At least 40 protesters convicted in secret Myanmar trials

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

BANGKOK (AFP) - At least 40 protesters in Myanmar, including seven Buddhist monks, have been sentenced to prison after secret trials over last year's pro-democracy marches, Amnesty International said Tuesday. In September, Buddhist monks spearheaded the biggest anti-government protests in Yangon in nearly 20 years, but the military regime violently suppressed the movement by opening fire on crowds and beating people in the streets.Officially, more than 3,000 people were arrested during the crackdown.

The junta says the vast majority have been released.But Amnesty said in a statement that at least 700 are still behind bars, and at least 40 of them have been sentenced to prison after secret trials.The rights watchdog said its research found protesters had been convicted "for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly.""Three people were sentenced merely for giving water to monks on the street," the statement said.

The group urged the UN Security Council to pass a resolution reflecting the international community's concerns over the country, after a visit in March by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari yielded no progress on the human rights situation."Rather than comply with the Security Council's appeals, the Myanmar authorities have instead moved to the next phase of their crackdown and suppression of the human rights of the Myanmar people with these sentences," Amnesty said."The Council cannot allow this to continue."

The United Nations estimates that at least 31 people were killed during the crackdown six months ago.In addition to the 700 jailed protesters, Myanmar has another 1,150 political prisoners held prior to the monks' marches in September.Most famous among them is Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize winner who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.

Myanmar Deports Tibetan Activists

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — An ethnic minority group that was pressured by Beijing has deported to China two key Tibetan political activists who were hiding in northern Myanmar, a dissident group said.
The two, who had been hunted by authorities after they fled from China's Yunnan province, were turned over to the Chinese shortly after their capture Sunday, the Kachin News Group said in a press release Monday.
The activists, who were not identified, were captured by the Kachin Independence Organization, or KIO, one of several ethnic minority groups that has signed cease-fire agreements with Myanmar's ruling junta after decades of rebellion.
The Kachin News Group, one of several news agencies based in Thailand that are operated by anti-junta activists, said the two Tibetans were arrested by the KIO in the Myanmar town of Laiza.
The KIO could not immediately be reached for comment.
The KIO exercises some autonomy in areas under its control, and its military wing has been allowed to retain its weapons, but tensions between the Kachin and the central government have been reported in recent years.
China has tightened security in Tibetan areas of Yunnan province following bloody anti-Chinese riots in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.
Myanmar's military government, which has close ties with Beijing, said last week that it opposed any moves to link recent unrest in Tibet with the Beijing Olympics in August. It said the unrest in Tibet was "purely the internal affairs" of China.

Russian Ambassador Opposes UN ‘Presidential Statement’ on Referendum

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

A tentative move by the United States to have a new UN Security Council presidential statement on the Burmese constitutional referendum was met with opposition by the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, on Monday.
Churkin made his remarks on his last day as president of the Security Council, which rotates each month among its 15 members. South Africa takes over the presidency for the month of April starting on Tuesday.

The Russian ambassador indicated that his country, which has the power of veto in the Security Council, would oppose any proposal to issue a new presidential statement in regard to the referendum on a draft constitution in Burma in May.
The Burmese draft constitution is loaded heavily in favor of the military junta, say critics. It would prevent Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy opposition group, from running in the election and does not include safeguards for democracy and ethnic groups.
Referring to the UN Security Council meeting on Burma last month, which was addressed by the UN Special Envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, the Russian ambassador said: “In the course of the consultation, one delegation said that maybe we should have another presidential statement.”
The statement was made by the US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad.
“In fact, the way it was described by the authors of that idea was that the presidential statement should be focused very heavily on the way the referendum is going to be conducted in Myanmar [Burma]: listing some criteria for the success or openness or the democratic nature of that referendum,” Churkin said.
“Responding off the top of my head, I said to the members of the Council that the way I heard this idea, to me it is somewhat improper for the Security Council to go into describing modalities for a referendum or an election because we are not an election board,” he said.
“We are the Security Council; we are dealing with issues of threats to international peace and security,” he said.
Noting that there are other institutions within the UN that can provide recommendations or set criteria for elections, Churkin said: “To involve the Security Council in this kind of exercise, to me, did not sound like something which is justified; not because of the Myanmar situation but as a general proposition of the role of the Security Council and prerogative of the Security Council.”
Churkin noted that there has been no proposal for a presidential statement so far.
“If they were to propose something, we would be looking into it, but I would like to remind you that we do have a Presidential Statement on the Security Council on Myanmar (October 2007), and Gambari’s mandate derives from the General Assembly. So we have to keep those two things in mind when we look at things that could be done by the Security Council,” he said.

Referendum Sub-commissions Formed by Local Authorities

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

Burma’s military government has organized township sub-commissions to prepare for the referendum on the constitution in May, staffed mainly with officials from the townships’ ruling councils and regime supporters, USDA sources say. The junta did not include executive members of its mass organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), on the local sub-commissions.

USDA sources told on Thursday that local authorities formed sub-commissions recently made up of the head of each Township Peace and Development Council and Village Peace and Development Council. Officials of township administrations will serve as secretaries of sub-commissions across the country. Sources said USDA executive members from townships were told by authorities they would not be named to the sub-commissions, but regular USDA members would be appointed instead. Officials from immigration offices and other government services would also be included on the sub-commissions, a source close to the USDA said.

Authorities have still not released any detailed information about the May referendum voting process to sub-commission members, said the source.The regime’s main referendum commission is chaired by Aung Toe, the chief of justice and head of the constitution drafting committee. According to a news report in the state-run Myanma Alin on Thursday, a central secretary of the USDA, Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan, who is also the information minister, met with members of the USDA from Mingalar Thaung Nyunt Township in Rangoon . The election commission and sub-commissions appointed during the 1990 nationwide election included local residents and ordinary citizens.

Local observers say the current sub-commissions do not represent a cross-section of the public. Meanwhile, the United Nations Special Envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, briefed the UN Security Council on March 18 on his latest trip to Burma. He expressed disappointment in the outcome but vowed to keep the crisis on the Security Council’s agenda.“Whereas each of my previous visits produced some results that could be built upon, it is a source of disappointment that this latest visit did not yield any immediate tangible outcome,” Gambari told the 15-member council.The UN’s proposals for Burma included an inclusive national reconciliation process with UN involvement; genuine dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi; and measures to address political, human rights, economic and humanitarian issues. The ruling junta snubbed the UN proposals during Gambari’s visit.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, told reporters, “We are disappointed by the lack of any concrete achievement.” Gambari’s visited to the Southeast Asian country from March 6 to 10.

Gambari to Meet UN Chief, Brief Security Council

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that his special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, had not been able to achieve as much as he had hoped during his recent trip to Burma. Still, he said, the United Nations would continue to press the military junta to move towards democratization.
Gambari, who left Burma Monday following a five-day trip to the country, will meet the secretary general in Dakar, capital of the African nation of Senegal, later this week. Ban will be attending the 11th summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The secretary general said Gambari has briefed him in detail on his trip to Burma. “Of course, he was not able to meet with Snr-Gen Than Shwe, but he has met many senior people, even including the constitution- drafting and review committee members. That was unusual,” Ban told reporters at the UN’s headquarters in New York.

Ban, who was addressing the media on the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa, was specifically asked how disappointed he was, as Gambari was unable to get an agreement from the military junta for UN monitoring of elections in Burma, or for any amendment to the constitution that would allow Aung San Suu Kyi to run for office.

“There was some progress, but we were not able to achieve as much as we had hoped. This is an ongoing effort. But I will continue to press this issue so that Myanmar will meet the expectations of the international community towards democratization,” Ban said.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said reports coming from Burma were not encouraging and he was looking forward to hearing Gambari’s briefing to the Security Council.

“It’s not encouraging based on what we saw and we want to hear from him—we look forward to him reporting to the (Security) Council very quickly after he returns to New York and for the Council to deliberate on what needs to happen to incentivize the military regime to cooperate with the mission the good office of the secretary-general’ s advisor,” Khalilzad told reporters at the UN.

Given that Gambari will be briefing Ban at Dakar later this week and is expected to return to New York over the weekend, his briefing to the Security Council, if any, will be held early next week at the earliest.

Gambari meets Myanmar ministers

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

The UN special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, Sunday met a group of mid-level ministers in a visit to Myanmar that so far appears to have failed to push the ruling junta into making any concessions on an upcoming vote. Twice during his trip the regime has openly rebuffed his diplomatic overtures, while he has been denied access to key decision-makers such as junta leader Than Shwe, casting real doubt on how much his mission can achieve. Gambari met Myanmar’s minister of health, minister of planning, deputy foreign minister and civil service chairman at a military guesthouse on Sunday morning, a United Nations statement said.

It gave no details on what was discussed.A government official said earlier that Gambari met the information minister, Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan, but the UN did not mention the meeting. The Nigerian diplomat was granted a rare meeting here Saturday with detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, that was quickly overshadowed when the junta rejected his offer to send foreign observers to a planned constitutional referendum in May designed to pave the way for multi-party elections in 2010. Gambari’s visit had already run into trouble Friday when Kyaw Hsan accused him of bias in favour of Aung San Suu Kyi, and said the junta would not make any changes to the constitution, which bars her from running.

The UN envoy had been expected to leave military-run Myanmar on Sunday, but extended his trip by one day despite the setbacks. ‘His visit has been extended, so he will go back tomorrow. His schedule is always changing,’ said a government official who did not want to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media. Gambari had arrived Thursday aiming to push the junta to include Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party in the referendum and elections. The constitution would bar Aung San Suu Kyi from the polls because of her marriage to a foreigner, while a new law limits the NLD’s ability to campaign by criminalising public speeches and leaflets about the referendum.

Rakhaing Orphanage School in Bangladesh

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

Here is a video clip of rakhaing orphanage school in Bangladesh. http://youtube.com/watch?v=pv3hv9ZnBBE . I am very sorry that I had to take down the first clip due to some reasons. This orphanage school is also run by a monastery in Bangladesh. Unlike the first clip that I put on net few days ago, the current clip contains interviews with monks, laymen, and children. I hope you can do something for them.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pv3hv9ZnBBE

Myanmar to prioritise China, India

Myanmar will attach priority to agreements for export of gas to China and India, officials said on Sunday. The Southeast Asian neighbour will consider exporting gas to Bangladesh only after meeting the demands of China and India or if the country finds new gasfields. In such a situation, the government is also considering import of liquid natural gas to face the lingering gas crisis, the officials with the energy and mineral resources division said.

The chief adviser’s special assistant M Tamim who is in charge of energy told the news agency on Sunday: ‘Myanmar has informed us that at the moment they do not have enough gas to export to us.’ ‘If they find further gas deposits, they will consider our request.’ Myanmar’s stance on gas export to Bangladesh was communicated to the foreign affairs secretary, Md Touhid Hossain, when he visited the neighbouring country in mid-February.

The foreign affairs ministry wrote a letter to the energy and mineral resources division on Myanmar’s position. The special assistant said, ‘We will now contact Myanmar authorities directly.’ ‘For now, we are thinking of signing a memorandum of understanding on gas with Myanmar.’ A top official of the energy and mineral resources division, asking not to be named, said the government was still hopeful of importing gas from Myanmar. After being informed of Myanmar’s stance, the government is also thinking of importing LNG to overcome the gas crisis.

According to Petrobangla, the current gas production capacity is 1800 million cubic feet, with actual output of around 1700 million cubic feet per day. Of this, 240 million cubic feet is being supplied to fertiliser industry against total demand for 289 million cubic feet per day. Daily demand from the country’s power plants at present stands at 841 million cubic feet, but only 633 million cubic feet gas is supplied. According to the Power Development Board, electricity generation is being greatly hampered by the gas crisis.