the borderline report

KNU, Govt Reach Historic Agreement

2012-01-12T20:03:00.000-08:00

KNU and government peace negotiators pose for a group photo at a dinner in Pa-an on Jan. 11, 2012. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)

The Irrawaddy:

After more than six decades of uninterrupted armed resistance to Burmese rule, the leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU), Burma’s oldest ethnic armed group, have signed a ceasefire agreement with the government.

The historic agreement, the first since the KNU began its struggle for Karen autonomy shortly after Burma achieved independence from British colonial rule in 1948, was signed at 2:57 pm on Thursday following talks between a government peace delegation led by Railways Minister Aung Min and KNU representatives led by Gen Mutu Say Poe at the Zwegapin Hotel in the Karen State capital Pa-an.

Under the agreement, the two sides will initiate a ceasefire and allow each other to conduct unarmed patrols in their respective territories. The KNU will also be allowed to set up liaison offices in government-controlled areas.

According to a local source who asked to remain anonymous, the KNU delegation will travel next to the Mon State capital Moulmein and later visit Pegu, a central Burmese city near Rangoon with a large Karen population, where the KNU is considering opening a liaison office.

The KNU representatives arrived in Pa-an on Wednesday, where they were greeted by thousands of Karen people and attended a dinner hosted by the government peace delegation.

Several KNU central committee members, including David Taw, Roger Khin, Ah Toe, Aung Maung Aye, Kwe Htoo Win and Brig-Gen Saw Johnny, as well as representatives from all seven KNLA Brigades except Brigade 5, accompanied the peace delegation.

Ngwe Soe, who helped to broker the talks, said that both sides agreed to meet again for further discussions. A meeting is tentatitively scheduled to take place in Naypyidaw in 45 days, he added.

Despite the unusually upbeat tone coming out of the talks, however, there was still a note of caution in some of the comments coming from those close to the negotiations.

“This time they didn't ask us to give up our arms, they just want to work for equal rights for ethnic groups. This time we trust them,” Saw Johnny told Agence France-Presse, before adding: “We have been fighting for 60 years and one meeting alone will not end it.”

Several other ethnic armed groups, including the United Wa State Army, the Shan State Army-South, the Chin National Front and the National Democratic Alliance Army, have also recently reached ceasefire agreements with the government.

As a key member of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), a coalition of ethnic armed groups formed in February 2011, the KNU has called on the government to enter into an inclusive dialogue with all UNFC members to reach a lasting political settlement that addresses ethnic concerns.

However, according to a UNFC source, the group has agreed in principle to allow its members to enter into individual ceasefire agreements with the government, on the understanding that this will later lead to political talks involving all of the groups concerned.

Founded in 1947, the KNU formed its military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), in 1949 and immediately began an armed insurgency against Burma's central government.

Although the group has never signed an official ceasefire agreement with the government, in 2004, the late KNU leader Bo Mya and former government spy chief Khin Nyunt verbally agreed to halt hostilities following talks in Rangoon. However, the fragile informal truce soon broke down.

Turning Thailand’s buffer zone into a battlefield

2011-12-25T20:21:00.000-08:00

By PAVIN CHACHAVALPONGPUN

Published: 23 December 2011, DVB website

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra prays during her visit to Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon (Reuters)

Thai-Burmese relations have always been erratic and they have hinged primarily on the types of leadership that have been seen on the Thai side. The Democrat government led by Chuan Leekpai from 1997-2001 implemented a hostile policy toward the Burmese junta to placate the western world. But when billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra was elected prime minister in 2001, bilateral ties became warm and amicable, and Burma as a historical enemy became Thailand’s friendly trading partner overnight.

Since the downfall of Thaksin in 2006, it is fair to say that Thailand has had no real policy toward Burma. Such floundering has unfortunately left Thai leaders in a disadvantageous position, in particular making them ill-equipped to comprehend the drastic changes in Burma which have taken place in the past few years. Now that Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of Thaksin, is in power, she is obliged to readjust the Thai approach so as to take benefit from the “civilianised Burma”. Any new policy will cause an inevitable impact on the Thai relations with the regime in Naypyidaw, the opposition as well as the ethnic minorities inside Burma.

Yingluck returned on Tuesday from her first official visit to Burma, where she met with President Thein Sein. High on the agenda in her talks with the government was the promotion of existing ties through bilateral frameworks and the strengthening of economic relations, such as the guaranteeing of Burma’s exports of gas and oil to Thailand and the Thai investment in the deep-sea port project in Tavoy. Yingluck also met with Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest in November last year. Could this mean that Thailand is now diversifying its foreign policy options when it comes to its ties with Burma? So far, it seems that Yingluck is interested in reaching out to the opposition in Burma, and perhaps in aiding political reconciliation in the country.

Regardless of whether the reforms in Burma will be long term or simply superficial, the global community has welcomed political change in the country. The US has shifted its policy toward Naypyidaw. This could possibly lead to a lifting of sanctions against Burma in the near future. Meanwhile, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) recently granted the chairmanship to Burma for the year 2014. Suddenly, both friends and enemies of Burma have rushed to legitimise the Thein Sein regime. The Yingluck government is likely to go along with this trend. But a question emerges: How would a new Thai policy impact other aspects of the bilateral relationship?

For several decades, Thailand has turned vast areas under the occupation of ethnic insurgents along its common border with Burma into a buffer zone. As a result, while it forged strong ties with some ethnic minorities, particularly the Karen National Union (KNU), Thailand’s dealings with the Burmese government were characterised with suspicion and distrust.

If Yingluck is to follow in the footsteps of ASEAN and the US where state-to-state relations are to be consolidated at the expense of her country’s traditional ties with some ethnic minorities, she may expect to see some instability or insecurity along the border. Not all ethnic minorities in Burma are happy with the way political power has been distributed. After all, this is a game of power sharing among the Burmese elite. Even Suu Kyi has not made her policy clear on ethnic minorities and power distribution. Thus, with Yingluck’s legitimisation of the Thein Sein regime, bilateral relations may flourish; yet, some parts of the Thai-Burmese border could be transformed into battle zones.

This scenario could exacerbate the situation regarding human right violations against refugees from various ethnic minorities in Thailand. Discussions on this issue point to the fact that part of the Thai policy toward Burma has been dominated by the Thai military, particularly that involving national security. Sadly, the Thai army has lacked a sense of humanitarianism. The human right violations against the Rohingya in recent years have reaffirmed the Thai army’s attitude toward refugees from Burma. The Yingluck government itself has attempted to avoid upsetting the military for the sake of its own survival. Therefore, one should not expect that Yingluck would be entertaining a refugees-friendly policy, and definitely not when she also wishes to please the Burmese regime for Thailand’s economic benefits.

From this perspective, what is considered a new policy toward Burma, under the Yingluck administration, may not be new at all. Ultimately, Yingluck is just a Thaksin surrogate. She has shown scant vision in foreign affairs. Her ruling party, Pheu Thai, has never confirmed a commitment to promoting democracy, both insideThailand and toward neighbouring countries.

It is a pity that Yingluck, despite being a relatively young and fresh prime minister, might only grasp few of the opportunities that arrive with the changes in Burma. There will be many unanswered questions: can Thailand reposition itself in mainland Southeast Asia now that Burma has gradually become a normal state? Can Thailand take advantage from Burma’s chairmanship of ASEAN in 2014? And how can a new Burma contribute to the community building process of ASEAN of which Thailand is a member?

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is a fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Artist in Exile: A Profile of Chaw Ei Thein

2011-12-14T22:06:00.000-08:00

Artist in Exile: A Profile of Chaw Ei Thein from FramingTheCausePictures on Vimeo.

Free Burma Ranger Report

2011-11-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

FBR REPORT: Kachin State- Burma Army Burns and Loots Homes in Wai Maw District

Kachin State, Burma

15 November, 2011

Fighting between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Burma Army broke out on 9 June 2011, ending a 17-year cease-fire agreement between the two groups. As many as 20,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in Kachin State, according to local networks helping IDPs in Laiza. KIA sources have said that the number of standing Burma Army battalions before the conflict began was 93. Currently there are 113 battalions in Kachin State with more troops on the way, according to KIA sources. Divisions 33, 88, and 99 are currently operating in Kachin State.

On 16 October 2011, approximately 200 Burma Army soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 438 and Infantry Battalion (IB) 121 attacked Nam San Yang Village in Wai Maw District, Kachin State. The soldiers burned over 30 houses and stayed for 3 days in the village occupying the village temple.

All the villagers from Nam San Yang Village have fled their homes and are staying with relatives or in IDP camps in Laiza. Other villagers are living in huts in their fields as it is now harvest time and they do not want to lose this year's crops. The Burma Army is still patrolling from their nearby camp down into the village making it difficult for the villagers to reclaim their left belongings and farm their fields.

map showing area of report

Arakanese join Karen rebel ambush

2011-10-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

By NAW NOREEN, DVB website

Published: 17 October 2011

Troops from the DKBA ride in a truck deep inside their territory in Karen state (Francis Wade)

Troops from the Arakan Liberation Army (ALA) based out of the western Burmese state are said to have been involved in an ambush on two Burmese army columns last week passing through territory claimed by Karen rebels.

One Burmese soldier died in the attack, according to the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), which was joined by the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) and Arakanese rebels.

Ties between Karen and Arakanese ethnic armies stretch back several decades to 1968, when the ALA’s founding was aided by the Karen National Union, which over the subsequent decades trained its troops. But the involvement of Arakanese rebels in the recent fighting in Karen state has been kept quiet.

The ambush took place on 15 October, according to Saw Three Two, a captain in the DKBA. “We launched the attack jointly with the students’ army [ABSDF] and the Arakanese group. We didn’t suffer any casualty. We stay inside our own territory and we have to shoot [Burmese troops] when they enter ours.”

The fighting comes despite a pledge by the government to begin peace talks with a number of ethnic armies in the country’s border regions. Saw Three Two said that rather than President Thein Sein, the problem may lie with the army chief.

“General Min Aung Hlaing is continuing with the offenses and we don’t know who to trust so we might as well not trust them at all,” he said. “We decided not to accept their proposal – they said they would withdraw their forces on 15 October but instead they sent in more troops.”

Several armed groups, including the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Shan State Army (SSA), put their names to the creation of a United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), effectively an attempt to build a cohesive ethnic front against the Burmese military.

Although the ALA is not part of the alliance, its forces are deployed along the Thai-Burma border and the length of the Arakan state border with Bangladesh and India.

MSF Thailand pullout will affect health care in eastern Burma

2011-10-10T04:16:00.000-07:00

By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Friday, October 7, 2011 (The Irrawaddy)

BANGKOK – Médecins Sans Frontière's (MSF) decision to close its operation in Thailand will severely hamper medics who cross from Thailand into war-torn areas of Burma where people have little or no access to medical treatment.

Denis Penoy, the organization's head in Thailand, told The Irrawaddy that MSF has a long history of working with mobile medical teams along the Thai-Burmese border, notably the Mon National Health Council based in Sangkhlaburi.

The Mon medics were supported by MSF to carry out anti-malarial work inside Mon State, which Nai Hong Sar, the head of the New Mon State Party (NSMP), described to The Irrawaddy as “very important for our people, as malaria was so much reduced, and otherwise it was hard to get medical treatment.”

Cross-border support was one component of MSF's larger health programme in Thailand, which helped migrants in the country. With an estimated 2-3 million Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, of which around half are thought to be working illegally and therefore unable to access Thai health services, the closure of the MSF facilities is a blow to many Burmese.

Penoy told The Irrawaddy that “our estimated catchment population for clinics is around 55,000 people.” In addition to Sangkhlaburi, MSF ran clinics in Samut Sakhorn, a fishing port west of Bangkok and home to tens of thousands of Burmese migrants.

Nai Hong Sar added that the MSF clinic in Sangkhlaburi was vital to many Burmese migrants living on the Thai side of the border. “These are people who have not got the money to go to hospital and many are afraid to go to official medical facilities,” he said.

For the past 18 months, MSF has been negotiating with local health authorities to try to reopen the clinics. “When we could not get agreement at local level, we tried central health authorities,” says Penoy. “But after 18 months of talking, we concluded that we could no longer operate.”

Penoy says that MSF was permitted to continue with health education work, which he says is needed, “but for Burmese migrants with health problems, education is secondary to immediate needs.”

For over three decades MSF had worked in Thailand—a country long seen as a safe haven for refugees and other vulnerable people from neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia. MSF first began operations in Thailand helping Cambodians who had fled the Khmer Rouge regime, which took power in Phnom Penh in 1975.

On Wednesday Oct. 5, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra visited Burma, meeting with President Thein Sein. In a statement issued since the visit, the Thai premier revealed that she had urged the Burmese government to re-open the bridge linking Thailand's Mae Sot to Myawaddy on the Burmese side.

The bridge has been closed by the Burmese authorities since mid 2010, widely-believed to be an attempt to pressure Thailand to restrict ethnic opposition groups based in or near Mae Sot and elsewhere along the border.

The closure has impeded Thai businesses that export overland into Burma, and has made life difficult for Burmese migrants crossing into Thailand.

In her statement released Friday, Oct. 7, Yingluck said that she “admired the democratic process in Myanmar,” adding that “Thailand would not allow anti-Myanmar government groups to use Thailand as their base to fight the Myanmar government.”

The previous Democrat Party-led Thai government, along with local officials in border provinces, made a number of statements about repatriating Burmese dissidents and refugees. The Burmese government has long regarded refugee populations in Thailand as synonymous with ethnic opposition groups.

The area inside Mon State around Three Pagodas Pass has seen intermittent fighting in the months since Burma's November parliamentary election, with thousands of refugees fleeing temporarily to Thailand.

Asked whether he thought there was any link between Thai government promises to restrict Burma's ethnic opposition groups and the difficulties faced by MSF in Thailand, Nai Hong Sar lamented, “maybe, maybe.”

However, Mahn Mahn, head of the Backpack Health Workers Team, another group of mobile medics that crosses the border into Burma to deliver health care to Burmese in conflict zones, said that his organization, which is based in Tak Province, close to the Mae Sot-Myawaddy bridge, “has a good understanding with the local authorities,” and continues to work inside Burma.}

The World vs Wall Street: Avaaz Petition

2011-10-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

Thousands of Americans have taken over Wall Street -- joining a global movement from Madrid to Jerusalem to take back democracy from corrupt interests. If millions of us stand with them, we'll boost their spirits and show the media and leaders that this is no fringe movement. Click below to sign the petition - every signature will be counted on a giant live counter in the middle of the Wall St. occupation:

Thousands of Americans have non-violently occupied Wall St -- an epicentre of global financial power and corruption.

They are the latest ray of light in a new movement for social justice that is spreading like wildfire from Madrid to Jerusalem to 146 other cities and counting, but they need our help to succeed. As working families pay the bill for a financial crisis caused by corrupt elites, the protesters are calling for real democracy, social justice and anti-corruption. But they are under severe pressure from authorities, and some media are dismissing them as fringe groups.

If millions of us from across the world stand with them, we'll boost their resolve and show the media and leaders that the protests are part of a massive mainstream movement for change. This year could be our century's 1968, but to succeed it must be a movement of all citizens, from every walk of life. Click to join the call for real democracy -- a giant live counter of every one of us who signs the petition will be erected in the centre of the occupation in New York, and live webcasted on the petition page:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_world_vs_wall_st/?vl

The worldwide wave of protest is the latest chapter in this year's story of global people power. In Egypt, people took over Tahrir Square and toppled their dictator. In India, one man's fast brought millions onto the streets and the government to its knees -- winning real action to end corruption. For months, Greek citizens relentlessly protested unfair cuts to public spending. In Spain, thousands of "indignados" defied a ban on pre-election demonstrations and mounted a protest camp in Sol square to speak out against political corruption and the government's handling of the economic crisis. And this summer across Israel, people have built "tent cities" to protest against the rising costs of housing and for social justice.

These national threads are connected by a global narrative of determination to end the collusion of corrupt elites and politicians -- who have in many countries helped cause a damaging financial crisis and now want working families to pay the bill. The mass movement that is responding can not only ensure that the burden of recession doesn't fall on the most vulnerable, it can also help right the balance of power between democracy and corruption. Click to stand with the movement:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/the_world_vs_wall_st/?vl

In every uprising, from Cairo to New York, the call for an accountable government that serves the people is clear, and our global community has backed that people power across the world wherever it has broken out. The time of politicians in the pocket of the corrupt few is ending, and in its place we are building real democracies, of, by, and for people. With hope, Emma, Maria Paz, Alice, Ricken, Morgan, Brianna, Shibayan and the rest of the Avaaz teamSOURCESDemonstrations in Spain protest political parties and economic crisis (Washington Post)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/demonstrations-in-spanish-protest-political-parties-crisis-handling/2011/05/19/AFIYS86G_gallery.html#photo=1Israel uprising: Beginning of an end (Press TV)http://www.presstv.ir/detail/191558.html”>http://www.presstv.ir/detail/191558.htmlGreece protests austerity measures (Washington Post)http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/greece-protest-austerity-measures-live-video/2011/06/28/AGIfF6oH_blog.htmlOccupy Wall St - online resources for the occupationhttp://occupywallst.org/Occupy Wall St primer (Washington Post)http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/occupy-wall-street-a-primer

Nobody can predict the moment of revolution

2011-10-06T04:23:00.000-07:00

Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution from ivarad on Vimeo.

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-06T03:44:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall Street protests:

'The rich get richer' - video

The Occupy Wall Street protests continue with hundreds of union members joining the march at Zuccotti Park as students walk out over rising tuition fees and levels of student debt. One assistant professor criticises former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney's description of the protests as "class warfare" while New York mayor Michael Bloomberg says demonstrators must consider those who don't want to protest.

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET is a people powered movement for democracy that began in America on September 17 with an encampment in the financial district of New York City. Inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas, we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy … join us!

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

More here:

http://occupywallst.org/

Live stream:

http://livestre.am/PlNN

Thailand to Crack Down on Support for Armed Groups

2011-09-14T03:36:00.000-07:00

By THE IRRAWADDY Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A high-ranking police official in Thailand warned on Monday that the country would take strong action against those who provide support to ethnic armed groups based along its border with Burma.

“Our government does not have a policy of providing arms to ethnic armed groups on Burma's side of the border, and we will take drastic actions against anyone supporting or trafficking arms to those groups,” Thailand's assistant national police chief, Lt-Gen Rapipat Palawong, told reporters in the Thai border town of Mae Sot.

Mae Sot has long been a hotbed of Burmese political dissent, attracting exiles, refugees and armed groups such as the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic army that has waged war with the Burmese government for decades.

Sources in Mae Sot said that Rapipat's warning had sent shock waves through the KNU and other border-based armed groups that depend on contacts on the Thai side of the border for supplies of food and arms.

“Not just weapons, but even food must now be transported very carefully from Mae Sot to KNU units [inside Burma],” said a local source close to the Karen rebels.

A Thai journalist in Mae Sot said that the police warning came in response to a recent increase in the number of arms trafficking cases in the town. On Friday, Thai authorities arrested two people in the town on suspicion of trafficking arms and ammunition to the KNU.

Rapipat also instructed local police forces in Mae Sot to clamp down on the smuggling of vehicles into Burma and drug-related issues along the border.

Mae Sot Residents Receive Survival Training

2011-08-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

The Thai army began providing “war survival training” on Wednesday to residents in Mae Sot, a major market town situated on the Burmese border opposite Myawaddy, following reports that significant battles between Burmese government troops and ethnic Karen rebels are expected in the area during the coming dry season.

About 500 people, including Thais, Burmese and those from nongovernmental organizations in Mae Sot, participated in the training program, according to sources in Mae Sot.

The army training was observed by local authorities of Thailand’s Tak Province who also confirmed that they believe there is a realistic possibility of major hostilities in the coming months.

Last year, about 20,000 Burmese refugees fled into Mae Sot due to clashes between Burmese forces and Karen rebels in Myawaddy. The aim of the war survival training is to protect civilians in advance of such hostilities, said the Thai authorities.

In Nov. 2010, the day after Burma’s general election, serious clashes broke out in Myawaddy between government troops and its formerly loyal militia, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). Fighting has continued in the border region since then.

Thai authorities said the training program for civilians was carried out jointly and in cooperation with the local Thai army, the police force, Thailand’s border guards and medics. The training also included first aid practice.

One trainee said, “It is very useful. We now know how to escape to safety if war breaks out, and how to provide first aid to victims.”

Meanwhile, the rebel DKBA and its allies, the Karen National Liberation Army, have said they too are preparing for guerrilla warfare against the Burmese army.

With the backing of its loyal militia, the Karen Border Guard Force, the government forces will launch attacks in Hlaing Bwe, Kawkareik, Myawaddy and Three Pagoda Pass in southern Karen State, according to Maj. Saw San Aung of DKBA Brigade 5.

He said that he believed this dry season will see renewed offensives by Burma’s government forces and that he expects major battles to be fought in Karen State. He said the DKBA held a meeting on Aug. 14 with plans discussed to increase guerrilla attacks against government bases in urban areas such as Kawkareik, Myawaddy and Hlaing Bwe.

STOP SOMALIA'S TRAGEDY - Sign the petition

2011-08-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

Posted: 4 August 2011
Right now, more than 2000 people are dying every day in Somalia, in a famine that threatens to starve eleven million people to death. Drought has brought this region to its knees, but the food crisis is really fueled by a complete breakdown in governance and international diplomacy, and we can put an end to it.

The famine-hit area is governed by Al-Shabaab, an Islamist regime that is linked to terrorist groups. The isolation and conflict between Al-Shabaab, other local leaders, and the international community has kept out much of the aid and trade that could end the famine. But a few key countries, including the United Arab Emirates, still trade with Al-Shabaab -- they have an opportunity to broker a deal with the regime and break the stalemate that threatens the survival of millions.

We cannot let the politics of the war on terror claim any more innocent lives. It's time for the international community and Al-Shabaab to come to an agreement to immediately get food to the suffering Somali people. The UN Security Council is meeting in a few days -- let's demand that they take immediate action to support key Arab nations in an effort to open talks with Al-Shabaab on cooperating to end the famine and seize this chance for a long-term political solution.

Click here to sign the petition!

Somalia's government was destroyed in 2006 by a US-backed invasion which feared Islamic extremism. But the tactic backfired. Since then, even more radical groups like Al-Shabaab took over and brutalized most of Somalia, and the international community has propped up a corrupt government whose control is limited to parts of the capital. The policies of isolation, invasion and pressure in the war on terror have not helped anyone, and now thousands of Somalis are dying every day. It's time for a new approach.

The US has already stepped up to tackle the crisis, relaxing anti-terrorism laws that blocked aid from reaching the Somali people in Al-Shabaab's region. Meanwhile, there are growing cracks within insurgent groups, and some leaders are willing to let aid in. But it is not enough to break the wall that surrounds those hardest hit by famine. Only bold international diplomacy can engage with all key parties to ensure that relief safely reaches the hundreds of thousands of desperate families.

One of Al-Shabaab's largest sources of income comes from cutting down acacia trees for charcoal, which they illegally export primarily to the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries. These nations could now leverage their economic ties to Al-Shabaab to play a crucial diplomatic role and guarantee humanitarian access to famine-stricken areas.

We urgently need a new direction for Somalia -- let's appeal to the UN Security Council to support key Gulf countries to lead mediation efforts to ensure that Somalis dying behind Al-Shabaab's lines are able to access life-saving food and health care for themselves and their starving children. Sign now and forward widely:

Click here to sign the petition!

Together, Avaaz members have ensured crucial aid was delivered in Burma, Haiti and Pakistan after natural disasters, saving thousands of lives. Now, as the world watches heartbreaking images of dying children in shock and horror, we can urge key countries to show the leadership the Somali people urgently need -- let's stand together now and help end the tragedy in Somalia.

Naypyidaw Demands Thai Crackdown on Burmese Dissidents

2011-07-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

Thailand’s Tak governor has revealed that the Burmese authorities asked Thailand to crackdown on Burmese dissidents based in the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot.

Governor Samart Loifah told reporters on Monday that the Thai authorities will tackle dissidents “planting bombs” and leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU)—the largest rebel group fighting for ethnic autonomy and respect for human rights.

During bilateral meetings to negotiate reopening the Thai-Burmese friendship bridge, Burmese representatives asked their Thai counterparts to remove refugee camps from Thailand which they complain are home to ethnic armed groups. Burmese officials also complained about KNU leaders living in Thailand, claims the Tak governor.

“The Burmese government has put pressure on their Thai counterparts to take action on these issues. And the closure of the Myawaddy-Mae Sot bridge is related to these issues,” Samart Loifah told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday.
“If we act on these issues, we hope the Burmese government could reopen the bridge,” he added.

Responding to the allegations, KNU Joint-Secretary Saw Hla Ngwe said that their leaders are based in their mobilized territory [within Burma] and not in Mae Sot.

KNU leaders said that any democratic nation does not force back refugees to unstable and conflict-ridden areas, and that he did not think the Thai authorities would send refugees home.

By WAI MOE Tuesday, July 26, 2011, The Irrawaddy

The Myawaddy-Mae Sot bridge was closed on July 17, 2010, with no explicit date set for it to reopen. Mae Sot businessmen expected the border crossing could resume soon after the Burma elections in November, but there has been no change so far.

Border trading in recent years was estimated at 140 billion baht or US $4.3 billion until the bridge closure. The crossing boasted 60 percent of bilateral trading along the 1,800 km Burmese-Thai border.

Since Mae Sot is a significant border route and checkpoint for millions of Burmese migrant workers, many Burmese-related NGOs and exiled dissidents are based there.

Bo Kyi, joint-secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma, told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that the situation in Mae Sot remains normal.

Kachin army ambush leaves 30 dead

2011-07-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

By DVB
Published: 8 July 2011

Around 30 Burmese troops are presumed dead after an ambush by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) on a convoy in Kachin state’s Momauk township yesterday afternoon.

Two trucks carrying government soldiers along the Bhamo-to-Myitkyina highway were damaged in the attack; one of the two carrying more than two dozen troops was blown to pieces, according to the spokesperson of the KIA’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO).

The attack came as government representatives were holding talks with the KIA at its headquarters in Laiza. The two sides have been engaged in heavy fighting over the past two months in various regions of Kachin state, forcing the displacement of some 20,000 people.

Government newspapers yesterday reported that the KIA had destroyed a number of roads and bridges in Kachin state.

The reasons behind the outbreak in violence focus largely on attempts by Naypyidaw to gain control over swathes of Kachin state and neighbouring Shan state, where the KIA has territory. The campaign has also been taken to Karen and Karenni state bordering Thailand, where various insurgent groups are based.

As well as exacting retribution on ethnic armies who refused to become government-controlled Border Guard Forces, Naypyidaw is also looking to secure areas around lucrative energy projects in Kachin and Shan state, the majority of which are backed by China.

An article in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said that the Burmese army had fought the KIA “for the sake of project and public security”, a rare admission of a key reason behind its operations in the country’s north.

Despite several attempts at negotiation, skirmishes continue to break out. Colonel Than Aung, Kachin state’s Minister for Border and Security Affairs sent a handwritten letter to the KIO warning that negotiations would take time.

Mass defections hit govt border forces

2011-06-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

By NAW NOREEN
Published: 22 June 2011

Troops from four Border Guard Force units in a Karen state region have mutinied as Burmese army battalions are deployed in preparation for a retaliatory offensive.

The majority of the defectors have joined the ranks of the opposition Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), according to DKBA Colonel Kyaw Thu, while some have returned to their original Burmese army brigades.

Kyaw Thu said that the DKBA, which steadfastly refused to transform into a government-controlled border force, has been bolstered by as many as 1000 soldiers since the series of defections on 12 June.

Two Light Infantry Divisions (LID) of the Burmese army are now mobilising in the Myainggyingu region of Karen state where the renegade units are based. The Border Guard Force (BGF) 1012 was the first to break rank last month when around 500 soldiers joined the DKBA.

Reports are circulating that two more LIDs have been sent but are yet to reach the Myainggyingu, which lies around 35km from the Thai border. Each LID is made up of 10 Light Infantry Brigades which are specially trained in counter-insurgency and jungle warfare.

Kyaw Thu, who belongs to the DKBA unit led by Brigadier General Na Kham Mwe, said that the “situation was getting worse” in Myainggyingu as more Burmese army units arrive. He added that the DKBA had “special plans” for a counterattack, and would be joined by the KNLA.

Last year the government threatened force against ethnic armies that refused to transform into BGFs. Only a handful agreed, while decades-old ceasefires between the government and some of Burma’s most prominent insurgent groups have collapsed.

The recent manoeuvres by government troops mark a further escalation of hostilities in Burma’s border regions, where several groups have refused to transform into government-controlled BGFs. Fighting has raged in Kachin state over the past fortnight, while Burmese troops have also launched assaults on the Shan State Army.

(Source: DVB website)

A Birthday Wish for Aung San Suu Kyi

2011-06-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

Asia and the Pacific, Prisoners and People at Risk | Posted by: The Editors, June 16, 2011 at 3:50 PM

Yoko Ono helped campaign for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi © James Mackay enigmaimages.net

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been the beacon of hope and change for nearly two decades in Myanmar (Burma), will be celebrating her birthday on June 19th.

Though the celebration may be inhibited, as over 2,000 political prisoners remain in prison in Myanmar. Their conditions of detention are often inhumane and horrific; they have been convicted without the benefit of effective counsel or fair trials; and they have been convicted under vaguely worded laws that criminalize peaceful dissent.

Amnesty International members across the globe have urged the Myanmar authorities to unlock the prison doors and release all prisoners of conscience immediately and unconditionally.

We join with Yoko Ono in this birthday wish for Aung San Suu Kyi:

“Happy Birthday, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi! Along with many others around the world, I was so happy to hear about your release from detention last November. My birthday wish for you and the people of Burma is that all prisoners of conscience still behind bars in Burma are released! A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

Love, Yoko.”

Take action: Call for the release of all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar

Fighting pauses as refugees flood China

2011-06-15T01:16:00.000-07:00

By DVB
Published: 15 June 2011

A Kachin Independence Army soldier takes part in a drill in the Laiza headquarters (DAA/Ryan Libre)

Reports from Burma’s north suggest that days of heavy fighting between Burmese troops and Kachin insurgents close to the China border that forced nearly 2000 refugees into China has died down.

The destruction of a sizeable munitions stock belonging to the Burmese army may have triggered the hiatus as both sides regroup in Kachin state’s Bhamo district, where fighting has raged since Thursday last week.

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) on Monday told its troops to prepare for a full-scale war against the Burmese army following heavy shelling of bases over the weekend, and evidence that Burmese troops had tortured and executed a KIA captive.

La Nan, joint-secretary of the KIA’s political wing, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), told DVB that the artillery attack on the munitions cache had caused heavy firepower damage and forced the Burmese to scatter, with one soldier killed.

He added however that it was likely to cause only a brief hiatus in fighting as they await reinforcements.

“We are seeing an increase in their military activity not only around the Bonsan mountain area but alongside of the roads connecting Bhamo and Myitkyina, with reinforcements coming from Aung Pan [in southern Shan state] and Mandalay. So we assume the gunfire dying down is only temporary.”

Schools in Bhamo town, which lies around 20km from the Chian border, were forced to close when truckloads of Burmese troops arrived on Monday, reportedly before being sent north to Laiza where the headquarters of the KIA is.

A local man in Bhamo said that senior army officials were also attempting to negotiate with KIA officials in Bhamo. He added that prisoners in the town’s jail were being sent to the frontline, possibly for use as army porters.

The fighting has also caused the displacement of civilians living in villages between Bhamo and Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state. Around 500 people have fled to Laiza, where the KIO has organised food and accommodation.

China is yet to make a public announcement on the fighting, which comes only three weeks after Burmese President Thein Sein’s visit to Beijing, where he met with his Chinese counterpart and reportedly discussed border stability.

Up to 37,000 refugees fled into China following fighting in August 2009, prompting an uncharacteristically sharp rebuke from Beijing, which has developed a close relationship with the Burmese government in recent years.

Three Pagodas Pass Under Attack

2011-06-14T06:48:00.000-07:00

The Irrawaddy, June 11, 2011

Undisclosed or unknown militants launched an attack on the Burmese border town of Three Pagodas Pass on Tuesday amid rising ethnic tensions between Karen armed groups and government forces in the area.

According to sources at the Thai-Burmese border town, armed men entered the town and fired into the air shortly after 12 noon following the expiry of a Karen rebel deadline on Monday for government troops to withdraw from its base nearby.

The Burmese army engaged the militants, and gunfire was exchanged in the town center and near the market where a local store was burned down by the armed men, witnesses said.

“They set Ma Nyo's shop on fire because she allowed the Burmese authorities to have a meeting there yesterday [Monday],” said Lawi Mon, a Three Pagodas resident.

Local residents said at least seven mortars exploded during Tuesday's hostilities.

Meanwhile, a joint force of rebels from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) reportedly surrounded Three Pagodas Pass even before the Monday deadline for government troops to withdraw from their base at the village of Mae Ka Thar.

“The authorities in Three Pagodas Pass told the Karens on June 11 to await an answer from Regional Southeast Command with regard to a withdrawal from the base,” said a source close to the Burmese authorities in the town. “But they did not issue an official response.”

Thai border authorities negotiated between Burmese government troops and the joint Karen force last week, but talks broke down after the Karen rebels told government officers to withdrawal from their base in Mae Ka Thar.

Several residents in Three Pagodas Pass expressed safety concerns. Since the weekend, more than 200 villagers have fled to Thailand to escape the fighting in the town.

Tuesdays' attack was the first clash in Three Pagodas since June 5 when a military intelligence officer and a young girl were killed, and four soldiers and civilians were wounded.

However, the town had enjoyed a period of relative peace since hostilities flared on Nov. 7 to 8 when the DKBA launched an attack on government troops causing as many as 30,000 refugees to flee to Thailand.

US senator urges fair treatment of Burmese refugees

2011-06-06T02:11:00.001-07:00

Bangkok Post

United States senator John McCain has expressed confidence the Thai government will handle the contentious issue of repatriating displaced Burmese with caution.

"I understand that the Thai government is in a difficult position in taking care of the refugees but I strongly believe that the Thai government will not send the refugees back to persecution or even death," Mr McCain told a group of reporters after yesterday's visit to a refugee camp in Mae Sot in the northern province of Tak.

In April, Thai National Security Council secretary-general Thawil Pliensri said the government would close down Burmese refugee camps along the border now that Burma has a new civilian government and was moving towards democracy.

Thailand would also repatriate all 100,000-plus displaced people, some of whom have been living here since 1985, back to Burma or send them to third countries.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva later reiterated that Thailand would only send the Burmese refugees home when their safety was guaranteed.

Mr McCain was on a two-day visit to Thailand starting Monday when he paid a courtesy call on caretaker Prime Minister Abhisit.

While the Arizona senator said he was not in a position to comment on Thai domestic politics, he was optimistic about the election. "I do hope that the upcoming election result will not repeat the unfortunate ones." Mr McCain said.

The US senator will fly off to Burma today where he is scheduled to meet with the charismatic leader of the National League for Democracy party leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr McCain described her as a "living icon".

Asked if there will be any change in US policies, especially its sanctions, against Burma, Mr McCain said he couldn't comment on the issue but said there had been changes in Burma lately.

"Enough to make me want to come back and to assess the situation on the ground. I would like to see how could the reforms that the Burmese government has promised be made. What will Burma do before it assumes the chairmanship of Asean in 2016? We should give them a chance," said Mr McCain who will also meet with Burmese government officials in Naypyidaw.

UK Ambassador to Rangoon Visits Thai Border

2011-06-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

Ambassador Heyn (third left) tours Mae La refugee camp on Thursday.
(PHOTO: Irrawaddy)

By SAW YAN NAING Friday, June 3, 2011

The Irrawaddy

The British ambassador to Burma, Andrew Heyn, conducted a fact-finding trip to the Thai border to meet with Burmese refugees and leaders of the rebel Karen National Union (KNU) on Thursday afternoon.

He toured Mae La refugee camp, 60 km from Mae Sot where he held talks with the camp committee and witnessed the living conditions in the camp—where more than 40,000 Burmese refugees are sheltered. Many of the refugees, the majority of whom are ethnic Karen, fled their homeland due to Burmese army attacks.

During his trip to the border, Heyn held a separate meeting with KNU leaders where they talked about the ongoing armed conflict in eastern Burma.

Zipporah Sein, the general-secretary of the KNU, said, “It is a fact-finding mission about what is really going on at the border and in Karen State. I think he [Ambassador Heyn] doesn’t want to listen only to the government. He wants to listen to both sides.

“We told him [Heyn] that we think there is no political change in Burma as fighting breaks out almost every day in Karen State, and the government hasn’t withdrawn its troops from the region,” she said.

The KNU leader said that the KNU would always welcome dialogue with the government to solve the ongoing political crisis. Armed conflict should be solved by political means, she said, adding that “if there is no tangible pressure on the government, we don’t see any sign the government will hold dialogue with us.”

During his trip, Heyn also raised the issue of a need of continued humanitarian support on the border.

Tun Tun, the chairman of Mae La camp, said that he had explained to the UK ambassador about the impact of reduced funding to the camp, highlighting a shortfall in education, health care and food.

Heyn also met and questioned several Karen refugee families who had recently fled from the conflict surrounding their villages in Karen State.

A housewife who talked to Heyn said, “The ambassador asked me the reason I fled to Thailand. I told him that I came here because I can’t stay a moment longer in my village because of the war.”

Tun Tun said that he told the ambassador that an end to the civil war depends on the Burmese government, which is the sole party that can bring about concrete changes, national reconciliation and peace in the country.

The camp committee told the ambassador that the fundamental rights of refugees must be fully respected when trying to solve refugee affairs, most notably repatriation.

Several observers said that repeated trips by foreign officials to refugee camps may be related to the repatriation of the refugees. Visits by foreign dignitaries frequently follow reports that refugee camps will be closed and refugees repatriated by the Thai authorities.

Thai officials have recently conducted visits to several refugee camps where they invariably ask refugees if they want to return to Burma. Thailand has promised that only those refugees who volunteer to return home will be repatriated. There are nine refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border housing more than 140,000 refugees.

John McCain Will Press for Burmese National Reconciliation

2011-06-01T02:33:00.000-07:00

By SAW YAN NAING Tuesday, May 31, 2011, The Irrawaddy

Visiting former US presidential candidate Senator John McCain said he will press Burma's new government to initiate national reconciliation, release political prisoners and engage in tripartite dialogue during his trip to the country on Wednesday.

The Republican figurehead was speaking to journalists at Mae Tao clinic by the Thai-Burmese border in Mae Sot. He met with Dr. Cynthia Maung who founded the vital medical centre which provides free healthcare for refugees, migrant workers and others who cross the border from Burma into Thailand.

During his trip to Burma, Sen. McCain is also expected to meet Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday. Sen. McCain is one of the most powerful Republican voices in the US Senate and was defeated by Barak Obama in the 2008 US presidential election.

Cynthia Maung told The Irrawaddy that Sen. McCain visited the clinic and observed conditions there while pledging continued support for humanitarian assistance at the border.

Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, who met Sen. McCain in the sidelines, told the US senator that the Thein Sein-led government first needed to release the more than 2,100 political prisoners currently held if it sincerely wants political change in Burma. He added that they must stop all human rights violation across Burma, including ethnic areas.

“The change should not be superficial change. It should be a genuine change,” said Bo Kyi.

On Tuesday morning, Sen. McCain also visited Mae La Burmese refugee camp on the Thai border and listened to the views of refugees regarding the shifting Burmese political landscape.

In 2008, Laura Bush also visited Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot and Mae La camp while her husband, then US President George W Bush, had luncheon meeting with Burmese dissidents in Bangkok and listened to their perspectives regarding politics in Burma.

Mae La is the largest of nine refugee camps located in Thailand’s Tak Province, and currently houses more than 40,000 Burmese refugees, mostly ethnic Karen people who left their homeland due to attacks by Burmese government troops.

Day Day Poe, a camp committee member who met John McCain for 30 minutes, told The Irrawaddy that the senator asked her and other committees about their perspective on the current situation in Burma.

“He asked us if we knew of any change in Burma and if we think there is any change in Burma or not? He wanted to know our opinion. He also asked how many people want to go back Burma and how many of them want to resettle in the US,” said Day Day Poe.

Accompanied by four US officials, including US ambassador to Thailand Kristie Kenney, Sen. McCain toured the camp, visited clinics and several houses belonging to refugees and questioned them about living conditions in the camp. He also questioned refugee families about difficulties of their daily lives in the camp.

Sen. McCain also asked the refugee committees if they want to pass any message to the new Burma government, led by ex-Gen Thein Sein, of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.

“We told him that we want Burma President U Thein Sein to create national reconciliation as soon as possible. We said that we also support Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for her struggle for a national reconciliation,” said Tun Tun, chairman of the Mae La camp.

The refugee committees also told Sen. McCain that national reconciliation, ethnic minority ceasefires, democratic reform and security are necessary for refugees if Thailand repatriates them to Burma.

Current US President Barak Obama renewed its imposed economic sanctions on Burma in April despite several EU countries wanting to lift the restrictions. Sen. McCain has also expressed pro-economic sanction views on Burma.

Don't Support Burmese Dissidents, Tak Governor Tells NGOs

2011-05-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

By THE IRRAWADDY Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The governor of Thailand's Tak Province has warned nongovernmental organizations based in Mae Sot not to get involved with Burmese opposition groups operating along the Thai-Burmese border.

Governor Samart Loifah gave the warning during a meeting with NGOs in Mae Sot on Monday evening, according to sources in the Thai border town.

The meeting was also attended by Thai police, army and immigration officials, as well as representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Thailand-Burma Border Consortium and members of camp committees from refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border, the sources said.

Thai authorities have also recently said that they will punish refugees who leave the camps to engage in illegal logging or get involved in the drug business.

Loifah told the NGO representatives who attended the meeting that he wanted them to carry out their work honestly, without getting involved in politics.

“I want to warn the NGOs not to help the Burmese opposition groups,” he was quoted by reporters in Mae Sot as saying.

Loifah said that action would be taken against NGOs that ignored his warning.

Sources said the governor's remarks may have been prompted by the seizure of around 300 military uniforms and 262 shirts by Thai border security forces on May 11. Thai authorities did not disclose who was in possession of the uniforms and other items of clothing when they were seized.

However, Burmese dissidents in Mae Sot said that the warning was likely intended to help improve relations with Burmese authorities in order to increase bilateral border trade. The two countries have recently agreed to build another friendship bridge and create a second trade zone between Mae Sot and Myawaddy Township.

This is not the first time the governor has warned NGOs to stay away from politics. In January 2010, he warned Burmese humanitarian workers in Mae Sot that they could be deported if they get involved in Burmese political affairs. He also said that some humanitarian workers had illegally formed political organizations.

The Burmese government often asks Thailand to prevent anti-regime groups from engaging in political or military activities on Thai soil.

'May-Day' at Refugee Camps

2011-05-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

Monday 23, May is the May-day for refugees at Umpiem and Mae La Camp.
Thai authorities are scheduled to investigate these two Burmese refugee camps at the end of May to determine the exact population in the camps, according to official sources.

As usual when reliable sources of information lack, rumors spread like mushrooms.
For the last few days/weeks Maesot resembled a rumor factory and all these circulating news and buzzes led to an exodus-like move towards the camps to make sure not being left behind.

According to the most reliable source we could get, Thai authorties want to get an overview of the size of population in the camps and start a screening prozess at some point after.
All the people living in Mae Sot town who want to resettle in a third country have to be in the camp before May, 23, otherwise they will be de-registered.

The Thai authorities stopped the screening process, a first step to get into a resettlement program, in 2006. Many ex-political prisoners are until now not registered as refugees since they arrived after 2007, the year of the so-called 'Safron Revolution' in Burma.
This group of people is one of the most vulnerable and they have a well founded fear of prosecution in Burma. The majority in the camps along the border with Thailand are ethnic 'Karen' who fled an ongoing civil war for 60 years.

The new Burmese government suspects terrorist-like groups operating from within the refugee camps and along the border. It is possible that negotiations held between Burmese and Thai authorities were an actuator for the screening process to identify insurgent groups and fake-refugees.

Photo: Umpiem Camp, 2010.
Here about 16,000 refugees from Burma are awaiting a screening process.

Pluto Bar at EFCC

2011-05-16T00:17:00.000-07:00

'Pluto Bar' , the un-recognized planet is the new name for our bar run by the EFCC (Exppact Foreign Correspondents' Club).
The EFCC is a meeting point for journalists, photographers, filmmakers and friends to share information and experiences in South East Asia and related issues.

The Pluto Bar opens everyday at 6 PM. Enjoy your drink, cocktail and Burmese snacks in a cosy and relaxed atmosphere at 206, Intarakhiri Road, Mae Sot, Thailand.

Incertitude Rules (follow up 2)

2011-05-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

Just to correct a statement made by Exppact in an email that "the Thai Government has announced to shut down the nine refugee camps along the border" we quote the National Security Council chief Tawin Pleansri: "I cannot say when we will close down the camps but we intend to do it".

Incertitude Rules (follow up)

2011-05-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

The last posted article that disappeared from this blog was about rumors spreading in the border area that the Thai government is about to start a screening in the refugee camps. It`s not a rumor anymore it is a fact.

Repeatedly the Thai authorities announced that the nine refugee camps along the border will be closed without giving a date. Many fear a deportation back to Burma. A so-called PAB (provincial administration board) process is a first step to get a refugee status and herewith (maybe) a chance to resettle in a third county. (see also article posted on April 11 >>>)

The article was also refering to the increasing incertitude especially amongst former political prisoners who fled into Thailand.

At the moment many peolpe are confused, scared and lack information. It seems quite likely that for now the Thai authorities just focus on getting a picture about the exact number of refugees living in the camps of Umpiem, Mae La and Nu Po. If a PAB process is going to start soon is unknown at this time.

In the deleted artilce was also mentioned:

The bomb threat at the UNHCR office on May 11, was a hoax, as reported by the Bangkok Post.

Bomb hoax at Mae Sot UNHCR office

Published: 11/05/2011 at 03:56 PM
Online news:

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Tak's Mae Sot district received a telephone call that a bomb had been planted there on Wednesday but this turned out to be a hoax, Mae Sot police chief Detchart Wattanaprom said.

Pol Col Detchart said a team of police with bomb detectors was dispatched to scour the UNHCR office on Mae Sot - Mae Tao road in the municipality of Mae Sot but no bomb was found.

The call prompted the office to evacuate its staff for safety.

The officer said the bomb hoax might be related to a news report circulated in Mae Sot on April 25 that three centres for holding Karen refugees [...] would be closed down. (source: Bangkok Post website)

According to several sources the screening in the camps will start on May 23. People who left the camps for what ever reason have to be back before that date, those who fail to show up will be de-registered.

Again rumors spread that Thai and Burmese officials negotiated about the situation of refugee camps on the Thai side allegedly being a save place for the KNU coordinating anti-government activities inside Burma.

The Thai-Myanmar Friendship bridge had been closed since mid last year and causes huge damage to the export business every day. And again rumors spread that the bridge will be re-opened soon. Many here see a connection between the bridge opening and the increasing pressure on refugees and others living in exile not being recognized as refugees. Besides that, elections will be held in Thailand on July 3, the Parliament was dissolved by the King of Thailand a few days ago.

Within the last few days hundreds of Burmese without legal papers got arrested. The Thai police is setting up more check points around Mae Sot.

In addition to the Bangkok Post article we published photos taken in January when a Burmese army defector hijacked a motobike taxi, holding hand grenades in both of his hands and trying to claim asylum infront of the UNHCR office in Mae Sot. (the article from January 2011 here>>>)

Here they are again:

Photos: EFCC

Incertitude Rules

2011-05-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

Mae Sot, Thailand in May is a place of increasing incertitude for Burmese living in exile...

that's how this article started.

The article about the current situation at the border and the bomb hoax at the UNHCR office on May 11, disappeared from this blog for unknown reasons a day after it was published and linked on facebook.

This blogspot account was on 'read only' mode and not available for editing for several hours. After that the article was deleted for unknown reasons.

A follow up will come asap.

World Press Freedom Day 2011

2011-05-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

On May 1, the EFCC , (Exppact Foreign Correspondents' Club) invited to celebrate the World Press Freedom Day 2011.
Journalists shared their personal experiences in Burma and abroad.
For many the movie 'The Killing Fields' gave quite an impressive insight into the world of foreign correspondents and the nightmare in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge terror.

Burmese journalist and ex-political prisoner Su Mon gave an impressive speech about her motivation to become a journalist and a political activist in Burma.

Below you find the talk held by our friend and club member Martin Kovan.

Talk for World Press Freedom Day, May 1, 2011, Foreign Correspondents’ Club, ExPPACT.

By Martin Kovan

The defense of genuine freedom of speech, is one of the most critical issues in the world right now. It will decide a lot of things about our collective future. It also faces a lot of challenges. Everyone knows the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo is still behind bars despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and that his colleague the artist Ai Wei Wei has disappeared; that the great U Gambira still languishes in a Burmese prison; that writers like Arundhati Roy in India receive regular death-threats for trying to expose government injustice; that Thai intellectuals, just this last week, are spuriously charged with insulting the Thai king; and that journalists all through the war-zones of Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are lucky to find the truth, let alone free to report it. Last month in Tibet a Buddhist monk performed self-immolation in protest against Chinese abuse: the only way, he doubtless felt, to have his voice truly heard.

I’ve been talking about China, and other Asian countries, but press freedom also has a hard time in so-called open Western societies. Everyone also knows about the investigative journalists and rights workers in Russia, who sixty years after Stalin, are assassinated at the hands of political or ideological hit-men. But the problem is also much closer to home. The courageous but perhaps slightly crazy Australian whistle-blower Julian Assange is someone who with Wikileaks has challenged American neo-imperial self-interest in a way that changes the rules of the game for good. Whether or not you agree with Assange’s shock-tactics is your own decision, but few could deny that he deserves the full protection of the law, and certainly in the U.S. the First Amendment, before being demonised as a ‘criminal’ as even the Australian Prime Minister did of him as soon as the Pentagon whispered something in her ear.

No-one knows yet precisely how Assange and Wikileaks should be judged and that’s how it should be. Freedom of speech, including freedom of the press, also implies that we are each free to come to our own informed opinion given all the facts we have at our disposal. I’m not suggesting it’s an easy task to find the right level of responsibility towards different stakeholders, as a writer or a reader. But the bottom line is that the more true accounts of an event we have, the more informed we are. That is what Wikileaks seeks to do and in presenting previously withheld facts about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Assange has done us all a great service. What really justifies Wikileaks’ guerilla tactics? The fact that these are our nations’ wars, we started them and now we have the right and responsibility for intelligently understanding them. The same thing can be said for the recent exposure of Guantanamo detainee documents. It often seems that freedom of speech is endangered, and I think that’s true, but Wikileaks, among many others, also proves that the defenders of press freedom are alive and well and ready to expose abuses of power; and that millions of journalists and concerned citizens stand behind them.

But is it just by chance that Assange is currently also behind bars? Somehow I don’t think so. The long dark tunnel towards extradition has already begun for him, and he’s probably forfeited a real degree of freedom for the rest of his life, even if the U.S. Justice Department loses its case against him, as it probably will. Orwell once said that some of us are ‘more equal than others’, and it seems that in the U.S.A. as elsewhere, some are ‘more free to be free’ than others. But who has the right or power to decide who that is? No-one should have that right, or else everyone should.

We know, of course, that genuine media freedom doesn’t really exist in Burma. Recently Burma was classified as the 2^nd worst country in the world for Internet freedom, though recently President Thein Sein has promised more relaxed direct government censorship of print media. I’m not really qualified to talk about free speech in Burma, in front of men and women who have sacrificed so much for their beautiful country. But when I was there, in November last year during the so-called election, I did realize one thing I’ve never felt anywhere else. For more than a week during the election, Internet access where I was was completely shut down. I realized that at any moment, if they chose, the military could roll the tanks in, put up wire barriers and lines of troops, and there would be nothing me or anyone else could do. But what was almost worse was that it might prove pretty difficult, even impossible, to tell the rest of the world about it. For a moment I felt a fear I’d never known before. I could have been deaf or mute, completely locked in. That’s how it is for many in Burma and the world today, in their prison cells, or even in the privacy of their own homes: they can’t talk to us, or not easily, and tell us the truth. Or not until it’s sometimes too late.

Think about this: were the passengers on the 9/11 planes, or the Twin Towers workers, any more free when they could phone their families and loved ones from cell-phones before the Towers went down? Perhaps it made all the difference to them to tell people how much they loved them, a radical freedom inside a certain hell. And in fact that is what Liu Xiaobo said, from his Chinese prison-cell. His Nobel Prize address was a love-letter to his wife; one of the most moving and original messages to come from any prison anywhere.

I think all prisoners of conscience are really sending love-letters, sometimes in silence and sometimes in words, to those whose freedom they are trying to safeguard. Today we should recognize those who keep the value of free and transparent communication literally alive for the rest of us. They keep not only hope but the future itself alive. And the evidence is there: look at Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. They already prove there are no guarantees, but they also prove that hope dies last or not at all. The Burmese regime may be the next to fall, however long it takes. And it will be because of great defenders of the truth, like you here at EXPPACT, that freedom may be at hand. And for that we honour you.

World Press Freedom Day, May 1-3, 2011

2011-04-20T21:52:00.000-07:00

From May 1-3, we are going to celebrate the international 'World Press Freedom Day' at the ExPPACT - Foreign Correspondents' Club (EFCC) in Mae Sot.

Some foreign journalists will talk about their experience regarding press freedom.
We will show a DVB-documentary about press freedom and the movie 'The Killing Fields' (1984).

Sunday, May 1, at EFCC, 6 pm.

Thailand wants to close Myanmar refugee camps

2011-04-11T22:06:00.001-07:00

BANGKOK, April 11, 2011 (AFP) - Thailand plans to close its border camps and send more than 100,000 refugees back to Myanmar following the recent handover of power to a new military-backed government, an official said on Monday.

"They have been in Thailand for more than 20 years and it became our burden to take care of them," National Security Council chief Tawin Pleansri said.

"I cannot say when we will close down the camps but we intend to do it," he added, speaking after a meeting of the government security body chaired by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

"We are now in the process of discussion with the Myanmar government."

He said Thailand was in contact with the UN refugee agency about returning the camp residents to Myanmar, also known as Burma, where a November election won by an army-backed party was marred by complaints of intimidation and fraud.

According to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, a group of international non-governmental organisations operating along the border, about 142,000 refugees were living in the camps as of January.

Most came from strife-torn villages in eastern Myanmar, which has been plagued by a decades-old conflict between the military and ethnic minority rebels seeking greater autonomy.

Vast numbers fled to escape the junta's counter-insurgency campaign, which rights groups say has deliberately targeted civilians, driving them from their homes, destroying villages and forcing them to work for the army
.
Cases of rape, torture and execution by the military have also been documented by rights campaigners.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military for almost five decades and the armed forces continue to dominate the impoverished nation.

The new president, former premier Thein Sein, is one of several generals who shed their military uniforms to contest the November election.

Thailand drew global criticism in 2009 when it used troops to forcibly repatriate about 4,500 ethnic Hmong back to Laos, despite fears of persecution on their return for their hill tribe's US alliance during the Vietnam War.

Exppact Foreign Correspondents' Club

2011-04-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, April 2, we opened the 'Exppact - Foreign Correspondents' Club' (EFCC) at our compound in Mae Sot. The EFCC is an initiative to provide information to foreign journalists, photographers, media people and friends interested in Burma related issues. It is a meeting point to share information and to discuss with experts, ex-pps and others living here in exile.
The EFCC bar is open everyday starting 6.30 pm. Besides beer and soft drinks we offer a fine selection of liquor and cocktails. Various traditional Burmese salads and snacks are available.

The profits of this endeavor entirely benefit Exppact aiming to become a self-sustainable project.

North-east Burma hit by 6.8-magnitude earthquake

2011-03-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

BBC News:

At least 11 people have been killed by a magnitude-6.8 earthquake in Burma which hit near the borders with Laos and Thailand, officials say.

It struck at 1355 GMT and was centred about 70 miles (110 km) from the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai, the US Geological Survey said.

Patients in Chiang Rai, Thailand, were evacuated from

the hospital following the earthquake.

The quake was shallow, at a depth of 6.2 miles (10km).

It struck in a sparsely populated and remote area, but tremors could be felt as far away as Bangkok and Hanoi.

There are fears the casualties could be much higher.

A Burmese official told AFP news agency that 25 people had been killed in the town of Tarlay alone.

The official said five monasteries and 35 buildings in the town had collapsed and that roads in the area had been damaged, making access for rescue parties difficult.

One woman in Thailand's Chiang Rai province, close to the epicentre, was killed when a wall collapsed.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok said it could be a while before the extent of the damage is known.

Earlier reports suggested there had been two strong earthquakes moments apart in the same area, but the USGS later clarified that there had been just one quake.

Update, DVB, Sunday, March 27:

An unnamed Red Cross worker in Tachileik told exile news group the Irrawaddy that at least 150 people had been killed, but the official said there was no confirmed increase from Friday’s toll of 74. One woman was also killed in Thailand.

The charity World Vision believes around 15,000 people may have been affected in the worst-hit areas.

Stolen Youth: The story of a teenage political prisoner

2011-03-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

Stolen Youth: The story of a teenage political prisoner

Thursday, 17 March 2011 17:43 Thea Forbes

Mae Sot, Thailand (Mizzima) – Soe Lwin is a slightly nervous, neatly dressed Burmese refugee waiting in the Thai border town of Mae Sot for a better life. There is nothing unusual in that. Every year, hundreds of Burmese arrive in this town from across the border seeking work or fleeing conflict or persecution.

Soe Lwin, now 29, spends his days in Mae Sot waiting to be sent abroad to a third country.

But the 29-year-old Soe Lwin has the air of somebody who has experienced more in his short lifetime than most, a bitter life story––hard to tell.

He says he is learning English at a school in the town, seeking to catch up on the education he never had. His youth was wrestled from him by the Burmese authorities seeking to nip any signs of political dissent in the bud.

For Soe Lwin, the nightmare began when he was 13. It was the early morning of April 24, 1994, and he was living with his family and going to school in the Launglon Township, Dawei District in Tanintharyi (Tenasserim) Division in Burma.

He remembers it as if it were yesterday.

It was 4:30 in the morning when he was woken by a knock on the door and his father answered.

‘There were about five people who came into the house, but when I was taken outside of the house, I saw a car parked on the road and maybe five or six motorbikes’, he says. ‘I didn’t see how many people there were because they put a hood over my head and my hands were handcuffed behind me’.

Soe Lwin had had a run in with the military authorities just months before. He and two friends had been arrested in November 1993 and detained for three months for delivering anti-establishment material. His parents, relatives and friends had managed to bargain for his release, saying he had to take his exams and that they would look after him. During those three months of detention he had no contact with his family. He was released in February 1994.

This time it was different.

Soe Lwin was locked up in the local military intelligence interrogation centre for 45 days. During the day he was held in a cell. In the night he was taken out to be interrogated. He did not hear or see any of his 14 friends, seven boys and seven girls, who had also been arrested, and only realized they had been arrested when he saw them later in court. The girls suffered interrogation but were released.

He keeps a check on his emotions as he relates what happened to him. He says he was subjected to multiple forms of torture. During the beatings, two of his ribs were broken, and he lost the hearing in his right ear. In the efforts to extract information, needles were pushed under his fingernails.

‘This was for 45 days … I was tortured in so many ways’, he says. ‘One of my friends died in the interrogation centre’.

The military intelligence officials in the interrogation centre were trying to extract information from Soe Lwin about his father, an activist who had previously been arrested for political activities. His mother, a teacher, had also been arrested and detained for two years in 1992 for singing a song to her students that the ruling State Peace and Development Council and military intelligence deemed derogatory to the military regime.

After one and a half months of interrogation, Soe Lwin and his friends were taken to court in Myeik Township, the division capital, but the judge at the court refused to accept the boys, claiming they were too badly injured to be charged. On seeing his injured son in court, Soe Lwin’s father collapsed.

The judge ordered military intelligence to take the boys directly to a hospital to be treated, but instead they were taken to prison. The prison authorities, however, also refused to accept the teenage boys, saying that they couldn’t accept children whose health was in such a bad condition.

Finally, Soe Lwin was taken to a hospital where he spent two months recovering from his injuries. It was during this time that he learned one of his friends had died during interrogation.

‘When I was at the hospital my father visited me and he told me my friend had died in the interrogation centre,’ he says. His father said his friend’s father blamed him for his son’s death.

In hospital, Soe Lwin’s family had to pay the costs of treatment, and he was under military intelligence custody with somebody checking on him every hour.

After attending court twice, only to be sent back to prison and given later appointments, Soe Lwin and his six surviving friends were not given a proper trial. Instead, on the third occasion the judge came to the main gate of the prison and sentenced all of the boys to 14 years each in prison for their distribution of material defaming the military junta.

One boy spoke out against their unfair sentence. In response, the judge added another three months to their sentence. A further 10 years was added to each of the boys’ sentences because the boys’ parents wrote appeals citing children’s rights and calling for a reduction in their sentences.

At age 13, the seven boys were sentenced to 24 years and three months in prison for illegally printing and distributing material contrary to Burma’s press law. The boys had been delivering anti-junta pamphlets and leaflets in Launglon town condemning the Burmese military regime.

Soe Lwin recounts that they were told: ‘You are ruining our motherland; you are fighting against our military regime’.

On November 24, 1994, Soe Lwin was sent from Myeik prison to Rangoon by boat to begin a five-year stretch in the notorious Insein Prison.

‘In Insein Prison we were allowed no books’, he says. ‘We were each just in solitary confinement, and then if our fathers and mothers hadn’t given us food, we would have died’.

At age 13, Soe Lwin and six boys were sentenced to 24 years and three months in prison for illegally printing and distributing material contrary to Burma’s press law.

His mother, grandmother and uncle managed to visit him once a month. At first he was in what he called ‘normal’ solitary confinement, able to hear other prisoners’ voices. But after he managed to have a book smuggled in and it was found, he was taken out of his cell and beaten by the guards. He was then moved to a section in the complex where they house and train military and police dogs, thrown into the dirty, poorly lit quarters used for housing the dogs. He was cooped up in these conditions for a year.

‘I still remember that book; it was about the American government’s and the Thai government’s military exercises’, Soe Lwin says, laughing.

In 1999, he was moved from Insein Prison to Mawlamyine Prison, and his friends were moved to various prisons around Burma.

Soe Lwin spent the rest of his sentence in Mawlamyine Prison, for the most part in solitary confinement, able to hear other prisoners and communicate with them.

After being submitted to constant verbal insults and physical violence by the prison guards, one day Soe Lwin tried to protect himself. This landed him under ‘special punishment’ with no visits from his family permitted.

‘Some of the prison guards were younger than me’, he says. ‘They were very rude … they thought we were their enemy’.

Special punishment was different than solitary confinement. ‘In solitary confinement you can hear other people. But special punishment means you cannot see the sun, the moon’, he says. For trying to defend himself, he was kept like this for eight months.

To try to keep sane, he talked to the ants. ‘Because I was so angry at the prison authorities, finally I couldn’t do anything so I talked to the ants. And sometimes I swatted the flies and I fed them to the house lizards’.

After spending 10 years in Mawlamyine Prison, on September 19, 2009, the chief jailer, the vice-director of the prison and prison guards came to Soe Lwin’s cell and asked him to go with them.

He was released and welcomed by his grandmother’s sister and other relatives at the gate of the prison.

He recalled his mother’s words to him when he was 13 that he was a man and men don’t cry. ‘Since then, I have never cried’, he says.

All of his friends who were also detained in 1994 have now been released, the most recent being in December 2010.

Immediately after his release Soe Lwin had eye surgery in Mawlamyine to correct damage sustained to his eye whilst in prison. The man he considers his foster father, Dr Min Soe Lin, also an ex-political prisoner, and who spent time with Soe Lwin in prison, carried out the eye surgery for him for free. He then returned home to Launglon.

Within a week, he and his father were again harassed by the authorities. The two had been overheard talking about selling one of their family motorbikes to obtain money to repair the road in front of their house, as it had fallen into disrepair. Soe Lwin’s father was arrested and brought home after being interrogated for a day and told that he wasn’t the government and had no rights to repair the road.

The police then came for Soe Lwin at his home.

He said he saw the handcuffs and warned the police officer not to touch him, that he would come down voluntarily to the police station and that he was not a criminal.

‘And then they didn’t let me sit, I was standing so finally I grabbed a chair and I sat on it, the police officer came to me to punch me, I told him, if you hit me, punch me, hurt me, I will retaliate, I will respond, because I am innocent’, Soe Lwin says.

‘So, they told me, you have to come to the police station every day and sign a paper, saying I am here and in town’.

That night, a relative of Soe Lwin’s who knew the township judge came to Soe Lwin’s house to tell him that the police were preparing for his arrest, and advised him to leave Launglon as soon as possible.

Soe Lwin’s family and friends pooled money together to send Soe Lwin back to Mawlamyine where he stayed for about a month. With the police closing in, he stayed in Rangoon for four days, but was again tracked by military intelligence, and had to leave again.

From Rangoon, Soe Lwin went to Mandalay to stay with a friend, but feeling alienated and nervous he felt unable to stay and fled to Myawaddy and then over the border to Mae Sot.

It was December 2009. Soe Lwin was 28 and had spent more than half his short life in prison.

In Mae Sot, he stayed with Khun Myint Tun, also an ex-political prisoner and a minister in the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (Burma’s exiled government) until he came to live and work at ExPPACT , Ex-Political Prisoners – Advocacy, Counseling and Training , an organisation that supports ex-political prisoners who have had to flee persecution in Burma. (www.exppact.org)

Soe Lwin is now playing the waiting game of Burmese refugees in Thailand, waiting for an identity and the means to secure asylum in a third country. The UNHCR have told Soe Lwin they cannot provide him with protection at present and that all he can do is wait. Soe Lwin is currently learning English at a migrant school as he tries to give himself the education he was deprived of in Burma.

Asked whether he ever regretted distributing those leaflets all those years ago, Soe Lwin says, ‘What I did was right. I hoped, I believed I would leave the prison alive’.

Soe Lwin feels he is lucky because his family could afford to visit him and provide him with food. Some people die in prison from malnutrition or starvation, he says.

Interview translation by Thiha Yarzar

Member of Parliament at ExPPACT Office

2011-03-17T02:47:00.000-07:00

Khun Myint Tun, elected Minister of Labour in the 1990 elections in Burma is staying with us for a short time at the Exppact office in Mae Sot. Although elected Member of Parliament he was imprisoned for 7 years following the elections.

He wrote into our guestbook:
We were proud of being political prisoners while we were imprisoned. We never accepted being labelled as security detainees (SD). And we are proud of being ex-political prisoners working with ExPPACT because we are still struggeling to get our freedom.

Presseerklärung und Einladung

2011-03-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

Berlin – am 21. März um 15:00 Uhr überreichen die beiden burmesischen Mönche Ashin Kovida und Ashin Sopaka im Auswärtigen Amt einen offenen Brief der All Burma Monks Alliance (ABMA) an den Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Menschrechtspolitik und Humanitäre Hilfe.

In dem offenen Brief bittet die ABMA (die Initiatoren der friedlichen Massenproteste/der Safran-Revolution in Burma 2007) die UN, EU, ASEAN und die Regierungen der internationalen Staaten um Unterstützung.

Zur Zeit befinden sich immer noch mehr als 2.100 politische Gefangene in Burmas Gefängnissen. Mehr als zehn Prozent davon sind buddhistische Mönche, die wegen ihrer friedlichen Proteste zu hohen Gefängnisstrafen verurteilt wurden. Burma hat damit die höchste Zahl inhaftierter Geistlicher weltweit. In dem offenen Brief fordern die Mönche die sofortige Freilassung aller politischen Gefangenen.

Die von der burmesischen Militärjunta im November 2010 abgehalten Wahlen wurden weder im eigenen Land, noch international frei oder fair beurteilt. Die Mönche fordern daher, dass diese Wahlen nicht anerkannt werden.

In dem Brief bitten die Mönche die UN, EU, ASEAN und die Regierungen der internationalen Staaten um Unterstützung für eine zweite Panglong Konferenz, an der Vertreter aller Parteien und die Repräsentanten der ethnischen Minderheiten teilnehmen. Diese Konferenz wird von der NLD (Nationale Liga für Demokratie, die bei den Wahlen 1990 legitim zur Regierung gewählte wurde, diese jedoch niemals übernehmen durfte) geplant.

Die Mönche sind der Überzeugung, dass der einzige Weg zur Beilegung der Konflikte und zur Lösung der Probleme in Burma in Dialog und Verhandlungen zwischen den 1990 gewählten NLD-Repräsentanten, Vertretern der ethnischen Gruppen und des Militärregimes liegt.

Diese Forderung werden sowohl von der Deutschen Buddhistischen Union (DBU), als auch der Europäischen Buddhistischen Union (EBU) unterstützt.

An dem Treffen nehmen neben den beiden Mönchen, einem Vertreter der Deutschen Buddhistischen Union (DBU), einem Vertreter des Burma Büros Germany der Generalsekretär des Burma Lawyers' Councils teil.

Parallel dazu findet am selben Tag ab 14:00 Uhr vor dem Auswärtigen Amt eine stille Protestaktion zur Haltung der Deutschen Regierung statt, die ein Verfahren gegen die burmesische Militärregierung wegen Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof bisher nicht unterstützt.

Datum: 21. März, ab 14 Uhr,

Ort: Auswärtiges Amt, Werderscher Markt 1, 10117 Berlin.

Weitere Informationen unter: www.thebestfriend.org

Ansprechpartner:

Alexandra Rösch, The Best Friend International, alexandra@thebestfriend.org

Aung Thu, Burma Büro Germany, aungthu@t-online.de

A Burmese Book & Food Evening in Chiang Mai

2011-03-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

On Friday, March 11, 2011 we will have another ExPPACT event in
Chiang Mai at the D-LO Restaurant.
Our book 'No Easy Road' will be presented.
A selection of finest Burmese food - for free!
Please come and join us!

D-LO Burmese Restaurant at 7 pm.

Near Holiday Garden Hotel, Chiang Mai.

See map:

ExPP Appeal Letter To The Canadian Government

2011-02-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

A letter was send to the Canadian Government on February 2, to raise awareness for the situation of expps in Mae Sot, titled:

Forgotten and Unprotected: Burmese Ex-Political Prisoners in Mae Sot

February 2, 2011

The Honourable Lawrence Cannon
Minister of Foreign Affairs
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

The purpose of this letter is to draw your attention to the situation of Burmese Ex-Political Prisoners in Thailand and to seek Canadian government intervention on a number of levels in order to assure their protection in the immediate future and possibly facilitate their resettlement in the long-term.

Continue to read here >>>

Burma Affairs Discussed in the Czech Republic

2011-02-15T22:56:00.000-08:00

The European Burma Network (EBN), a coalition of organizations promoting human rights and democracy in Burma, met for two days in Prague on Feb. 12-13. Members of the EBN said they remain deeply concerned about the lack of any improvement in Burma's human rights situation and the failure of the ruling regime to make any progress toward achieving genuine democratization. Elections held in the country last November had no credibility, the EBN said, citing the fact that the vote did not meet any internationally accepted standards of being free and fair. Vote-rigging on behalf of the Burmese junta's proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, was widespread. Published Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011, Irrawaddy

Myawaddy Bomb Blast Kills Two, Injured Five

2011-02-10T00:10:00.000-08:00

By NAW NOREEN
Published: 10 February 2011

A man and a woman have died after several explosions occurred yesterday in the Burmese border town of Myawaddy, close to Thailand.

The first blast went off at around 5pm yesterday in the Lucky Seven teashop, which sits close to the Thailand-Burma Friendship Bridge. The second occurred after medical staff had arrived at the scene.

Myawaddy is across the Moei River from Mae Sot, Thailand.The Friendship Bridge, in the background, connects Thailand and Burma. Every day many Burmese migrant workers cross the river illegaly on truck tire inner tubes. Photo: AFP

Five people, including the teashop owner and a customer, were injured, a Myawaddy resident told DVB.

“Apparently a man came and left a bag in the teashop,” said another local. “The first explosion came from the bag and the other explosions took place at the same spot.”

Three members of the local Border Guard Force who were under the Friendship Bridge were also reportedly injured in the attack.

No one has claimed responsibility.

Myawaddy became the epicentre of heavy fighting last year between Burmese troops and a breakaway faction of the once-loyal Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). Stability along the Thai-Burma border has since remained shaky.

U Thant's Memorial Day

2011-02-09T21:35:00.001-08:00

To watch the Exppact-video on U Thant's memorial day please visit our website:
www.exppact.org

The following documentary was made exclusively for our Exppact event
(in Burmese language):

Upcoming Event: U Thant's Birthday on 22.01.2011

2011-01-18T06:12:00.001-08:00

On the occasion of U Thant's 102nd birthday

we would like to invite you to join us at our new office and commemorate the highly respected Burmese
UN Secretary-General from 1961 to 1971.

Starting 6 pm at our office in 206 Intarakhiri Road, Mae Sot - see map:

Fighting continues across the border

2011-01-11T04:01:00.000-08:00

Security is tightened near Mae Sot after artillery shells fired by Burmese troops during clashes with ethnic insurgents explode on the Thai side of the border. Says an Irrawaddy report by Sai Zom Hseng.
Around 100 heavy artillery shells were fired by Burmese troops during fighting that started at 7 o'clock this morning, with six of the shells exploding on the Thai side. Yesterday, 11 shells fired by government troops exploded near the village of Mae Koking in Mae Sot District.

Read the article >>>

Bomb Threat (?) at UNHCR Office in Mae Sot

2011-01-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

Hostage taken in front of UNHCR office

Mae Sot, January 4, at about 7:30 am a motorbike taxi stops in front of the UNHCR office at 34/5 Mae Tao Road, Mae Sot. The man on the back seat is holding two activated hand grenades, one in each hand.

All photos: Markus Baude

According to the first information that I could get, he is Burmese Karen. With his action he is demanding to see a high ranking UN-official, or even to talk to Tomás Ojea Quintana, demanding increasing efforts for human rights and democracy in Burma (see below 'CoI').

The 4th of January, is also Burma's Independence Day and it is just an assumption that this man's action is related to Burma's freedom from British colonial rule.

A few minutes later the road is blocked by authorities. Police, rescue workers and bomb specialists, journalists and people from the area are gathering on the street.

Later that day we have been told that the man was a soldier of the DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) a ceasefire group which was turned into a government commanded BGF (border guard force) aligned with the elections held in November, 2010. He defected and crossed the Moie River into Thailand early that morning in order to ask for asylum at the UNHCR office. He arrived before office hours and was told to leave, then he handcuffed himself with his hostage, the motorbike-taxi driver and produced the hand grenades.

As an army defector he will surely end up in prison if sent back to Burma facing torture and a long prison term.

Commission of Inquiry (CoI)

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, has recommended in a report that the UN should consider establishing a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Burmese government.

The special rapporteur report said that the “gross and systematic” nature of the abuses and the lack of action to stop them indicated “a state policy that involves authorities in the executive, military and judiciary at all levels.”

Countries like Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Norway and 10 other EU countries support the inquiry. Germany seems to side with China and is still very reluctant according to a spokesperson from the German Foreign Ministry. The Mizzima online news magazin: [...] in an e-mailed response to Mizzima’s questions regarding Germany’s stance on the proposal, German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Theresa Schoenfeld told Mizzima that “to ensure that this new initiative [the inquiry] is successful and has positive consequences, it is important to continue to monitor the situation and crucial to find some co-operation mechanism with the [Burmese] national authorities.”
The reluctance of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition government to support the UN inquiry comes amid reports by The Washington Post that China had waged a “high-octane diplomatic campaign” over the past two months to convince Asian and European nations to oppose the creation of a commission of inquiry.

Later that day we learned that the Thai authorities probably will charge the ex-soldier, identified as Sorta Meni, for possesion of illegal weapons only, probably due to the problematic situation at the border and the man's biography as a defector.
Parts of the DKBA, the defected 'Bigade V' launched an attack against government troop on election day, November 7, 2010 which caused more than 20.000 people fleeing into Thailand. Since then fighting breaks out regularly between rebels and government troops.

Watch the negotiation between Thai authorities and the manwith the grenades:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o35zgkm2krw&feature=player_embedded#

Forced Refugee Return Angers UN

2011-01-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 28 December 2010

Thai police patrol Mae Sot, where many refugees have sought shelter since early November (Reuters)

The UN refugee agency on Tuesday raised concerns over Thailand’s move to forcibly return a group of displaced Burmese nationals on Christmas day, saying that conditions were not met for safe returns.

“The UN refugee agency is concerned over the circumstances of the return of some 166 Myanmar [Burmese] nationals seeking temporary protection from Thailand on 25 December,” it said in a statement.

Thai authorities had expelled a group of displaced people from Burma – including 50 women and over 70 children – to their home country, even though the group had told the UNHCR that they were not ready to return due to security concerns.

“UNHCR appeals to the Royal Thai Government that returns should take place on a strictly voluntary basis, and only when conditions are in place to return in safety and dignity,” stressed the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

“These conditions were not met on 25 December,” it noted. “In the past few weeks, UNHCR had already expressed its concern to the Royal Thai Government over the hasty manner in which some returns took place, where some persons returned home only to have to flee again when fighting resumed shortly afterwards,” it added.

Among the recently returned group, many had fled their villages on more than one occasion since November due to clashes in the region.

In early November, about 20,000 people fled Burma into Thailand to escape fighting between government troops and ethnic rebels.

ExPPACT-AI-Campaign in Mae Sot

2010-12-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

ExPPACT 'write-for-rights' event on International Human Rights Day
December 10, 2010, in Mae Sot.

We got more than 100 letters signed to call on Gen.Than Shwe to release all 2200 political prisoners from Burma and another 100 letters addressed to Amnesty Int.ernational to raise awareness for ex-political prisoners living in Mae Sot. Until now former prisoners of conscience have not been recognized as refugees or persons of concern by the Thai government and the UNHCR. With our campaigns we raise awareness for their particularly dangerous situation at the border. Advocacy and support by internationally operating organisations like Amnesty International is critical for their safety and future.

All photos courtesy by Brennan O'Connor

ExPPACT spokesman Aye Min Soe talking about the necessity of peace and human rights in Burma, the Asean region and the need for global change in the 21st century.

Signing letters to request the release of Su Su Nway, Zarganar and all 2200+ prisoners of conscience in Burma.

And the music was fantastic!

Related links:

http://www.amnesty.ch/de/laender/asien-pazifik/myanmar/dok/2010/briefaktion-wegen-regierungskritischem-plakat-verurteilt

http://www.amnesty.de

www.amnestyusa.org/writeathon/

www.freezarganar.de

Exppact On International Human Rights Day

2010-12-07T03:29:00.000-08:00

December 10, International Human Rights Day:

From Friday 10th, 5.30 pm until Sunday 12th, 10 pm we will launch an Amnesty International 'Write-For-Rights' event at Aiya Restaurant in Mae Sot.

Come and join us to write letters to Gen. Than Shwe to release all political prisoners of Burma and help to raise awareness for ex-political prisoners who fled into Thailand.

While Burma's Not Free, I'm Not Free!

2010-11-28T00:17:00.000-08:00

Amnesty International Campaign:

Click HERE >>>

and join the campaign!

2200 political prisoners in Burma.
3 basic human rights that most people (in the west) take for granted.

The Lady's First Press Conference in 7 Years

2010-11-14T05:23:00.000-08:00

Aung San Suu Kyi is surrounded by reporters as she holds her first news conference, after being released from house arrest, at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy party in Rangoon on November 14.
(Photo: Reuters)

Suu Kyi Calls for Talks with Than Shwe

By WAI MOE

During a press conference held at her party headquarters on Sunday afternoon—her first since being released from house arrest on Saturday—Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for a meeting with junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe to promote national reconciliation.

According to journalists attending the press conference, held at the office of the National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi said: “I want to meet and talk with him [Than Shwe] directly. It would be very good if I could discuss with him whatever issues I care about.”

(source: The Irrawaddy)

Read More >>>

Aung San Suu Kyi Is Freed

2010-11-13T03:04:00.000-08:00

THE LADY IS FREE!

After last week's internationaly critizised elections ...

...this is the day of the Burmese people.

The Irrawaddy>>>

ARD Tagesschau >>>

Al Jazeera >>>

BBC World News >>>

DW-World Deutsche Welle >>>

Democratic Voice of Burma >>>

Crowds gather to see Aung San Suu kyi release from DVBTV English on Vimeo.

NOW FREE ALL THE OTHER 2200 POLITICAL PRISONERS OF BURMA, TOO!!!
And start national reconciliation!

the following article is taken from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11741612

Who Are Burma's Political Prisoners?

Burma's most notorious prison is Rangoon's Insein jail

Burma: Battle for Democracy

As speculation continues that Burma's military rulers may be ready to free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the BBC looks at the country's more than 2,200 political prisoners.

They are held in the country's 43 prisons and an unknown number of labour camps, many serving sentences of several decades after trials with no or very limited access to legal representation.

Many of those who have been released say they were tortured in jail.

Prisoners include veteran activists from the 88 Generation student movement and leaders of the main pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy.

Monks who led anti-government protests in 2007 have also been jailed, as well as journalists who covered the demonstrations.

Human rights groups say that since the 2007 protests, the number of political prisoners has doubled.

88 Generation: Kyaw Min Yu (Ko Jimmy) and Nilar Thein

Both Ko Jimmy and his wife are serving 65-year terms

As veteran members of Burma's 88 Generation Students, Nilar Thein and Kyaw Min Yu, known as Ko Jimmy, are both familiar with their country's penal system. Ko Jimmy served 16 years in prison for his involvement in the pro-democracy movement, while Nilar Thein served eight years for taking part in student demonstrations.

After being released they got married and in 2007 had a daughter. But in August 2007 Ko Jimmy was arrested for taking part in the street protests triggered by a government-ordered fuel price rise. Nilar Thein went into hiding but was later caught.

On 11 November she and her husband were jailed for 65 years each. The charges were four counts of illegally using electronic media (15 years each) plus five years for forming an illegal organisation.

National League for Democracy

Win Tin served 19 years behind bars for his pro-democracy work

There are at least 413 members of the National League for Democracy behind bars, according to a November 2010 report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). The NLD won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.

NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the last 21 years in some form of detention. Her close aide and fellow NLD founder Win Tin was released in 2008 after serving 19 years in prison for agitating against the junta and distributing political materials.

The NLD's deputy leader, Tin Oo, was jailed for three years in the early 1990s and then again put under house arrest in 2003 after a government-backed mob attacked a convoy he and Aung San Suu Kyi were travelling in. He was freed in February 2010.

Monk-led protests in 2007: U Gambira

U Gambira led monks in the 2007 anti-government protests

U Gambira is one of the leaders of the All-Burma Monks' Alliance, which led anti-government protests in August 2007.

On 4 November, weeks after the protests were crushed, he accused the junta of bringing a country choking "on the foul air of tyranny" to the brink of collapse in a Washington Post editorial.

"The regime's use of mass arrests, murder, torture and imprisonment has failed to extinguish our desire for the freedom that was stolen from us so many years ago," he wrote.

The 31-year-old was arrested the day the piece was published and, less than three weeks later, jailed for 68 years including 12 of hard labour.

Ethnic groups: U Khun Tun Oo

U Khun Tun Oo represented the Shan ethnic group in Burma

U Khun Tun Oo is the most senior political representative of the Shan, the largest of Burma's ethnic minorities. He is also head of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD), which won the second-highest number of votes in the 1990 elections after the NLD.

In 2005 he was sentenced to 93 years in prison. A year earlier the SNLD had boycotted a junta-sponsored national convention on a new constitution. The party complained about the restrictive process and the regime's stance on human rights.

U Khun Tun Oo was arrested in February 2005 after a private meeting of senior political representatives to discuss the junta's plans for a political transition to "democracy". He was convicted on several counts including treason and defamation.

He is being held in Puta-O prison in Kachin State. Conditions are said to be extremely harsh and Mr Oo is reportedly in poor health and receiving inadequate medical assistance.

Cyclone Nargis: Zarganar

Zarganar criticised the junta's response to Cyclone Nargis

Zarganar, whose name translates as "tweezers", is one of Burma's most famous satirists and actors, and a vocal critic of the military government. He has in recent years become a high-profile activist and relief worker in the country. In September 2006, he was banned from performing or taking part in any entertainment-related work.

In 2008 he was arrested along with more than 20 prominent activists and journalists for talking to foreign media about the ruling generals' response to the humanitarian relief effort following Cyclone Nargis.

The storm hit Burma's southern Irrawaddy delta in May 2008, claiming at least 140,000 lives and affecting 2.4 million others. Ignoring protests from foreign governments and aid agencies, the junta refused widespread access to the area for weeks.

Zarganar was sentenced to 59 years in prison for "public order offences". This was later reduced to 35 years.

Journalist: Hla Hla Win

Hla Hla Win worked for the Burmese exile broadcaster, the Democratic Voice of Burma.

Friends said she joined the NLD's youth wing after the 2007 monk-led protests and believed only a dialogue between the NLD and the military government could bring about a genuine solution for Burma. She was later said to have left the party but remained committed to her political beliefs.

The 25-year-old video journalist was detained in September 2009 after conducting interviews with Buddhist monks in a monastery.

Initially she was sentenced to seven years for using an unregistered motorbike. But was later handed down a further 20-year sentence for uploading data to the internet that was "damaging to the security of the military regime".

Media reports say she was not represented by a lawyer. Ms Win began a hunger strike soon after and was hospitalised.

Three More Days: Aung San Suu Kyi's Release

2010-11-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest will end on Saturday, Nov.13.
According to her lawyer Nyan Win the detained Burmese democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, will not accept conditions on her freedom if the military government releases her this week when her latest period of detention is due to end. "Aung San Suu Kyi must be released on or before November 13 because it is the day when the house arrest on her expires. The release must also be unconditional because she will not accept a limited release. As we all know, she never accepted limited freedom in the past”, he said. (source: the irrawaddy)

more>>>

10,000 Refugees from Burma arrive in Mae Sot

2010-11-08T04:53:00.000-08:00

Fleeing the fighting that started following the elections on Monday in the Burmese border-town Myawaddy 10.000 refugees cross the river Moie into Thailand. The Thai army, the Red Cross and other aid workers provide water and food for the Burmese people.

Photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/nomalanga/MaeSotRefugeeCrisis8November2010#

Breaking The Silence: Burma's Resistance

2010-11-08T03:14:00.000-08:00

Berlin, Sunday Nov.7, Film Screening on Burma's election day.

ExPP-ACT and The Best Friend Intl. invited to come to the Berlin cinema 'Kino-Central' to watch the Canadian documentary. Following the film ExPP-ACT secretary, Thiha Yarzar was answering questions from Mae Sot at the Thai-Burma border via Skype.

Please see also the event at Heinrich Boell Foundation on Wednesday and Thursday 10./11.11.2010 in Berlin.

Post Election: Civil War Outbreak?

2010-11-08T01:43:00.000-08:00

Not even a day after the fake-elections in Burma fighting began as predicted by many observers:
Renegades launch attacks on Burmese troops and their affiliates.
The Brigade 5, a defected unit from the DKBA, the Junta-linked army at the Burma-Thai border, took over the border town of Myawaddy.
According to the Thailand based news agency 'The Irrawaddy' several government offices have been seized, 7 people were killed and more than 20 injured.
Thai security forces estimate 10,000 people fled across the border to Mae Sot within the last 24 hours. (source: irrawaddy)

This is Not Democracy

2010-10-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Burma's 2010 Election: This is NOT Democracy from Kestrel Media on Vimeo.

Former Political Prisoners Fear Repatriation

2010-10-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

"Illegal" Burmese people in Mae Sot awaiting their repatriation the next day.
photo: the irrawaddy

Although the Thai government was back paddeling already, Burma's former political prisoners in Thailand still fear repatriation following the forthcoming elections on November 7.
This Irrawaddy article sheds a light on ex-political prisoners and their future.

By Alex Ellgee/The Irrawaddy

MAE SOT, Thailand—For six years, Thiha Yazar was isolated from the world in a prison cell in eastern Burma. The prison guards had been ordered not to communicate with him.

“The worst thing about that time was having no sense of the future or the past,” Thiha told The Irrawaddy. “I was completely alone and lost.”

The cell had one small window, and to keep himself from being too lonely, he would talk to birds. “I would ask them to go and say hello to my daughter for me.”

Read the whole article>>

Liu Xiaobo - Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2010

2010-10-13T08:01:00.000-07:00

Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo received the Nobel Peace Prize last friday while being detained in a Chinese jail.
The Burmese authorities placed a ban on reporting about the Nobel Peace Prize for their neigbouring fellow.
So, now we have two Nobel Peace Prize winners being jailed next door to each other.

Congratulations!

Desmond Tutu on Elections in Burma

2010-10-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

The November election would be a “charade,” said Tutu. 'We are more likely to find snow in hell than free, democratic elections in Burma under the present dispensation.”

Desmond Tutu, tireless champion of Burma's oppressed people, turns 79 on Thursday, after declaring that this birthday would herald his gradual retirement from public life.

Tutu is likely to continue his engagement in the cause of Burmese democracy and human rights, however—for he pledged last year: “I will not rest until [Aung San] Suu Kyi and all the people of Burma are free.”

Forced Repatriation by Thai Government?

2010-10-04T01:20:00.000-07:00

Sydney Morning Herald reported today: "Speaking in New York, the Thai Foreign Minister, Kasit Piromya, said returning Burmese to their homeland was a priority for the government." Kasit was quoted as saying "I am going back to Bangkok, and one of the first things I will be doing is to launch a more comprehensive program for the Myanmar people in the camps, the displaced persons, the intellectuals that run around the streets of Bangkok and Chiang Mai Province to prepare them for a return to Myanmar after the elections."

Currently there are more than 120 ex-political prisoners from Burma living in limbo at the Thai-Burma border.

READ MORE>>

20th Anniversary of Germany's Reunification

2010-10-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

On October 3, 2010, Germany is celebrating the 20. anniversary of the reunification after the Berlin wall came down on November 9, 1989.
The peaceful revolution in Eastern Germany succeded as no one could predict a few weeks earlier. Despite many disasters that followed, and for many the reunification brought severe new problems, some even may have experienced a sort of colonialization, there are a lot of positive developments. These experiences made during the last 20 years are precious for future developments not only in Europe but all over the world. For Burma it could be a role model regarding national reconciliation and a very much needed peace process.
There are a lot of parallels to be seen between these two, former 'three' countries and in this respect Germany should take over a special responsibility in the Burmese issue and it's national reconciliation.

3rd Anniversary Saffron Revolution - Cyber Attack

2010-09-27T01:58:00.000-07:00

26, September 2007, the Burmese military junta launched a crack down on the anti-government protests lead by Buddhist Monks, the so-called 'Saffron Revolution'.

The protests started September 18, 2007 as a result of increased fuel prices by the government of up to 500%.
Watch here a DVB-TV report on the 3rd anniversary of 'Saffron Revolution' :

For more information watch the documentary film >>Burma VJ' on this blog.

THE IRRAWADDY-WEBSITE UNDER ATTACK

Today September 27, a cyber attack has been lauched against major pro-democracy news-websites. Chiang Mai based 'The Irrawaddy', 'The Democratic Voice of Burma' in Norway as well as the news agency 'Mizzima' , India have become targets of this attack. Their websites could not be visited for several hours. Until now there are only speculations about who may be responsible for the attack. But in 2008, the first anniversary of the 'Saffron Revolution' 'The Irrawaddy' website had been targeted already.

Al Jazeera Interview

2010-09-16T01:46:00.000-07:00

In this Al Jazeera interview...

... ex-political prisoners Aye Min Soe (ExPP-ACT spokesman) and Thiha Yarzar (ExPP-ACT joint secretary) talk about their perspectives facing the November 7, elections in Burma.

A Letter from the Ex-Political Prisoners of Burma

2010-09-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

After November 7, according to some sources the Thai government is planning to send back Burmese refugees and ex-political prisoners. Former political prisoners may have to face again incarceration, torture or even death.
A letter from the ex-political prisoners of Burma has been sent to international media outlets, human rights lawyers and organizations.
You can read the letter and other press releases HERE.

Back to hell again?

Christoph Schlingensief, 24.10.1960-21.08.2010

2010-08-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

"It is as if life itself had died [...]", Elfriede Jelinek, (Nobel Prize in Literature, 2004) about the death of Christoph Schlingensief on August 21, 2010,
one of the greatest German directors for theater, opera and movie, talk show master, artist , founder of 'Chance 2000', a political party and initiator of an opera project in Burkina Faso, Africa, which is called "Operndorf Afrika" or "Opera Village Africa".
Christoph S. with Abhaya Mudra a gesture for fearlessness
- or just waving 'good bye'? (Photo taken from his website)

Christoph, a non smoker who was convinced that 'the only way you can get salvation is by keep on doing something' was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008.

Scheitern als Chance - Failure as Chance...

... was his motto and resembles the Burmese struggle, as well!

He was one of the few 'agent provocateur' with an outstanding humor and a unique gentleness at the same time while e.g. demanding during the 'Documenta' in 1997 - as an art project : "Tötet Helmut Kohl" ("Kill Helmut Kohl", former German Prime Minister). He suggested an assassination by thousands of unemployed people jumping into a lake nearby PM Kohl's holiday residence in Austria to cause a flood.
His book, "So schön wie hier kanns im Himmel gar nicht sein!" (as beautiful as here - in heaven it never could be) a diary written during his fight against the deadly disease dealing most openly with his intimate thoughts, fears, god and the rest was published in 2009.

Christoph Schlingensief, 49, died last Saturday in Berlin surrounded by his family.
On the photo above - maybe unconsciously (but you never know!) he is posing with the Abhaya Mudra, the Buddha's gesture for fearlessness (although showing his left palm - typically Schlingensief!). For sure his whole life stood for that 'freedom from fear' at least in an attempt - until his very last breath, I guess.
Now he is dead - shit! But if you regard death as the final failure than it is the final chance as well.
Thank you, Christoph Schlingensief for all your success and failure!
Condolences and our heartfelt sympathy for friends and family.

the expp-act team

The quote below is taken from the Schlingensief blog in German :
(for the English translation 'No Faith...' click HERE and then scroll down)

May 21, 2010

SICH NICHT TRAUEN

"Wenn ich in den himmel gucke, dann ist das doch die reinste Energie, was ich da sehe. Welche Energie da war, und das wir noch immer das Licht der bereits gestorbenen Sterne sehen können, obwohl sie vor Millionen von Jahren erloschen sind. Und das noch ein Universum gefunden wird und noch eins und noch eins…. Dieser wirklich sensationelle Wahnsinn wird in keinster Weise ernst genommen, sondern wir versuchen seit ewigkeiten so zu tun, als wären wir die Eroberer dieses Universums. Als hätten wir die Weisheit gefressen.Wenn wir aber mal sagen würden, dass die Welt, in der wir leben, eigentlich nur ein miniausschnitt von möglicher Freiheit darstellt , dann wäre es doch leichter zu gerstehen, das gerade hier auf diesem miniplaneten noch gigantisch viel möglich ist und das wir tatsächlich eingreifen können ! ja, wir können sogar eingreifen. Was für ein privileg gegenüber tonnen von abgestorbenen gesteinsbrocken, die sonst so durchs all rasen… Man kann jetzt etwas tun, du kannst tatsächlich deinen Traum erfüllen – nicht den amerikanischen Traum, das meine ich nicht – aber du kannst hier und jetzt alles hinterfragen, vielleicht sogar berühren und ausprobieren… Aber du musst dich dafür auch wahnsinnig einbringen. du musst dich wirklich mal investieren und du wirst auch extrem viel Kraft verlieren und du wirst es nicht mehr sehr leicht haben. Das wird anstrengend und du wirst die ganze Zeit immer nur da sitzen und denken, hätte ich mich lieber für die andere Seite entschieden. Die sind schon viel weiter als ich. Die haben schon ein Auto, die haben schon eine Familie, die sind schon, was weiβ ich, in Kanada gewesen, oder auf dem Mond. Ich bin immer noch hier und traue der Sache nicht. Und ich glaube, dass wäre eigentlich so der Hauptpunkt."

"Wir suchen vielleicht deshalb etwas an das wir glauben können, weil wir das Vertrauen in uns verloren haben. Wenn man das Vertrauen an sich selber wieder hat, dann kann man wahrscheinlich in diesem Leben wunderbar glücklich werden. Aber da das Leben nicht leicht ist, verliert man als aller erstes das Vertrauen an sich selber." NNNTTT

November 7th, Election Day

2010-08-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

ExPP-ACT and The Best Friend
present on the occasion of the elections on 7. November 2010
the Canadian documentary

„Breaking The Silence,
Burma’s Resistance“

Canada 2009, 73 minutes, Englisch/Burmese with English subtitles

Kino Central, Rosenthaler Str. 39, Berlin – Germany,
Sonntag, 7. November 13:15 Uhr,
with online interview

Entry: 5,- Euro

After the 2007 uprising, that was lead by Burmese monks, the so-called Saffron Revolution, was carried to the world by street-shot cell phone images, the Burmese dictatorship pledged 'free' elections in 2010.

The now upcoming elections on 7. November 2010 are strongly critisised and widely fewed as a charade designed to legitimise the military dictatorship within Burma. The constitution that was adopted in 2008 is hopelessly undemocratic. 2200 political prisoners are still incarcerated. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate, who has been held under house arrest for more than 14 of the last 20 years and her party NLD are not taking part in the elections and foreign election observers and international media are not allowed to monitor the elections.

Breaking the Silence: Burma's Resistance demonstrates the strength of the Burmese people's resistance and takes us deep into the country, disclosing the secret networks that are fighting along the Thai/Burma border and who’s actions will be taken to a whole new level after the elections.

Undercover, Quebec filmmakers Pierre Mignault and Hélène Magny clandestinely were able to enter one of Burma's most dangerous zones, penetrating into the heart of the Karen Nation, where civil war has been waging for 60 years. In this dangerous region very few foreigners have dared to venture, they meet displaced people hiding in the jungle in order to resist forced relocation by the military regime.

Following the movie we will have an online interview with two ex-political prisoners now living in Thailand.

ExPP-ACT Ex-Political Prisoners - Assistance, Counseling and Training is an organization founded mainly by former political prisoners from Burma in Mae Sot, Thailand. www.borderlinereport.blogspot.com

The Best Friend International is a branch of the1999 by Buddhist monks founded organization The Best Friend. The Best Friend runs free education and assistance projects at the Thai-Burma border as well as inside Burma. The purpose is to encouraging people to become more educated, aware and active in the struggle for peace and freedom in Burma.
www.thebestfriend.org

Breaking the Silence : Burma's Resistance - Trailer from Productions InformAction on Vimeo.

The Burmese military government announced that elections will be held on Sunday, 07. November 2010 - one week before Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest.
Most critics say the elections are a sham anyway and designed only to cement military rule in Burma.
Electoral laws banned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and 2200 political prisoners from taking part. The 2008 constitution preserves 25% of the seats in parliament for the military and a 3/4 majority is needed for any constitutional change.
UN, US and UK slam Burma elections.

Read more...

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT
NOT TO VOTE!

A wave of dissent-activists start campaign opposing elections
Generation Wave, a group of young Burmese activists, start a campaign to boycott 'unfair and undemocratic' 2010 elections in central Rangoon.

Read more...

To read the article by Tom Spender about Generation Wave click on photo below.

8.8.2010, Embassy of Myanmar, Berlin

2010-08-09T01:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday, August 8. 2010, Berlin
About 50 people are gathering in front of the Embassy of Myanmar/Burma in Berlin suburb 'Dahlem'.
The embassy is situated at the corner of Thielallee/Bitterstraße.
The street sign 'Bitterstraße' in front of the embassy building that used to be a veterinarian practice before is a perfect description of the Burmese circumstances. It is just too bitter to commemorate the 8.8.88 pro-democracy uprising 22 years ago when an estimated 3000 civilians had been gunned down my the military.
Still after all these years there is no change in sight.
Aung San Suu Kyi, to be seen on many of the banners, is still under house arrest, and more than 2200 political prisoners are the bitter reality of one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world.

Sunday, about 5 am, the first demonstrators mostly Burmese who travel every year from Frankfurt and Cologne are sitting together with some friends from Berlin at the intersection Bitterstraße/Thielallee preparing breakfast.
At around 12.30 pm the demonstration officially begins. For the next three hours the activists demand to free their elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as all political prisoners. They shout slogans against the walls of an seemingly abandoned building that reveals it's purpose only by the Myanmar flag in an empty garden.
The only obvious sign that the government of Myanmar is taking notice of what's going on outside is a digital camcorder placed at a window on the second floor to 'shoot' the demonstrators.
It's the last day of the peace-festival that is taking place simultaneously in Berlin, Alexanderplatz.
The name 'Bitterstraße' (engl.: bitter street) represents the way Myanmar is moving on towards... ahm... what?

photos: the borderliner

Thai-Burma Border Closed

2010-08-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

For more than two weeks the border crossing between Mae Sot, Thailand and Myawaddy, Burma has been closed. According to the 'Irrawaddy' a Thailand based news magazine by exile Burmese journalists the order came directly from dictator Gen. Than Shwe who doesn't like very much the current Thai government. Thailand is loosing more than 2 Mio. US dollars per day since the trading business with Burma has come to a halt on July, 17.
There are other speculations about possible motives including pressure on the DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) that lost part of it's troops that defected to the KNLA (Karen National Liberation Army). The defected brigade is joining the KNLA to oppose the Military Junta that is supported by the DKBA. The DKBA and it's leaders allegedly make huge profits being involved in the trading business (both legal and illegal) at the borderline.
For about a year the junta unsuccessfully is trying to turn cease-fire groups along the border into border guard forces (BGF) by setting new deadlines every few months.

Burma Chronicles, Cartoon

2010-08-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

Guy Delisle's 'Burma Chronicles' is a beautiful cartoon about his one year stay in Burma accompanying his wife Nadège who is on a mission with MSF, Doctors Without Borders.

Their two year old son Louis opens a door to the Burmese People and while strolling with his son through the streets of Rangoon, father Guy discovers the country ruled by an oppressive military regime and a sometimes bizarre world of NGOs and expats.

With great humor and detailed observation he dives into a unique south-east Asian culture of a closed country and it's humanitarian and political crisis while keeping his very own perspective and self -irony. Highly recommended - not only for the borderline!

Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle, 2009, 208 pages

Previously released: 'Pyongyang' and 'Shenzhen':
“Like last year’s Pyongyang . . . Shenzhen is a casual, dryly witty series of observations . . . A thoroughly engaging memoir.” —The New York Times Book Review

No Easy Road

2010-07-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

A Burmese Political Prisoner's Story

The story of Thiha Yarzar, a former political prisoner who was jailed for almost 18 years in Burmese prisons.

By Paul Pickrem

READ THE REPORT

19th July, Martyrs' Day

2010-07-19T02:18:00.000-07:00

Rangoon, 19th July, 1947, about six uniformed gun men stormed a cabinet meeting at 'The Secretariat' in downtown Rangoon and opened fire, killing several of Burma's independence leaders including Gen. Aung San, father of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

General Aung San (1915-1947)

Aung San, born 13. February 1915, Burma's national hero fought during WW II with the Japanese against British colonial rule. After their defeat he later allied again with the Commonwealth against the Japanese eventually negotiating independence with the British.

Burma became independent on 4th of January 1948, only six months after the assassination of Aung San.

Martyrs' day is a national holiday in Burma to commemorate the assassination of independent leaders of 1947.

Nobel Peace Price laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, born in 1945, returned to Burma for good in 1988 as she felt responsibility to continue her father's struggle for freedom and democracy.

Aung San Suu Kyi (*19.06.1945)

News Update, July 15.

2010-07-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

U Win Htein Freed From Prison

According to AAPP (Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, Burma), the 69 years old assistant of Aung San Suu Kyi was released from prison after 14 years. Win Htein joined the National League for Democracy

(NLD) when Suu Kyi formed the party in 1988.
(Photo: Irrawaddy)

Gas for Nuclear Program

2010-07-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

According to an investigation by a Paris-based organization the Burmese military government is sidelining billions of dollars from Chefron (USA) and Total (France) to offshore bank accounts for it's nuclear program.

To read the article by Agence France-Press, click here:
ENERGY GIANTS FUND BURMA'S NUCLEAR DRIVE

Junta Afraid Of Monks

2010-07-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

A report on the DVB-website says the Burmese military government is tightening travel regulations for monks.
The article, written by Min Lwin describes how Buddhist monks in Burma are facing restrictions on travel permits allegedly to prevent them from agitating against the elections to be held later this year.

According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPP), 252 monks are currently behind bars in Burma, some serving sentences of more than 70 years.

U Yawana at the 10th anniversary of AAPP
Foto: The Borderliner

Burma Clamps Down On Travelling Monks

Suspension of passports for monks in Burma has begun amid suggestions that the Burmese government is attempting to block the influential community from going abroad in the run-up to elections.

Monks have also complained that the government’s passport issuing board in Rangoon is also refusing to extend nearly-expired passports and implementing restrictions on applications for new ones.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

Dictators Top-Ten

2010-06-29T03:56:00.000-07:00

Dictators 2009!
Burma's Than Shwe ranks 'only' as No. 3 of
The Worst Of The Worst
in 2009.
See ranking HERE

Another top 10, with Than Shwe as No. 4, click HERE

Buy our T-Shirt and support ExPP-ACT: HERE

Peace Walk Berlin, 2010

2010-06-27T02:53:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 26, June a group of about 35 people walked with the Burmese monks Ashin Kovida and Ashin Sopaka in Berlin from the central station to the 'Brandenburger Tor'. The weather was beautiful and the policeman who walked with us became part of the family-like demonstration.
The peace walk ended in front of the Brandenburger Tor with the recitation of the 'Metta-Sutta', a Buddhist chanting for peace and loving kindness.

20.000 Trees For Aung San Suu Kyi's 65. Birthday

2010-06-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

On June 19, 2010
Aung San Suu Kyi's 65th Birthday will be celebrated inside Burma as well as in many countries around the globe.

To honor their detained leader's birthday people in Burma are going to plant 20.000 trees in 386 townships.

Members of her dissolved party the NLD said, they will give financial support to children of political prisoners.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent almost 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest. She and an estimated 2200 political prisoners inside Burma are denied to participate in this years 'sham elections' set up by the junta in an attempt to legitimize military rule, as critics say.

Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of national hero Aung San, who negotiated independence from British rule, is fighting peacefully for democracy and human rights in Burma since 1988. Father Aung San was assassinated in 1947 half a year before Burma became independent. Her mother, Daw Khin Kyi was the only female ambassador of Burma in Dehli, India.

Aung San Suu Kyi got married to a British national Dr. Michael Aris in 1972 with whom she has two children, Alexander, born in 1973 and Kim, born in 1977. After her Oxford education she has been working for the UN in New York and for the Ministry of foreign affairs in the Kingdom of Butan.

Since the coup d'Etat in 1962, General Ne Win was ruling the country. 1974 Burma's military government declares martial law and Ne Win becomes president of the Socialist Republic of Burma.
Under Ne Win's leadership the country steadily deteriorates .

In 1988 Aung San Suu Kyi returns to Burma to tend her ailing mother. The same year on 8.8.88, Burma's infamous date in it's history hundreds of thousands protesters peacefully demand democracy for Burma and the end of military rule. The army kills thousands of protesters.

Aung San Suu Kyi takes a leading role in the movement for democracy and never leaves the country again. A few years later the military junta rejects Visa applications by her husband and children. After 1995 they are not allowed to see her again. Her husband dies of cancer in 1999.

After the violent crack down on peaceful protesters in 1988 the military government announces free elections in May 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) despite her being under house arrest wins 80% or 392 out of 485 seats in Parliament. The junta refuses to hand over power and numerous key organizers of the NLD and most elected Members of Parliament were arrested.

In Juli 10, 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi is awarded the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought by the European Parliament and receives the Nobel Peace Price on October 14, 1991.

An United Nations Commission on Human Rights report, published in1996 documents torture and forced labor in Burma.

Nowadays the military dictatorship with an estimated 400.000 troops is fighting a war against it's own people. Forced labor and forced relocation, torture, rape and landmines are systematically used to oppress a population of about 54 million people including many ethnic minorities. An estimated 70.000 child soldiers were forcefully recruited. These are just a few examples of human rights violations by the military junta that spends 40-50% of the annual budget for the troops and less than 2% for health care and education.

In 2003, after Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest and traveling through the country her motorcade was attacked by a government-sponsored mob in an attempt to assassin her and at least 70 of her followers were killed. After this event known as the Depayin Massacre she was first jailed in Insein prison and then put under house arrest again, for 'her own safety'.

Worldwide protests are staged outside Burmese embassies in recognition of Aung San Suu Kyi's 60th birthday in 2005.

The same year the military regime moves it's seat of government to a new built town, Naypyidaw, some 300 km north of Rangoon.
The paranoid dictator Gen Than Shwe is trying to hide from the public eye and fears an attack from foreign countries but also from it's own people.
According to new allegations from the DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) an exile TV channel broadcasting from Oslo, Norway, presented in a documentary on Al Jazeera, the Burmese military junta is trying to build a nuclear bomb and is building tunnel systems throughout the country.

The last major uprising inside Burma occurred in September 2007, when after the government raised fuel prices up to 500%, thousands of monks went on the streets to protest against a reckless regime causing people's tremendous suffering. The 2009 Oscar nominated documentary BURMA VJ, tells the story of the so-called 'Saffron Revolution' using footage taken by undercover video journalists and smuggled out of the country.

In April 2008 the junta proposed a new constitution and despite the devastating Cyclone Nargis on May 8, that killed some 140.000 people and affected another 2.5 million people living in the Irrawaddy-delta the government neglected any disaster relief, pushed the referendum and proclaimed that 92% voted for it.

In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis international help was rejected for weeks and local relief workers and famous volunteers like the comedian Zarganar who organized humanitarian aid were imprisoned.

Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest was extended in 2009 by another 18 months after an American swam to here lakeside house. According to the electoral laws published in March 2010 she is not allowed to participate in the 2010 elections which are believed to be held before the end of her house arrest in November this year.

Aung San Suu Kyi, born on June 19, 1945 is going to celebrate her 65th birthday tomorrow while in detention in her house in Rangoon.
Her colleague and lawyer, Nyan Win who is a spokesperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD), said, “We always hope she can celebrate her birthday together with people freely. We are very sorry that we will not have this opportunity.”
(Quote: Irrawaddy)

Members of the Elders group of eminent global leaders pose with an empty chair representing Aung San Suu Kyi.
Photo: Irrawaddy

But the world is celebrating with her while she is spending that day for the 15th time alone at her house in Rangoon.
May 20.000 trees grow as a living symbol of her freedom and the freedom of Burma.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE LADY!

FREE AUNG SAN SUU KYI

AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!

FREE BURMA!

Burma's Elections, 2010

2010-06-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

Burma's electoral laws published for the first time on March 8, this year reveal some interesting points.
Although the regime hasn't set a date for the elections yet, parties closely connected with the junta started campaigning already.
The electoral laws ban people who serve a prison term i.e. all those political prisoners incarcerated by the junta for opposing the undemocratic military government are excluded from participation in a democratic process. Furthermore it says that registered political parties are not allowed to publish papers that criticize or oppose the current government.
According to the 2008 constitution 25% of the parliament seats are reserved for the military. In May more than 20 high ranking generals resigned from the army to contest as 'civilians' in the 2010 polls, the first elections since 1990. The NLD (National League for Democracy) who won the 1990 elections in a landslide and was never allowed to take over.
It's leader Aung San Suu Kyi and many elected members of parliament were arrested, other fled into neighboring Thailand. The 2010 electoral laws forced the NLD either to expel it's leader Aung San Suu Kyi or face dissolution and was eventually dissolved in May 2010.

Most registered parties are not yet allowed to campaign for the elections since they have to prove a certain number of members to the Election Commission (EC) or lack financial means to do so. Besides that, they struggle with the fact that there is no date yet announced for the elections. The only thing the government announced already is that it won't allow international monitoring of the polls.

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2010-06-16T01:32:00.000-07:00

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Back:

Peace in Burma, now!
(Burmese font)

The Junta Is Hunting DVB-Reporters

2010-06-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

Since the broadcasting of the DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) documentary on Al Jazeera about Burma's nuclear ambitions many higher ranking soldiers and suspected DVB reporters inside Burma are under surveillance. Under cover Military Intelligence (MI) pretending to have more information are trying to contact suspected DVB-reporters. There are about 120 undercover DVB-reporters inside Burma risking their lives smuggling information out of the country. Norway based DVB is broadcasting news via satellite into Burma. The documentary 'Burma VJ' (Burma Video Journalists) is based on footage taken by young, brave VJs during the 'Saffron Revolution' in 2007.
DVB in Thailand is running news agencies in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Mae Sot.
The military junta is denying any nuclear program and calls the allegations political motivated to disturb the elections expected at some point later this year.

Election laws published by the junta in March 2010 ban all politicians who "serve a prison term or are the spouse of a foreigner" aiming at Nobel Peace Price laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was married with a British national, Michael Aris who died in 1999. Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to another 18 months under house arrest after an American, John Yattawa succeeded to enter her property illegally in May 2009.
Some observers expect elections being held on the 10. October 2010. Dictator Than Shwe, General No. 1 is known to be extremely superstitious and many believe he chose the date 10.10.10 for elections - a "sham" as called by many critics.
They believe the elections are being held only to legitimize the military government.
According to the election laws, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the NLD (National League for Democracy) was dissolved in May this year.
Aung San Suu Kyi who spent 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest is going to celebrate her 65th birthday on June 19, detained in her house in Rangoon.

Aung San Suu Kyi,
born June 19, 1945
Photo: Irrawaddy

Burma's Nuclear Ambitions

2010-06-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) a Norway based TV channel broadcast a documentary on Al Jazeera last Friday which investigates Burma's nuclear ambitions and it's links to North Korea.

A Burmese military defector, Maj Sai Thein Win who fled into Thailand early this year delivered some interesting allegations against the Burmese military junta and it's alleged nuclear program.

The Documentary will be broadcast on Al Jazeera from Friday the 4th June at the following times:

GMT Friday: 0600; Saturday: 1900; Sunday: 0300; Monday:1400; Tuesday: 0530; Wednesday: 1900; Thursday: 0300.

Or watch on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/12396084

About The Film

In a new investigative documentary produced by DVB we have discovered that Burma’s ruling generals have started a program to build nuclear weapons. It has long been suspected that Burma has been pursuing a nuclear programme but now, for the first time, DVB provides evidence of how, where and why they are pursuing this goal.

With a combination of high quality colour photographs taken from the military’s own top secret files, expert analysis and witness accounts DVB’s documentary exclusively reveals the detailed nature of the regime’s intent. The huge amount of evidence collected by DVB over the last 5 years also reveals that the ruling junta are trying to develop long-range missiles and digging themselves in with a series of military bunkers.

Experts agree Burma is a long way from achieving its goals. But many believe that with its stated intent to one day acquire nuclear weapons its ambitions should be taken seriously.

This groundbreaking information reveals the paranoia of Burma’s ruling generals and gives us a glimpse into the minds of the Burmese military. Elections later this year are aimed at convincing the world Burma are moving towards democracy, but in reality, fearing attack from the United States and an uprising by their own people, Burma is trying to become the next nuclear- armed North Korea.

(source: DVB)

for further information see:

http://www.dvb.no/burmas-nuclear-ambitions

BURMA VJ Screenings

2010-06-06T03:01:00.000-07:00

Film Screening in Chiang Mai, Thailand:

Saturday 12 June: "Burma VJ" screening followed by discussion at Alliance Francaise, 7:30 p.m.

Film Screening in Berlin, Germany:

Filmvorführung und anschließende Diskussion mit dem burmesischen Mönch Ashin Sopaka

Freitag, 25. Juni 2010, 19:30 Uhr

Der preisgekrönte Dokumentarfilm Burma VJ zeigt mit eindrucksvollen Bildern, wie couragierte Videojournalisten während der Mönchsaufstände 2007 in Burma unter Lebensgefahr mit kleinen Handkameras von der Gewalt auf den Straßen berichten und die Aufnahmen außer Lands schmuggelten.

Ort: KUB (Kontakt- und Beratungsstelle für Flüchtlinge und MigrantInnen e.V.)
Oranienstr. 159 (4. Stock), 10969 Berlin,
(U-Bahn: U8 Moritzplatz, Bus: M29 Moritzplatz)

Eintritt frei (Spende erwünscht)

About The Saffron Revolution (1)

2010-06-03T00:58:00.000-07:00

U Gambira, (now 30) a monk and a leading figure in the so-called 'Saffron Revolution' in Sept. 2007 sentenced to 63 years.

Perhaps the most emblematic of the monks was 28-year-old U Gambira (a pseudonym for U Sandawbartha). He was one of the most visible and outspoken young monks leading the demonstrations [...]. He went underground following the crackdown but was hunted down and arrested in Burma’s northwestern Sagaing Division on November 4, 2007. His father was arrested on the day U Gambira was caught and held for one month in Mandalay prison.

On the day of his arrest, the Washington Post published an article by U Gambira in which he said:

The regime’s use of mass arrests, murder, torture, and imprisonment has failed to extinguish our desire for the freedom that was stolen from us. We have taken their best punch. Now it is the generals who must fear the consequences of their actions. We adhere to nonviolence, but our spine is made of steel. There is no turning back. It matters little if my life or the lives of colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey. Others will fill our sandals, and more will join and follow.

Following his arrest, U Gambira was badly tortured and stripped of his monk’s robes. As a result of his torture, he is reported to be in poor health. On March 14, 2008, U Gambira, who refused to accept that he had been disrobed, was placed in solitary confinement, apparently as a punishment for his role in instigating the chanting of Buddhist suttas while inside Insein prison.

On October 1, 2008, U Gambira’s lawyer, Aung Thein, resigned from the case, saying that the military government had not allowed him to prepare a proper defense. U Gambira went on trial that day, charged with nine separate criminal offenses. He was sentenced in November to 68 years in prison and soon transferred to a labor camp in Burma’s western Sagaing Division. His sentence was reduced by five years in early 2009, to a total of 63 years.

The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) (AAPPB) reported that at least seven monks who had been detained after the crackdown were in poor health, including U Gambira.

U Viccita said that the monks who were not arrested “went underground to evade arrest.” He continued:

For us, it was not politics, but a question of religion. We just went out into the streets to recite metta sutta, loving kindness. We did not advocate violence to overthrow the government, but we wanted an apology for what happened in Pakokku. We wanted the government to have a better policy for the people. So we decided to boycott the junta with our bowls turned upside-down. That’s called patta nikkujjana kamma. We did not accept food, medicines or anything from the authorities. That’s the only way we can fight for our rights. This has nothing to do with politics. The same thing happened during the time of the Buddha when there was a bad king, an evil king, who hurt the monks and the people. At that time, the monks also protested. But then the king had to apologize, and it was all over. But this junta refused to apologize. That was why we continued our protests. And they are continuing—we are still opposed to the junta, but we can’t fight against men with guns. We’re biding our time. But we are not afraid to protest again.

(source: Human Rights Watch, http://www.hrw.org/en/node/85644/section/9)

Peace Walk Berlin, 2010

2010-05-31T02:50:00.000-07:00

On 26. June 2010, a Peace Walk
with Ashin Sopaka, a Burmese monk will be held in Berlin.
Start: 14.00 at Washingtonplatz, Hauptbahnhof
End: Brandenburger Tor

For further information see:
http://www.thebestfriend.org/friedenslauf-in-berlin/

Depayin Massacre, 7th Anniversary

2010-05-31T01:10:00.000-07:00

On May 30th 2003, in an attempt to assassinate Aung San Suu Kyi a government-sponsored mob in Burma kills at least 70 people associated with her party, the NLD in what is called the Depayin Massacre.
While being on a tour through Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade is attacked by the mob wielding wooden bats, iron bars, and pointed iron rods. She is brought back to Rangoon, where she is placed in Insein Prison. Several weeks later Aung San Suu Kyi is moved from Insein Prison to house arrest, where she remains ever since.
(source: The Voice of Hope by A. Clements)

To commemorate this event a meeting was held on 30. May, 2010 in Mae Sot at the Rujira Hotel attended by former political prisoners, activists and friends.

Monks blessing democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi
(Photo: The Borderliner)

Peace Walk Mae Sot, 2010

2010-05-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

Mae Sot, 30. May 2010, a peace walk organized by 'The Best Friend' and others was held to raise awareness of the ever increasing importance of peace on earth. Approximately 200 people and representatives from many countries, monks as well as lay people took part in the annual event in Mae Sot. Starting in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Mae Sot the peace walk attracted people from all walks of live. Although many Burmese did not dare to show up because they were frightened by an anonymous counter campaign that said, Burmese people who attend the peace walk will get arrested by the Thai police and deported back to Burma.

In fact, that day the Thai police, since it was an officially approved demonstration was surprisingly friendly and helpful, maybe also because international reporters, a camera team from the DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma, an exile TV channel based in Norway) as well as Thai military intelligence were present.

The demonstration culminated in a gathering with speeches held by nuns and monks from Burma, Sri Lanka, Japan, Russia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Laos and several foreign lay persons who all called for peace in Burma but also in Thailand and the rest of the world.

"May peace pervade the hearts of all human beings, may peace prevail on earth", is one of the main affirmations stated by Buddhist monks that day.

The next Peace Walk for Burma will be in Berlin, Germany on 26, June 2010, starting 2pm at Washingtonplatz (Hauptbahnhof). For more details see: http://www.thebestfriend.org/friedenslauf-in-berlin/

All photos: The Borderliner

People gathering...

...in front of UNHCR headquarter

walking through Mae Sot

into the park

...where the final speeches were held.

20th anniversary of Burma's last elections

2010-05-28T03:53:00.000-07:00

20th Anniversary

May 27th, 2010, the 20th anniversary of the last elections held in Burma. In this elections, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won more than 80% of the seats in parliament but the military junta, ruling the country since 1962, refused to hand over power.
Following these elections many elected members of parliament were arrested, others fled into neighboring Thailand and Aung San Suu Kyi is being held under house arrest or imprisoned for most of the last 20 years.
Her party, the NLD was dissolved on 6. May 2010 after failing to register for upcoming elections later this year. Under the new election law the party would have been forced to expel her leader in order to participate in the polls.
The NLD calls the election "unjust and unfair" unless all political prisoners are released and be able to take part in democratic and inclusive elections.
Under election legislation unveiled in March, anyone serving a prison term is banned from being a member of a political party and parties that fail to obey the rule will be abolished.

The anniversary was celebrated by exile Burmese in Mae Sot as well as in Rangoon at the house of Tin Oo, a senior member of the NLD and by Burmese exile groups through out the world.

QUOTABLE
	"Ever since the military regime lost in the 1990 elections, they have been trying to violently sideline the NLD." —Win Tin, executive member of the NLD

PM Brown's Last Letter Was to Suu Kyi
By The Irrawaddy

The last letters that Britain's former prime minister, Gordon Brown, wrote from No.10 were to Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi, reported a British political magazine on Thursday.

Britain's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown
In a personal handwritten letter to Burmese opposition leader Suu Kyi, Gordon Brown wrote: “This is one of the last letters I write as Prime Minister and I want it to be to you, to champion your cause for democracy in Burma and to say I will do everything I can to support you. You are, for me, what courage is and I will fight for you to be free and your people [to be] free.”

Both South Africa's national hero, Nelson Mandela, and detained Burma's pro-democracy icon Suu Kyi, are "two prisoners of conscience and two people who have inspired him hugely," New Statesman magazine Web site reported, quoting a friend of the former prime minister.

source: irrawaddy.org

burma borderline report, 26. May 2010

2010-05-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

Poor Health Care for Political Prisoners

At least 127 political prisoners are currently in poor health. At least 19 of them are in urgent need of proper medical treatment. Political prisoners’ right to health care is systematically denied by the regime. Burma’s health care system in prisons is completely inadequate, especially in jails in remote areas. There are 44 prisons across Burma, and at least 50 labour camps. Some of them do not have a prison hospital, and at least 12 of the prisons do not even have a prison doctor. The regime’s treatment of political prisoners directly contravenes the 1957 UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) carried out its last prison visit in Burma in November 2005. In January 2006 the ICRC suspended prison visits in the country, as it was not allowed to fulfil its independent, impartial mandate. Since 1988 at least 139 political prisoners have died in detention, as a direct result of severe torture, denial of medical treatment, and inadequate medical care. Many, like Htay Lwin Oo, were suffering from curable diseases such as tuberculosis. He died in Mandalay Prison in December 2008. He had been due for release in December this year.

(Source: http://www.aappb.org)

Children Displaced in Eastern Burma

A Karen family camp in the jungle after fleeing their village. (Photo FBR)

More than 580,000 civilians—including more than 190,000 children—were forcibly displaced from their homes in eastern Burma from 2002 to the end of 2009, according to a joint report titled “Displaced Childhoods” released by the Free Burma Rangers and Partners. The report said an estimated 1 to 3 million people, a third of whom are children, live as internally displaced persons throughout Burma. In 2009 alone, about 112,000 villagers in eastern Burma were displaced due to direct or indirect actions by the Burmese regime, according to the report.

Five Years Added to Student Leader's Sentence

Kyaw Ko Ko made three dramatic escapes, but his luck finally ran out in 2008, when Burmese authorities arrested him for his role in the 2007 Saffron Revolution and he was sentenced to three years in prison for possessing illegal videos.

On Friday, with his first sentence set to expire in one year, the junta tacked on an additional five years for illegal association and subversion.

Kyaw Ko Ko delivers a speech to students in Rangoon during the 2007 Saffron Revolution.

Rahul Kyaw Kyaw Maung, alias Kyaw Ko Ko, 28, is the son of school teachers in Rangoon's Tamwe township. In 2006, he was in Rangoon studying for his masters degree in economics when he was recruited by former political prisoners to engage in political activities.

“Though he received some influence from other individuals, he himself is well-read, calm and disciplined,” recalled a political activist who met Kyaw Ko Ko a few years ago.

Read whole article:

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18554

thai-burma borderline report, 23. May 2010

2010-05-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

(Photo found on Twitter)

Bangkok Riots Aftermath

The last week was a week of intense worries, sadness and news broadcasting for many comparable to the 9/11 attacks and it's turmoil in the world of media and online social networks .
According to the Bangkok Post since 10. April, 87 people died and 1402 were injured during the red shirt protests in the center of Thailand's capital.
37 buildings including Central World, one of the biggest shopping malls in south-east Asia (which was originally called 'World Trade Center' and renamed by it's owner after 9/11 to prevent it from bad fortune) and Siam Theater, a famous cinema were torched after red shirt leaders surrendered and disappointed, angry protesters ran amok. Western media like CNN and BBC were labeled by local journalists as biased, ill-informed and sensational. On the other hand local newspapers like the Bangkok Post and The Nation, both published in English, and a TV-channel were attacked by red shirt protesters who felt their reports were one-sided and in favour of the government.
Fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin who denies until now being the leader of the red shirts called on the UN to intervene because of alleged human rights violations by the government.
(see also links below)

Prime Minister Abhisit vowed to follow his five point reconciliation plan and promised full investigation on the last weeks events including the killing of six people inside a temple in downtown Bangkok.

Some observers regard the events of the last two months as a warning for all developing Asian countries having huge gaps between the rich and the poor. Isn't it more like another warning for the entire world?

And Burma...?

Interestingly, the Burmese state media (TV and newspapers) did not report or even comment on the recent events in neighboring Thailand.

The reason can't be, that due to massive power and water shortages the Burmese state -run TV stations have problems to operate properly. Although the first monsoon rains poured down a few days ago after many weeks of dangerous droughts due to unusual high temperatures power and water in Rangoon is often only available for a few hours a day. Burma is suffering from one of the strongest droughts in many years leaving hundreds of villages without water. Volunteer groups organize water donations and once more the government is showing no interest in addressing the problem.
Most electricity produced in Burma is exported to China. The largest hydroelectric dam in Asia is under construction in northern Burma - by a Chinese firm and Chinese workers. The entire power produced will go to China as well, while most of Burma has no electricity at all.

The energy industry as well as pipeline construction and power supply etc. lies entirely in the hands of the generals or their family members. But even this is changing now since more than 20 high ranking generals resigned to become civilians or better military backed politicians in "civilian" uniforms.

Once again and not very convincing the EU and the US have called on the Burmese military junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all 2200 political prisoners and allow them to participate in the elections to be held later this year and to fully recognize ethnic minorities' rights.

Rangoon at night: In the center the famous Shwedagon Pagoda with it's own generator, but most of the city without power.

(Photo: The Irrawaddy)

Found on youtube:

Thaksin and the red shirts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBDm-jA3N80
Thaksin's human rights violations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VLjWKpzjOM

"Only a collective awakening can produce a change"

Thich Nhat Hanh

only a collective awakening can produce a change

2010-05-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

different views - different perspectives

Michel Stipe of REM on Burma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zMDohGoz-0&feature=channel

Thich Nhat Hnan on Burma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiij_nUP-Iw&feature=channel

Tila Tequila on Burma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK8inPfHg_0&feature=channel

burma borderline report, 16. May 2010

2010-05-16T03:10:00.000-07:00

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929-1968

Although focusing on Burma and the borderline, the current events in Thailand's capital continue to be subject of the borderline report to draw a picture of the region it's power games, it's bottomless corruption and it's struggle for peace, democracy and human rights.
But in the end, it it just the same human tragedy, that goes on and on everywhere around the globe...and there is always someone who makes a huge profit out of it.

While parts of Bangkok are declared as war zones, 35 people were killed since last Thursday and hundreds wounded, the power game behind the scenes continues and again it's the ordinary people who risk their lives, being abused (in this case most likely) by fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, mastermind of the unrest, who is pulling the strings from abroad in an attempt to regain power in the kingdom. His family left the country on Friday, 14 May for Singapore. The rats are leaving the sinking ship?

Again, it's about power, it's about money, it's about greed and revenge and all the sickness that rules the world throughout history - and we call it civilization.

At the same time, Thai police raid garment factories in Mae Sot and arrest more than 750 illegal Burmese workers and up to 5000 illegal immigrants gone into hiding along the Mae Sot borderline.
Thaksin who is facing a two years prison sentence for corruption had strong ties with the Burmese military junta. In many respects he resembles more a Burmese dictator rather than a self-declared "freedom fighter" who struggles for the rights of the poor and for democracy in Thailand. From his current home in Montenegro, he keeps on agitating the so-called Red-shirts who just rejected offers by the government for new elections in November this year as demanded by them for weeks.

At the same time, the Burmese military junta is rejecting international monitoring for the upcoming elections that are said to be held sometime later this year. More people get arrested who criticize the regime or are accused to be "terrorists", more are detained, jailed, tortured.
At the same time, allegedly "terrorists" mingled with peaceful protesters in Bangkok using war weapons to spread terror and chaos. Unidentified snipers shot Seh Daeng, a strategic Red-shirt leader in the head while he was giving interviews to international journalists.

And so, the story sadly goes on ...

"Thousands of years of so-called civilization and man hasn't learned yet to love."
(a quote from a Woody Allen film)

In South East Asia, the majority call themselves Buddhists, and they have a form of meditation called 'Metta Meditation' or 'Loving-Kindness Meditation'. It is all about well wishing for oneself and for others, sending out love, compassion, joy and happiness to all sentient beings:

May all beings be happy. May all beings be at ease. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be free from hatred, anger, ill-will and animosity. May all their hearts be filled with love and joy.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the famous Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Price nominee writes in his book 'Teachings On Love':

"The moment we give rise to the desire for all beings to be happy and at peace, the energy of love arises in our mind, and all our feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are permeated by love; in fact, they become love."

May this help to change the world!?
Greetings from the borderline

Thich Nhat Hanh on Burma:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiij_nUP-Iw&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74o9P6G2y18&feature=related

Picture: FWBO - Head of Amitabha Buddha

burma borderline report, 07. May 2010

2010-05-07T05:44:00.000-07:00

Tak province, Thailand

A Thai government official recently said in a radio interview with the BBC- Burmese Service that all 140.000 plus Burmese refugees residing in Thailand's camps will be send back after elections in Burma later this year. This statement hasn't been confirmed though.

Some 50 ex-political prisoners living in Thailand send a petition to the UNHCR in Geneva explaining the thread for their lives and their families. In case of deportation the ex-political prisoners will have to face re-arrest and long prison terms or even death sentence.

The Burmese military junta announced elections for this year without giving a date. The new election law bans all opposition leaders who were incarcerated by the Burmese regime including detained Aung San Suu Kyi the leader of the opposition party NLD (National League for Democracy) who spent alreday14 of the last 20 years under house arrest.

It seems quite obvious that the military government is using sham elections to legitimize it's suppressive and abusive regime.

According to electoral laws the NLD was dissolved on 6. May 2010 as it refused to register for this year's elections saying they are unfair and undemocratic.

Burma

The Burmese exile news magazine 'The Irrawaddy' states:

A former leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) who plans to form a new political party to contest in the coming election said the party will ally with other pro-democracy and ethnic parties to shape the pro-democracy movement.

“Our unfinished duty is to bring peace, democracy and development to the people of Burma,” said Than Nyein, a former NLD executive member and a leader of a new party called National Democratic Force (NDF). “For the cause, we will work together with other political parties including ethnic parties after we form the National Democratic Force (NDF) party.”

Than Nyein said the NDF would not rush to ally with other political groups until it had studied the nature of the campaign and the political parties.

“Our party would also avoid to contest in ethnic areas in favor of the rights of ethnic political parties to manage their affairs,” Than Nyein told The Irrawaddy on Friday. “Like the democracy issue, ethnic issues are also important for us.”

Civil War Break Out?

Within the last two weeks several thousand people from Burma fled into Thailand after the first fighting occurred between government troops and ceasefire groups of ethnic minorities living at the border with Thailand. The Burmese government and ethnic minorities like the Karen are fighting a civil war for almost 60 years.

Death Sentence Plus 20 Years

2010-04-30T02:34:00.000-07:00

Dr Tun Thu and the 1989 Rangoon Bombings

Rangoon, Thanlyin-township, 7^th July 1989, a parcel bomb explodes at the BOC (British Oil Corporation, now MOC-Myanmar Oil Corp.) intended to kill the director of the factory, a leading member of the military junta but hit his son and a worker - both die.

Rangoon, downtown, 9^th July, another bomb explodes at the city hall, leaving one person dead and two police men injured.

Dr Tun Thu (34 yrs) a medical doctor and township-party organizer of the NLD (National League for Democracy) and three students, Nyi Nyi Oo (20), Than Zaw (23) and Moe Kyaw Thu (16) are caught the following week on 15^th July. All four are beaten and tortured to confess the bombings. Although they deny the accusations and no evidence can be produced the three students are sentenced to death, two of them plus 20 years. Dr Tun Thu and another 14 suspects are sentenced to 20 years.

Ko Ko Naing an explosive expert who finally gets arrested for the city hall bombing and sentenced to death also confesses to be responsible for the BOC parcel-bombing.

Nevertheless 21 years later, Nyi Nyi Oo (now 41, in Taungoo prison since August 1989) ) and Than Zaw (now 44, in Thayit prison) are still being held behind bars although innocent. Their death sentence was commuted into 20 years and the additional 20 years into ten, which sums up to 30 years - for being a friend of Dr Tun Thu. In the mean time Dr. Tun Thu and Moe Kyaw Thu were released. Ko Ko Naing was set free as well.

For the junta, being involved in the democracy movement is reason enough to charge innocent people at any given occasion just to get them off the scene. They arrest or release without any given reason.

Dr Tun Thu (55), now living at the borderline in Mae Sod, was working for the local Mae Tao clinic as a general practitioner until last year, when he lost his mind probably suffering from a so-called post traumatic stress disorder which he is treating with a few bottles of Thai-whiskey per day.

burma borderline report, 29th April, 2010

2010-04-29T00:08:00.000-07:00

Burma Borderline Report from 29. April 2010:

Thailand, Bangkok

More protests and more people die on the streets of Bangkok. There is no end in sight and even the King's speech a few days ago did not help to calm the chaotic situation as his intervening did in previous cases. According to some observers Thailand may move into civil war if no solution will be found soon.
In different parts of the country protesters blocked main roads and railways to Bangkok to stop troops and police units to get into the capital. A crack down of the protests by the military is expected every day.
Thai security forces and anti-government protesters clashed on the outskirts of Bangkok, with troops firing both over and then directly into a crowd. At least 10 protesters and one soldier were wounded. According to the latest news one soldier was shot in the head.
So far 26 people died and almost 1000 were injured since the Bangkok blockade by the 'red shirts' started about seven weeks ago.
For the western world it is hard to believe, that the main director of the turmoil in Thailand is fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin who finances the protest and agitates the 'redshirts' via video-calls from his apartment in Dubai. Thaksin who was sentenced in absentia to two years for corruption and misuse of his power as PM knows how to manipulate. In a populist manner he agitates the people, mostly poor and from rural areas to occupy downtown Bangkok and create chaos for more than six weeks.

Burma

Photo: Irrawaddy

More than 20 high ranking military officials resigned and will participate in this year's elections as "civilians".
Since the 2008 constitution reserves 25% of the seats in parliament for the military their resignation is widely believed as another move to strengthen the military power in civilian disguise.

In Tacheleik, a Burmese border town in the north, commodity prices increased up to 100% due to expected attacks by the junta. People buy on stock because they fear supply difficulties in case of war in northern Shan-state.

Further down south in Mon-state some 400 villagers had fled to the Hlokhani Mon refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border. The New Mon State Party is making preparations in case war breaks out.

Although many ethnic minorities along the border had ceasefire agreements with the junta they refuse to be commuted into border guard forces (BGF) under the rule of a military government that did not acknowledge them in their 2008 constitution. The constitution was set up during the aftermath of cyclone Nargis in 2008 in a sham referendum. The military government was more interested in it's referendum than helping it's own civilians in the country's worst natural catastrophe that killed more than 140 000 people.

Hla Hla Win, video reporter for the Norway-based TV-channel DVB ( Democratic Voice of Burma) was sentenced to 27 years in jail. 20 years for violating the Electronics Act and Video Act and another seven years for riding an unlicensed motorbike.

Free Burma's pro-democracy prisoners - SIGN CAMPAIGN!

2010-04-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Price in 1991

Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest and 2,100 plus pro democracy monks and activists are being held in inhumane conditions in Burmese prisons.
Their crime: peacefully calling for democracy.

Go to the link below to sign a petition to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to call for their release.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/free_burma_political_prisoners/?cl=198756469&v=3010

For more information please see:

http://www.fbppn.net/?page_id=582

prison identification card

the revolution of consciousness

2010-04-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

The Revolution of Consciousness

We were seeing how very important it is to bring about in the human mind the radical revolution. The crisis is a crisis in consciousness. A crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions and considering, what the world is now with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression and so on, man is still as he was, is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive and he has built a society along these lines.

J. Krishnamurti

the voice they cannot silence

2010-04-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

Win Tin, jailed for 19 years, takes a defiant stand by posing with the name of Burma's most famous political prisoner written on his hand.
Photo, James Mckay

The following article was published on April 24, 2010 in "The Independent":

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-voice-they-cannot-silence-the-freedom-fighter-who-dares-to-defy-the-burmese-regime-1950353.html

The voice they cannot silence: The freedom fighter who dares to defy the Burmese regime

For more than 20 years, the plight of Burma's political prisoners has shocked the world. Now, their struggle for freedom has been documented in a brave new project

Report by Andrew Buncombe

Saturday, 24 April 2010

Win Tin, jailed for 19 years, takes a defiant stand by posing with the name of Burma's most famous political prisoner written on his hand

For some of the political prisoners held in Burma's wretched jails, the hardest thing to bear is the pain and horror of being physically tortured. For others, held away from fellow inmates, it is the isolation and the creeping sense of despair. Some think about their families, others about the seemingly hopeless cause for which they fought. For the relatives and friends of those incarcerated, there is the struggle of trying to make regular visits and the constant, aching worry as to whether a loved one will ever be freed.

Win Tin, a senior colleague of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, served more than 19 years in jail – almost all of them in solitary confinement – before being released in 2008. "The hardest thing was the separation from other people," says the lively 80-year-old, speaking from his home in Rangoon. The former journalist was routinely beaten, kept in a dog kennel and on one occasion interrogated for five days straight. And yet it was the separation from other people that he now remembers as causing him the greatest distress. He recalls: "Even when I was in hospital I was put in a different room ... You long to have a discussion with your friends. You feel as if you are losing your mind."

Burma's jails are awash with political prisoners. The military authorities that seized power in 1962 dealt harshly with dissidents, but the current junta, which took power in 1988, has jailed increasing numbers of opponents. It has done so when it felt most threatened, most notably after a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 and a democratic election in 1990 – the results of which the junta ignored – and most recently following the so-called Saffron Revolution of September 2007, when tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and demonstrators filled the streets of Burma's cities to demand change. It is impossible to know how many such prisoners are being held, but activists say they currently have details of 2,186.
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The story of the most famous, Aung San Suu Kyi, the enduring 64-year-old Nobel laureate who has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, is of course well known. Some have also heard of Min Ko Naing, the "conqueror of kings", a student leader jailed in 1989 for 15 years only to be sentenced to 65 years after being arrested again in 2007. The jailing of U Gambira, a Buddhist monk sentenced to 68 years for helping organise the Saffron Revolution, likewise received considerable coverage.

Yet the stories of the vast majority are rarely told. "The number of political prisoners has almost doubled to 2,200 – the highest in the past 20 years – since the uprising of 2007," says Haider Kikabhoy, a Burma expert with Amnesty International. "But behind every prisoner, there's a story – these brave individuals represent a collective struggle for freedom for the people of Myanmar."

It was this that motivated James Mackay to embark on the extraordinary, ongoing project that is Even Though I'm Free I am Not. The British activist and documentary photographer has set out to photograph and interview scores of former political prisoners from Burma's jails and, in doing so, draw attention to those still behind bars.

"The idea first developed in my mind while I was in Burma working undercover several months after the Saffron Revolution," says Mackay. The results of his work are nothing less than remarkable. Travelling across Asia, the US, Canada, Japan and Europe, as well as having made several secret trips inside Burma, Mackay is steadily putting together a compelling collection of portraits and testimonies from those who have suffered in the as-yet-unrealised struggle for political freedom. Some of the portraits are simple, others more complex as a result of their composition or backdrop, such as that of Phone Myint Tun, who spent four years in Rangoon's deadly Insein jail and who Mackay photographed standing in front of a crowd of activists demonstrating outside the Burmese Embassy in Tokyo, where the former political prisoner now lives.

So far he has photographed more than 160 former prisoners. What they all share – and which gives the project its title – is an inability to forget either what happened to them, or what is currently happening to those still in jail. To highlight this, Mackay chooses to photograph each of his subjects holding up their right hand and showing their palm – a gesture known in Buddhism as the Abhaya Mudra and done to symbolise fearlessness. On the palm of their hand, each of Mackay's subjects writes the name of a prisoner still being held.

One of the most powerful images – and one which the junta will find incendiary – is that of Win Tin holding up his palm on which has been carefully inscribed the name of Aung San Suu Kyi. The slightly-built, grey-haired man is well aware of the danger he is in for allowing such a photograph to be taken, yet despite spending almost two decades in jail, Win Tin remains the most outspoken critic of the government still at large in Burma. He says he is constantly followed by informers and government agents. For Mackay, slipping into Burma, taking that photograph and evading the security authorities is the high-mark of his career to date.

I first encountered Mackay in January 2009. I was at Bangkok's main bus station catching a ride up to Mae Sot, a town on the border with Burma which has become a centre for many exiled Burmese and activists. It is also the location of many of the refugee camps in which 160,000 Burmese now live. I was going to one of the camps to interview elderly ethnic Karen refugees who had fought for the British against Japan.

Initially, I assumed the tall Westerner asleep in the seat next to mine was a backpacker. But on the eight-hour journey up to Mae Sot, stopping off at a roadside canteen to eat bowls of noodle soup, he detailed his activist work, as well as his efforts to photograph former prisoners.

"The former prisoners have suffered unimaginably horrendous experiences in jail in Burma, yet their resolve, their will and their beliefs cannot be broken no matter what has been thrown at them or is currently being thrown at their colleagues in jail right now," says Mackay. "My inspiration for much of what I now do in my life comes from meeting each and every one of them."

Among the former prisoners he has photographed is Khun Saing, a 59-year-old who now lives in Sheffield, having fled from Burma in 2006 and secured asylum. A former medical student, Khun Saing was jailed on three different occasions for his political activism, serving a total of 13 years. Working in a bakery to support himself, he is still waiting for his wife (who he met and married in a refugee camp in Thailand) and child to join him.

Recalling his seizure, he says, "At the time I was arrested and interrogated I was tortured. That period was very hard. I had to answer so many questions. The problem was that if I said the wrong thing my colleagues on the outside would be in danger. Also, some of the torture was so painful. It's not so much about the pain but some of it was very degrading and inhumane."

Khun Saing says he eventually left Burma at the pleading of his mother, who had struggled to visit him every month in jail. (It is common practice for the Burmese authorities to hold political prisoners in jails far from their homes, making it harder for relatives to visit.) "She said if you cannot stay away from politics, please leave the country. I will at least have peace of mind."

Bo Kyi, another former prisoner who now lives in Thailand, was jailed twice – firstly for demonstrating for the release of jailed students and the second time after he refused the junta's "offer" to become an informer. He remembers being shackled in chains. The guards then ordered him to exercise. Barely able to move, he was then beaten for failing to perform their demands.

Jailed for a total of seven years, Bo Kyi taught himself to speak and write English, hiding his furtively secured paper and pencil from the guards. After escaping to Thailand, he now runs the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, which helps those who have served time in jail and campaigns for those still behind bars.

He remains insistent that Burma cannot have a peaceful future until those prisoners have secured their freedom. He says an election planned for later this year and condemned by campaigners as simply a means of further cementing the military's position will not help. "The election has no credibility without Aung San Suu Kyi and the release of all the political prisoners," he says. "The people in Burma want to choose their own leaders."

The junta has tried to pitch the election to the international community as a step on the path towards full democracy. But the National League for Democracy (NLD), the main opposition party headed by Aung San Suu Kyi and of which Win Tin is a senior leader, has decided to boycott the polls. There is mounting consensus that no fair election can take place with so many prisoners remaining behind bars.

One of those still in jail is Win Htein. An NLD leader, the 70-year-old was first jailed in 1996 for speaking out against torture to foreign journalists. He was released in September 2008, on the same day that Win Tin and six other prisoners were set free. Yet just one day later, Win Htein was re-arrested and taken back to jail. His son, Hsan Htein, who lives in California, believes his father's mistake was to speak to a dissident radio station about the conditions in prison.

Speaking from San Francisco, Hsan Htein, who himself fled Burma more than a decade ago at the insistence of his mother, said his father was being held in Katha jail, hundreds of miles from the family home in Rangoon. Every month, his 59-year-old mother, who is not in good health, embarks on a 24-hour journey each way using train, boat and bus, to visit.

Hsan Htein communicates with his father by letter, though they are not able to talk about the conditions in prison. "He is quite aware of what is happening around Burma," he says of his father. "He is getting the news."

As to the future, Hsan Htein can simply hope against the odds that something will bring about a change in Burma, something that will secure his father's freedom. For all of the country's political prisoners, someone, somewhere is wishing for the same.

For more photographs, see www.enigmaimages.net

Here the link to the article published April 24, 2010 in The Independent:

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-voice-they-cannot-silence-the-freedom-fighter-who-dares-to-defy-the-burmese-regime-1950353.html

All photos by James Mckay

Moe Maung, jailed for 6 years

Win Naing, jailed for 5 years

U Khun Saing, jailed for 13 years

Khin Maung Soe, jailed for 4 years

Thida Htway, jailed for 4 years

Yin Min Oo, jailed for 5 years

Wai Moe, jailed for 5 years

Mone Naing, jailed for 5 years

Htein Lin, jailed for 6 years

Aung Zaw Sha, jailed for 3 years

Daw Nita Yin Yin May, jailed for 3 years

Maw Gyi, jailed for 3 years