962 when General Ne Win staged a military coup. Since then, Burmese people are suffering very tremendously. Under General Ne Win’s one party Burma Socialist Programming Party, corruptions are rampant, and people are facing very hardship due to closed economics system and miss-management. In 1988 students led the mass uprising demanding for democracy, human rights and successfully managed to topple General Ne Win’s government after sacrificing thousands of lives. But, another military came to power on 18 September 1988 after gunned down peaceful demonstrators and declared to hold elections.
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Burma Democratic Concern (BDC) : EU should call for UNSC to declare Burma junta’s sham constitution as NULL & VOID
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BDF(USA) Statement

Junta Provides Details of First Election Law

RANGOON — Burma's ruling junta will appoint the commission that will have final say over the country's first elections in two decades, state-run newspapers announced Tuesday as the country's military rulers began unveiling the laws that will govern this year's balloting.

There are growing fears among pro-democracy groups that the election—a date for which has not been announced—will be weighted in favor of the military and its supporters, and the first of five election-related laws to be published is likely to increase that unease.


Residents of Rangoon listen to news on new election laws being broadcast by state-run radio as they sit at a pavement tea shop on March, 8. (Photo:AP)
The laws enacted Monday will set out the mechanisms and rules for the election and campaigning, and the conditions under which parties may participate. Details were to be released in the state-run media over the coming days.
The first explained was the Union Election Commission Law, signed by junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe. It stipulates that the junta will appoint a Union Election Commission with a minimum of five members including the chairman. Decisions of the body would be final.

Members, who cannot be members of political parties, must be persons "deemed prominent and reputable" by the junta, known as the State Peace and Development Council.

Burma's military government announced in early 2008 that elections would take place sometime in 2010. A 1990 election was won by the National League for Democracy party of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, but the military refused to hand over power.

The party of Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest until November, has not yet committed itself to taking part in the polls because it claims the new constitution of 2008 is unfair. It has clauses that would ensure that the military retains a controlling say in government and bars Suu Kyi from holding office.

The party has said the election laws will help it determine whether it will participate.

The remaining four laws are said to cover the polls for the Pyithu Hluttaw, or House of Representatives; the polls for the Amyotha Hluttaw, or House of Nationalities, the other house of parliament; the polls for Region and State parliaments; and the Political Parties Registration Law.

The national and regional legislatures will all include military personnel nominated by their commander in chief.

The 440-member House of Representatives will have 330 elected civilians and 110 military representatives; while the 224-member House of Nationalities will seat 168 elected candidates and 56 nominated by the military chief.

Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years. The Supreme Court last month dismissed her latest appeal for freedom. She was convicted last August of violating the terms of her previous detention by briefly sheltering an American who swam uninvited to her lakeside home, and sentenced to a term of house arrest to end this November.

The sentence was seen as a ploy to effectively keep Suu Kyi locked up during any election campaign.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment Monday that Suu Kyi's appeal was rejected, adding that the legitimacy of the elections rests on the freedom of political prisoners.

"Most importantly, all the political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, should be released as soon as possible, so that all of them can take part in elections," Ban said.

Ban said he wrote Than Shwe about 10 days ago "first of all expressing my concern about the lack of progress and also emphasizing the importance of the election ... to be (held in) a most credible, inclusive and transparent manner."

http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=17986

American policy on burma needs sharper teeth

Apart from urging the junta to hold free, fair elections, the world should also keep it away from North Korea

After the initial four high-level contacts with the Burmese junta since last August, the US administration has been trying hard to engage the junta for two major reasons.
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American policy on burma needs sharper teeth

Apart from urging the junta to hold free, fair elections, the world should also keep it away from North Korea

After the initial four high-level contacts with the Burmese junta since last August, the US administration has been trying hard to engage the junta for two major reasons.
The first is to convince Burma that it would be in the country's as well as the regime's interest to hold an all-inclusive, free and fair election this year. The second, and an equally important, reason is to create a distance between the Burmese and North Korean regimes in terms of the sale of weapons and nuclear arms proliferation.

Washington believed its enthusiastic, softer approach would convince the junta that the planned elections should be carried out in a manner that is internationally acceptable and one that would help the regime join the global community.

So far, the regime has not yet set a date for the elections or given the world a peek at any electoral laws. It is clear that the enthusiasm for the elections is quickly evaporating, if not disappearing, within the administration. The junta has its own roadmap to follow and will certainly not pay attention to the guidelines being suggested by well-wishers in other capitals.

The irony of it all is that the junta is managing to successfully buy time to maximise on the outcome of its grand political strategy - staying in power at all costs without ever giving in. Most importantly, the junta leaders want to keep opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi away from all political activities prior to the elections. Her party won the elections in May 1990 by a landslide, but the regime annulled the victory and took over.

Therefore, it is commendable that women like Nobel Peace laureates Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams, along with other well-known human rights activists, are working to highlight the extreme violence being inflicted on women living in Burma. Their call to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court should be supported because in the past two decades, the Burmese junta has committed lots of crimes against humanity, not to mention innocent people being raped and tortured. In fact, the junta is known for using rape as a weapon of war against minorities. Thus, the international community should join hands and work towards the noble aim of ensuring safety and freedom for all people.

As for the second objective, Washington also has so far been unable to distance the two rogue states that have not only normalised their relations, but have over the past few years intensified their cooperation on military hardware.

The Burmese junta wants the kind of lethal weapons from North Korea that will allow it to project its military might on neighbouring countries. The reports on Rangoon's efforts to become nuclear capable should be taken seriously, though at this moment it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for Burma to develop such capacity.

However, in say 10 to 15 years, Burma can very easily build up its nuclear capacity with assistance from other rogue states that are willing to sell their technology and know-how. Like many other new, nuclear-ready states, such as Iran, the governments in power know exactly how to hide their burgeoning nuclear facilities. The world, especially Thailand, should watch out and not be fooled by the junta.

US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Kurt Campbell will be in Thailand next week, and might drop by in Burma if his planned itinerary is approved. If given the go-ahead, perhaps he will use this visit as an opportunity to tell the junta that time is running out and that it should stop dragging its feet in opening the door to democracy.

DON0R

Bei Din for 2010

Cheers 05

FDB - E , Bulletin_2-2010

Chronology of Political Prisoner in Burma for Feb 2010 Eng[1]

NDD Monthly Chronology Events February - 2010

NLD(EC - CC) list

The Export-Import Bank of Thailand will open talks with the government on whether its four billion baht low inteerst loan to the Burmese government should be reviewed, Deputy Finance Minister Pruektichai Damrongrut says.


Pruektichai: Talks to start this week

Mr Pruektichai would consult Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij and Exim Bank's legal team this week.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions on Friday ruled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra had abused his authority with the Exim Bank loan to Burma.

Mr Pruektichai did not say how the bank would review the contract.
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Exim Bank reassesses loan to Burma

The Export-Import Bank of Thailand will open talks with the government on whether its four billion baht low inteerst loan to the Burmese government should be reviewed, Deputy Finance Minister Pruektichai Damrongrut says.


Pruektichai: Talks to start this week

Mr Pruektichai would consult Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij and Exim Bank's legal team this week.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions on Friday ruled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra had abused his authority with the Exim Bank loan to Burma.

Mr Pruektichai did not say how the bank would review the contract.

Exim Bank president Apichai Boontherawara said the bank would also assess the possible damage resulting from the contract before forwarding it to the finance minister. But he insisted the Burmese government was a good client which made regular repayments.

Exim Bank's soft loan to the Burmese government was one of five cases in which the Supreme Court ruled Thaksin abused his authority as prime minister.

The bank lent 4 billion baht to the Burmese government for 12 years at 3% interest, which is below its operating costs.

The Supreme Court said lending at an interest rate which was below the bank's operating cost was not an objective of the bank's establishment. The court estimated that lending at 3% over 12 years would cost the bank 670 million baht in damages.

Mr Apichai insisted the bank did not lose money from the lending, but said it would have to study the ruling thoroughly.

The court also ruled that Shin Satellite, a company in which members of the Shinawatra family were majority shareholders, benefited from the loan.

Burma spent it on buying telecommunications equipment and satellite services from Shin Satellite, better known now as Thaicom.

The court found the bank approved the 4 billion baht loan to Burma following an instruction by the Thaksin government.

Initially, it had opened a credit line of 3 billion baht for Burma, but Thaksin asked the bank to increase the credit line by one billion baht. After that, the interest rate on the loan was cut from 5.5% to 3%.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/33889/exim-bank-reassesses-loan-to-burma

This is my witness

Until 1988, Saw Mar was a housewife in her home country of Burma. Born into a well-educated, middle-class family in Rangoon, she spent her time looking after her two daughters, cleaning the house, and cooking for her husband. She had never worked for a living. But on a rainy morning in August, she witnessed a massacre by army troopers, and decided to join the fight to replace the military government. She became the Organizer for the National League for Democracy, working closely with the party’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi. One year later, Saw Mar was arrested, interrogated and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour. In prison, she witnessed disturbing abuses of power, and was herself tortured by prison guards.
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This is my witness
Until 1988, Saw Mar was a housewife in her home country of Burma. Born into a well-educated, middle-class family in Rangoon, she spent her time looking after her two daughters, cleaning the house, and cooking for her husband. She had never worked for a living. But on a rainy morning in August, she witnessed a massacre by army troopers, and decided to join the fight to replace the military government. She became the Organizer for the National League for Democracy, working closely with the party’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi. One year later, Saw Mar was arrested, interrogated and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour. In prison, she witnessed disturbing abuses of power, and was herself tortured by prison guards.
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Exim Bank reassesses loan to Burma

The Export-Import Bank of Thailand will open talks with the government on whether its four billion baht low inteerst loan to the Burmese government should be reviewed, Deputy Finance Minister Pruektichai Damrongrut says.


Pruektichai: Talks to start this week

Mr Pruektichai would consult Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij and Exim Bank's legal team this week.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions on Friday ruled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra had abused his authority with the Exim Bank loan to Burma.

Mr Pruektichai did not say how the bank would review the contract.

Exim Bank president Apichai Boontherawara said the bank would also assess the possible damage resulting from the contract before forwarding it to the finance minister. But he insisted the Burmese government was a good client which made regular repayments.
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Letter to NLD from U Thi Ha Tint Swe- (Patron of B.D.C )

Attn;

National League for Democracy(N.L.D)
Excellence sir;
We shall have to welcome warmly N.L.D's party-reconstruction with 100.members on 3rd,march,2010 because after dis-organization of over 200-parties in1990,N.L.D became the main party of opposited forces, anti-military detectorship system to get Burma's democracy- human rights-reconcilation and it could win 90-national peoples' election and so,Junta regimes oppressed,damaged,sentenced & killed extremly N.L.D with our democratic forces and so, it was very weak and finaly! only head-quarter office remained at shwegonedaing,Rangoon,Burma and so, some joked it as Shwegonedaing party.
After our released from Myaungmya prison on 1st,March,2002, Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi too.At that moment,we saw Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi & U Tin Oo were seen back at the openning ceremony of N.L.D, Kamayut Tsp.In it,she told us that women strongly difficultly tried to get democracy long time while men's political prisoners' life at prisons and now, men are on time to take of natinonal democratic duties and they started to uprise N.L.D's signed boards with National peoples' forces and she had to try to unity her party but it was broken badly by group-struggles on the power & places and so, she had to talk finally her party to disorganize if disunity on the power & places.
At that moment,we consulted her party to reconstruct quickly on all national peoples' desires & historical knowledges according to the slogan-" Serve the peoples and by the peoples"- and so, U Tin Oo & Daw Su started to organize all nations-peopls as the hole Burma's trips. Before their trips,we got very important news,may be assisnated by military-hard line group and so, informed on time to N.L.D. Although their trips were smoothly early but finally! were voilent-attacked & killed at Kyitaungkan village,Depaeyim Tsp,Sakiang Division on may,2003 and so, over one hundred members were voilent- beaten & killed by SPDC's Kyaintphwint & Swinaershim forces.At that moment,my old worker,Saw Htun with Kachin longi & white shirt arrived at my home and he told me that also General Than Shwe is the patriotic leader as Daw Aung Sann Su Kyi and amazined & saw him beside a military intelligent as the money salaved backbone on alchohalic and so, we could surely commit Depaeyim assisnation by Bo Than Shwe's Swanaershim forces according to my witeness & preassisnated news and then U Tin Oo & Daw Su were arrested by SPDC.One day! some youth of NLD,Kamayut Tsp came to bring me to meet Daw Su at Asia TawWin hospital and I with Ko Khin Mg Win,Director of B.D.C,U.S.A went to see Daw Su,unable to talk us at the top of Asia TawWin and then D.r Tin Myo Win welcome us and pressconferenced in front of it and then sent back Daw Su to her home as house arrest and then NLD's activity was wordless back and so,we tried to release Daw Su & all political prisoners as U Win Tin's SU-HLUT-TWAE policy because all political leaders were arrested & sentenced and some had to flee to third countries through librated aeras and so, our democratic forces were divided, crushed & damaged and then Saffarron revolution became on 27th,Sept,2007 as 8888-movement but it was damaged because All burma's workers & peasants couldn't participate in it and our activities had to become as Tiger's eating when deer's born policy.
Now, U Win Tin & U Tin Oo have reconstructed NLD on Shwegonedaing declearation and we shall have to recognize it as the main key of precondition of democratic atmospheres in 2010 because if our front party couldn't solid & strenth,we cann't struggle to get demo-human rights-reconcilation and so,we should warmly welcome it with global democratic forces.
thanking you in anticipation;
best regard;

(UThi Ha Tint Swe)
Patron for B.D.C,wasington,U.S.A.Ph;(509)5823261.
X-secretary general of Natinoal Politic Front (N.P.F,Reg.No.120(88/89).

လယ္သမားနွင့္ မိ စၦာေကာင္

တစ္ခါက မိစၦာအိုတစ္ေကာင္သည္ လူ႔ျပည္တြင္ လူအမ်ား စိတ္လက္ခ်မ္းသာ
ရွိသည္ကို မနာလို ျဖစ္ေနသည္။ “ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေနတဲ့ လူေတြကို သြားေရာက္
ေနွာင့္ယွက္ဦးမယ္။ နို႔မဟုတ္ရင္ ငါတို႔ဟာ မိစၦာေကာင္ မပီသေတာ့ဘူး”
ဟုေတြးမိသည္။ ထို႔ေနာက္ မိစၦာငယ္ တစ္ေကာင္အား ေခၚျပီး လယ္သမားတစ္ဦးကို
သြားေရာက္ ေနွာင့္ယုက္ေစသည္။ ထိုလယ္သမားမွာ ေန႔တိုင္းပင္ပန္းဆင္းရဲစြာ
လယ္လုပ္ေသာသူျဖစ္သည္။ ၀င္ေငြမွာ အနည္းငယ္သာ ရေသာ္လည္းရသမွ်နွင့္
တင္းတိိမ္ျပီး ဘ၀တြင္ေပ်ာ္ရႊင္ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ ေနေသာသူ ျဖစ္သည္။
မိစၦာေကာင္မွာ ထိုလယ္သမား အက်ဳိးပ်က္စီးေအာင္ စတင္ ေနွာင့္ယွက္ေလသည္။
လယ္သမား မထြန္ယက္နိုင္ေအာင္ ေျမၾကီးကို မာေအာင္လုပ္လိုက္သည္။ လယ္သမားမွာ
လယ္မ်ားကို ခက္ခဲပင္ပန္းစြာ ထြန္ယက္ေနေသာ္လည္း ညည္းညဴျခင္း မရွိခဲ့ေပ။
မိစၦာေကာင္မွာ ေနွာင့္ယွက္ရာတြင္ မေအာင္ျမင္သျဖင့္ လက္လြတ္လိုက္သည္။

မိစၦာအိုမွာ ဒုတိယ မိစၦာေကာင္ကို လြတ္ျပီး ေနွာင့္ယွက္ေစျပန္သည္။ ဒုတိယ
မိစၦၦာေကာင္မွာ လယ္သမားသည္ မည္မွ် ဆင္းရဲပင္ပန္းစြာ လုပ္ေသာ္လည္း
ညည္းညဴျခင္းမရွိ ဘ၀တြင္ ေပ်ာ္ေနသည္။ သူ႔အား ပင္ပန္းေအာင္ ထပ္ မလုပ္ဘဲ
သူ၏အစာမ်ားကို ယူမည္ဟု စဥ္းစားမိသည္။ ထိုေနာက္ လယ္သမား၏ အစာမ်ားကို
ခိုးယူ စားသံုးေလသည္။ လယ္သမားသည္ ေမာေမာပန္းပန္းနွင့္ ဆာေလာင္ျပီး
အလုပ္မွ ျပန္လာေသာအခါ အစာမ်ားမေတြ႔ေတာ့ေပ။ “ဘယ္ကသနားစရာလူပါလိမ့္၊ အစာေတြ
ငါ့ထက္ ပိုလိုအပ္လို႔ ျဖစ္လိမ့္မယ္။ အဲဒီ အစာေတြနဲ႔ သူ၀လင့္ပါေစ”ဟု
ၾကင္နာစြာ ေရရြတ္ေလသည္။

လယ္သမားကို ပ်က္စီးေအာင္ နည္းလမ္း မရွိေတာ့ဘူးလား ဟု မိစၦာအိုမွာ
အံၾသေနသည္။ တတိယ မိစၦာေကာင္တစ္ေကာင္မွာ လယ္သမားကို ပ်က္စီးေအာင္
လုပ္နိုင္ေၾကာင္း မိစၦာအိုအား ေျပာသည္။

မိစၦာငယ္မွာ လယ္သမားနွင့္ မိတ္ေဆြျဖစ္ေအာင္ အရင္ၾကိဳးစားသည္။ နိမိတ္
ၾကိဳဖတ္တတ္ေသာ မိစၦာငယ္မွာ လယ္သမားအား ေနာင္နွစ္တြင္ မိုးေခါင္နိုင္သည္။
ေရကိုသိုေလွာင္သင့္သည္ဟု ၾကိဳတင္ သတိေပးေလသည္။ လယ္သမားလည္း မိစၦာငယ္
စကားအတိုင္း လုပ္ေဆာင္ရာ အျခားသူမ်ားထက္ စပါးအထြက္ႏႈန္း ေကာင္းခဲ့သည္။
မိစၦာေကာင္မွာ လယ္သမားအား ယခုနွစ္တြင္ ဘာစိုက္ပ်ဳိးသင့္သည္၊
ဘာလုပ္သင့္သည္ ဆိုသည္ကို အျမဲ အၾကံေပးေလသည္။ သုိ႔နွင့္ သံုးနွစ္လြန္ေသာ္
လယ္သမားမွာ ဥစၥာပစၥည္း ၾကြယ္၀ခ်မ္းသာ လာသည္။ မိစၦာငယ္မွာ လယ္သမားအား
ဆန္စပါးျဖင့္ အရက္ခ်က္နည္းကို သင္ျပျပီး ေရာင္းေစသည္။ ေငြေၾကးပိုမို
ရရွိသျဖင့္ လယ္သမားမွာ လယ္ဆက္ မလုပ္ေတာ့ဘဲ အေရာင္းအ၀ယ္ျဖင့္
စီးပြားရွာခဲ့သည္။

လယ္သမားမွာ ဥစၥာပစၥည္း ၾကြယ္၀ခ်မ္းသာ လာသည္နွင့္အမွ် အစားအေသာက္ပါ
ဖက္လာသည္။ ညစဥ္ညတိုင္း အေပါင္းအေဖာ္မ်ားနွင့္ ေပ်ာ္ပဲြမ်ား က်င္းပၾကသည္။
တစ္ညေနတြင္ လယ္သမားအိမ္တြင္ ညစာစားပဲြ က်င္းပေလသည္။ မိစၦာငယ္မွာ
မိစၦာအိုအားေခၚ၍
“ကြ်န္ေတာ္ေနွာင့္ယွက္ထားလို႔ လယ္သမားဟာ တေျဖးေျဖး ပ်က္စီးလာျပီဆိုတာကို
ျပပါ့မယ္” ဟု ဆိုသည္။ ညစာစားပဲြတြင္ လယ္သမားသည္ သူေ႒း
အေပါင္းအေဖာ္မ်ားနွင့္ အေကာင္းဆံုး အစားအစာ၊ အေကာင္းဆံုး အရက္မ်ားျဖင့္
ေပ်ာ္ပါးစားေသာက္ၾကသည္။ ေသရည္ေသစာမ်ားကို အလာဟသ ျဖဳန္းတီးၾကသည္။

ထိုအခ်ိန္တြင္ အရက္ခြက္မ်ား ကိုင္ထားေသာ အေစအပါး တစ္ေယာက္က မေတာ္တဆ
လွဲက်ေလသည္။ အေစအပါးမွာ ဆာေလာင္လြန္းေသာေၾကာင့္ မူးလဲသြားျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။
လယ္သမားမွာ ညစာ စားပဲြမျပီးမခ်င္း အစာ မေကြ်းနိုင္ဟု
ဆူပူၾကိမ္းေမာင္းေလသည္။
“လယ္သမားမွာ အၾကင္နာတရားလည္း မရွိေတာ့ဘူး” မိစၦာငယ္က ဆိုသည္။
မိစၦာအိုမွာ ၀မ္းေျမာက္စြာျဖင့္ “ဘာလိုလုပ္လိုက္သလဲ”
“သူလိုအပ္တာထက္ ပိုေပးလိုက္မိတာပါပဲ။ ဒါမွ ရွိေနတဲ့ သူရဲ႔ေလာဘနဲ႔
အတၲကိုအေကာင္ အထည္ ေဖာ္လိုရ မွာ”

စိတ္ေျပာင္းလဲေသာ္ သေဘာထားလိုက္ေျပာင္းလဲသည္။
သေဘာထားေျပာင္းလဲေသာ္ အျပဳအမႈလိုက္ေျပာင္းလဲသည္။
အျပဳအမႈ ေျပာင္းလဲေသာ္ အက်င့္စာရိတ္လိုက္ေျပာင္းလဲသည္။

မွုရင္း စာေရးသူ - Leo Tolstoy
ေရးသားသူ....... ႏုိင္းႏုိင္းစေန

SYCB Monthly Bulletin for February (Vol.4, Issue-37)

Burma junta's 2008 constitution should be declared as Null and Void

Dear everyone,

This is what everyone must see. If you are from Burma, if you are interested in Burma, if you care for Burma, or even if you don't care about Burma one should watch the testimonies of the victims of the SPDC, Burma's oppressor, because the tortures were beyond our imaginations. It is advised that even military and intelligence officials from Burma watch the testimonies. Today, torture still exist in Burma. Click on the link below.

Warning: viewer discretion advised. language of the victims contains cruelty but they are eye-openers.


ေအာက္ပါ လင့္ခ္ ထဲသြားၾကည့္မယ္ဆိုရင္ နအဖရဲ ့ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ညွင္းပမ္းႏွိက္စက္ခဲ့တဲ့ ရက္စက္မႈေတြကို အေသးစိတ္ၾကားရမွာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။



ယေန ့ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ားအဖြဲ ့ခ်ဳပ္ရဲ ့ စီစဥ္မႈနဲ ့ န၀တ နအဖ လက္ေအာက္မွာ ဘယ္လို ညွင္းပမ္း ခံခဲ့ရတယ္ဆိုတာ ဒီေန ့အခမ္းအနားမွာ ထြက္ဆိုခဲ့တဲ့ ျမန္မာ့အမ်ိဳးသမီး သူရဲေကာင္းတို ့ရဲ ့ ထြက္ဆိုခ်က္မ်ားကို နားေထာင္ၾကည့္ၾကပါဦး။



ျမန္မာျပည္ကလာတဲ့လူတိုင္း၊ ေမြးတဲ့လူတိုင္း၊ ျမန္မာ့အေရးကို စိတ္၀င္စားသူ (၀ါ) မ၀င္စားသူ ဘယ္သူမဆို နားေထာင္ၾကည့္ဖို ့ တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ စစ္တပ္ကပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြလည္း နားေထာင္ၾကပါဦး။ ေထာက္လွမ္းေရးလည္းနားေထာင္သင့္တယ္။



အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိိုကေရစီအဖြဲ ့ခ်ဳပ္ ကို ၀န္းရံၾက

တိုင္းရင္းသားမ်ားကို ကာကြယ္ၾက

စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ပေပ်ာက္ေရး နအဖရဲ ့၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို ပယ္ဖ်က္ၾက

http://www.nobelwom ensinitiative. org/blogs/ burmatribunal/ webcast

best,
Moe Chan

Press Release: International Tribunal On Burma Calls For End To Impunity Of Military Regime

Press Release: International Tribunal On Burma Calls For End To Impunity Of Military Regime - FULL TEXT


-- For immediate release to media --

March 3, 2010, 10 am EST

International Tribunal on Burma Calls for End to Impunity of Military Regime

(New York) Nobel Peace Laureates Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams - along with human rights experts Dr. Heisoo Shin (Korea) and Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn (Thailand) - today released the findings and recommendations developed during the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma held this week in New York City. The quasi-legal event featured compelling testimony - the first ever - of 12 women from Burma who have suffered rape, torture, and other crimes at the hands of the military junta. The event highlighted the egregious human rights crimes, including rape as a weapon of war, and called for policymakers to demand a last resort: the International Criminal Court.

"Women should no longer be invisible when crimes are committed against them with impunity," said Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. "The history of violence and oppression of women in Burma is long and sordid--and must come to an end."

A few of the women who testified are colleagues of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition, still under house arrest and a prisoner of General Than Shwe. Than Shwe is the war criminal who has reigned terror over the people of Burma for decades. World leaders have rallied in support of her freedom countless times since her Nobel Peace Prize award in 1991, passing UN resolutions almost annually and demanding the release of her and other political prisoners. But these cries have fallen on deaf ears, with the international community failing to hold General Shwe and his cronies criminally responsible. The resulting impunity has given the ruling generals of Burma even more license to escalate their power and continue to inflict violence on the people of Burma.

"We live in a globalized world, which means that Burma cannot do whatever it wants to its people within its own walls," said Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. "Globalization is effective when it helps bring an end to injustice. The international community cannot stand by and let other countries to use their sovereignty to commit atrocities against their own people."

The purpose of the Tribunal was to spotlight the oppression of women of Burma in order to encourage policymakers and political leaders to take specific action now. The women Nobel Laureates have joined with the Women's League of Burma to highlight the systemic use of rape and other forms of violence against ethnic women in Burma. The Women's League of Burma is an umbrella organization comprising thirteen women's organizations of different ethnic backgrounds in Burma.

The women who testified now live in Thailand, Bangladesh, the US and Canada and traveled to New York to tell their personal stories and those of their families. Their stories include a range of horrific human rights violations and crimes. Testimony was organized into three categories: violence against women (rape, sexual violence, trafficking), civil and political violations (torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, harassment), and social, economic and cultural violations (forced labor, portering, relocation). Violence against women in Burma is often ethnically motivated, particularly minority groups such as the Karen who have been brutally persecuted by the military regime.

The following are the recommendations of the Tribunal:


Recommendations to the international community, particularly the United Nations:

*Urge States to take collective action to ensure the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888, and 1889 guaranteeing women's full participation in post-conflict reconstruction, and freedom from all forms of sexual violence.
*Strongly urge the UN Security Council to refer Burma to the International Criminal Court.
*Call upon United Nations member States to fulfill their obligations to exercise universal jurisdiction and to prosecute through their national tribunals perpetrators of the crimes against the civilian population of Burma, including women.
*Ask United Nations agencies with a presence in Burma to increase their work in promoting and protecting human rights.
*Call upon the United Nations Security Council to take effective measures against state authorities on the basis of the responsibility of the state to protect its people from egregious human rights violations (Responsibility to Protect Doctrine).
*Urge the United Nations system to take measures to ensure that the Burmese authorities comply with international human rights standards and international humanitarian law.


Recommendations to Burma's military regime:

*Stop all forms of violence against women. "End the intimidation, harassment, arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, torture, and degrading treatment against women [and all] political prisoners; [and] respect and adhere to the principles and norms of the international [criminal and] human rights standards, particularly Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women..."
*Stop attacks and persecution against ethnic nationalities and groups.
*Release immediately and unconditionally all political prisoners.
*Grant access to United Nations agencies and non-governmental humanitarian groups to ensure that women, in particular, are assisted effectively.
*Provide access to and cooperate with United Nations agencies and human rights organizations to monitor human rights within Burma.
*Ratify all human rights treaties, including ICCPR and ICESCR, and implement them effectively.
*Abide by rules of customary international law, such as the prohibitions against torture, slavery, and violence against women and children.
*Ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, reform and implement domestic legislation accordingly.
*Establish an effective process for dialogue between different stakeholders including democracy groups, ethnic minorities/nationalities, and concerned authorities with emphasis on women's participation in the pursuit of democracy.
*Revise the constitution, particularly the amnesty provisions, and other national laws in an inclusive and participatory manner, engaging all stakeholders including women, to ensure consistency with international legal obligations and human rights standards.
*Establish effective judicial mechanisms and other processes to establish accountability and provide adequate remedies for international crimes and human rights violations to end impunity.
*Build human-centered national development plans and processes that respond to women's human rights bearing in mind the special needs of rural women, and allocate national resources fairly and equitably for this purpose.

Recommendations to the Asia-Pacific region (including ASEAN, bilateral and other channels):

*Call upon ASEAN through its Summit of Heads of Government to impel Burma to apply effective and time-limited measures to comply with the ASEAN Charter and international legal obligations and human rights standards.
*Invite the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission to submit thematic reports covering particular issues related to Burma.
*Bearing in mind the ASEAN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and various declarations on children's rights in the region, to which Burma has subscribed, support the establishment of the ASEAN Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children, including consideration of the situation in Burma.
*Call upon the various partners of ASEAN and other regional bodies and states engaging with Burma to influence constructive changes in the country.
*Prohibit trade with Burma involving goods produced through forced labor, as well as oil, gas, and electricity generated as a result of forced relocations.
*Take effective cross-border measures to prevent and punish human trafficking, in particular that of women and children, and to offer gender and child sensitive measures to protect and assist those victimized by trafficking.
*Respect the rights of refugees and internally displaced persons, protect them from violence, abuse, and exploitation, and forced repatriation, which violates the international principle of non-refoulement, and ensure the application of basic standards of international law.


For more information, and to arrange interviews, please contact us:
*Rachel Vincent: Mobile: + 1-613-276-9030, rvincent@nobelwomensinitiative.org
*Kimberley MacKenzie: +1-908-342-0160, kmackenzie@nobelwomensinitiative.org
*Kieran Bergmann: +1-613-569-8400 ext. 115, kbergmann@nobelwomensinitiative.or

Invitation to Tribunal

From Ko Moe Thee Blogspot

Ko Moe Thee Zun on junta's planned sham 2010 election part (1 & 2)

*Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis Emergency Appeal No. MDRMM002 Operations*

*Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis Emergency Appeal No. MDRMM002 Operations*

Update No. 27

Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC)

Date: 02 Mar 2010

Full_Report (pdf* format - 1.1 Mbytes)

GLIDE n° TC-2008-000057-MMR

Period covered by this update: September 2009 to end of January 2010

Appeal target: CHF 73,987,907 million

Appeal coverage: 96%

- 8 July 2008: A revised emergency appeal was launched for CHF 73.9 million
(USD 72.5 million or EUR 45.9 million) to assist 100,000 households for 36
months.

- 16 May 2008: An emergency appeal was launched for CHF 52,857,809 (USD 50.8
million or EUR 32.7 million) to assist 100,000 households for 36 months.

- 6 May 2008: A preliminary emergency appeal was launched for CHF 6,290,909
(USD 5.9 million or EUR 3.86 million) to assist 30,000 households for six
months.

- 5 May 2008: CHF 200,000 (USD 190,000 or EUR 123,000) was allocated from
the IFRC's Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF).

Summary:

- The end of the rains in September enabled greater outreach towards
vulnerable communities through the shelter and livelihoods projects during
this reporting period, thanks to sustained efforts at hub level in these
initiatives. Similarly, water, sanitation and hygiene promotion projects
continued to reach large numbers of vulnerable households across all
targeted townships. The communitybased health and first aid programme also
made good progress primarily through trained community volunteers and Red
Cross volunteers.

- A high level of community participation continues to be an integral factor
in the success of field activities.

- The joint technical visit by three partner national societies in November,
aimed at a preliminary review of the recovery and accountability framework
across the shelter and livelihoods recovery programmes, was conducted
successfully. A draft report of the findings has been prepared, and once
final revisions are approved, this will be circulated to all partners and
will be a topic for discussion during the partnership meeting in Bangkok on
30-31 March 2010.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MYAI-8367FZ?OpenDocument