Kachin abuses undermine Burma’s reform claims – The Irrawaddy
March 20th, 2012
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23243
KIA soldier recovers from landmine injury at KIA military hospital near Laiza (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
BANGKOK—Since a 1994 ceasefire between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) broke down last June, Kachin civilians have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of the Burmese government forces, including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, forced displacement and the denial of humanitarian aid, says New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).
More than 70,000 Kachin villagers have been driven from their homes by fighting in the resource-rich northern Burmese state, and on-off peace talks between the two sides have to date failed to yield a ceasefire. HRW says that both the Burmese army and the KIA are laying landmines and deploying child soldiers—sometimes as young as 14—to the front line.
“Both parties are using anti-personnel mines, both are using child soldiers,” says Matthew Smith, the lead researcher of the HRW report, Untold Miseries: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Kachin State, which documents over 100 interviews with those involved in and affected by the fighting. (more…)
Off the road to Mandalay – The Irrawaddy
March 12th, 2012
Lu Maw 'on stage' in Mandalay (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23193
MANDALAY—A visit to The Moustache Brothers is a rite of passage for any foreign journalist visiting Mandalay, Burma’s second city and the former capital before the invading British deposed the country’s last King, Thibaw, in 1885.
Lu Maw, the sole English speaker in the 60-something comedy trio, sits cross-legged on the floor in an upstairs room, chain-smoking cheroots and wise-cracking. A warm-up, it seems, for the Brothers’ nightly performance, due to start in a couple of hours.
An environmental report running on the Deutsche Welle news on a nearby TV sets him off. “You know Burma’s government will save us all from global warming,” he says. “Thailand floods: global warming, Australia bushfire: global warming,” and the list goes on. “The UN has a meeting on global warming and say ‘let’s turn off all lights for one hour, one day a year.’”
Then the punchline: “But the Burma government makes sure there is no light 24/7, all year! They will solve global warming!” quips Lu Maw, referring to Burma’s notorious electricity shortages despite the country having plenty of resources in the form of oil, gas and hydropower. (more…)
Kachin war aid largely a local affair – The Irrawaddy
March 7th, 2012
KIO doctor issues prescription to IDPs at Jeyang camp clinic (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Estimated 70,000 Kachin war refugees living in camps by Sino-Burmese borders survive on local donations as international charities are unwilling or unable to gain access.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23163
LAIZA, Kachin State—With headlights dimmed it is difficult to spot every rubble-strewn crest-and-wave in time, and the surrounding dark enhances the jolts from the bumps and hollows in the coiling road from Laiza to Jeyang camp.
It is just a 15 minute drive from Laiza—headquarters of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO)—to Jeyang, site of the largest camp for the estimated 70,000 people driven from their homes by fighting in the region.
The current conflict began in June 2011, ending a 17-year ceasefire between the KIO and Burmese government. The Jeyang camp sits a stone’s throw from the Burma-China border, marked by a river of the same name, and in what in daytime is sun-lit valley floor, walled off on either side by haze-topped, tree-lined slopes. (more…)
Christians flee war in northern Myanmar – National Catholic Register
March 7th, 2012
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/christians-flee-war-in-northern-myanmar/
Catholic church at Jeyang camp (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
JEYANG, Myanmar — A bright but quiet Sunday morning in a sun-lit valley is broken by the sound of hymns sung from inside two adjacent wood and bamboo halls. Inside the larger structure, about 300 Baptists sing hymns, Not to be outdone, a smaller congregation of Catholics, mostly children, sings along during Mass.
Both halls are temporary churches, built last July for Kachin people forced to flee an advancing Burmese army after a ceasefire between the military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) broke down. Since then, around 70,000 Kachin have fled the fighting, with most staying in ramshackle camps such as Jeyang.
The KIA seeks greater self-government for the Kachin people in northern Myanmar. Around 90% of Kachin are Christian. Conversions from animism began as British adventurers and missionaries — and eventually, British colonists — entered Kachin territory in the 1800s.
Rev. Chin Le Zau Awng is a Baptist pastor in Jeyang camp who fled the fighting along with his congregation from Ban Dawng village, which is 20 miles away.
“It was a one-day walk through the jungle,” he recalled. “The people ran when they heard the army approach.” (more…)
Karen Civic Leaders Call for Political Solution – The Irrawaddy
March 5th, 2012
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23145
BANGKOK—Welcoming the tentative recent truce between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Burmese government, several Karen leaders say that reforms are not yet being felt in Karen State and other ethnic regions of Burma.
“The KNU is still a banned organisation,” says Zoya Phan, the chair of the European Karen Network. “Many of the repressive laws are still in place in Burma, and these need to be changed.”
The rules effectively mean that the KNU cannot discuss peace openly with Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, and that an estimated 160 Karen political prisoners remain in jail, despite recent government amnesties. (more…)
No saying no to rehab in KIO territory – The Irrawaddy
February 29th, 2012
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23124
Male detainees at the KIA drug rehabilitation facility in Laiza (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
LAIZA, Kachin State — After 10 minutes talking about her arrest and detention by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), Ma Su Su wells up and a single tear dissolves a line through the cream-colored thanaka on her right cheek.
“I miss my children, yes, I do, a lot,” she says. For the past three months, she has been sharing a 10 x 10 foot cell with seven other women, since being caught carrying 40,000 yuan (US $6,350) worth of methamphetamines from China into Laiza, the capital of KIA-held territory in northern Burma.
A 15-meter wide river separates the two countries, making clandestine crossings relatively easy for those of a mind to do so. But Ma Su Su, an ethnic Burman from Bhamo in Kachin State, did not know that the KIA keeps a close eye out for drug smugglers at crossing points.
“I was promised 500,000 kyat [$625] to carry the pills to Laiza,” she says. “I usually only earn 2,000 kyat [$2.50] per day in Bhamo.” (more…)
Distrust and displacement on Kachin frontline – The Irrawaddy
February 28th, 2012
KIA soldier with mortar they say was captured during fighting with Burmese army (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23115
LAJA YANG, Kachin State—The dry daytime heat succumbs to a balmy dusk cool, setting the tree-lined valley in a soft yet vivid glow. Aside from the occasional truck or motorcycle, the verdant landscape rings only to the warbles of birds and lowing of cattle in fields on the valley floor.
It seems almost too picture-perfect for a war-zone, says Capt Naw Mai, commander of a Kachin Independence Army (KIA) post on the main road from Laiza—a town of around 10,000 people sitting right on the Chinese border—to regional capital Myitkina. Kachin State remains a resource rich region of northern Burma neighboring China, but is the site of almost daily battles between the Burmese government army and ethnic militias since a ceasefire agreed in1994 broke down last June.
Pointing across a bridge—a dog-leg left off the main road—to a Burmese army post a mere 100 yards away, Naw Mai claims, “Even though there is fighting elsewhere, we leave them alone, as it is our policy not to attack first.” (more…)
School’s not out in Kachin, despite war – The Irrawaddy
February 25th, 2012
Final-year high school students listen to their teacher at Mai Ja Yang High School in Kachin State. (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23098
MAI JA YANG, Kachin State—“It is just six miles to the front line from here,” says Nang Tung Maran, vice-principal of the Mai Ja Yang high school, sipping a glass of hot Shan tea outside her office overlooking a bumpy dirt-brown football field below.
The school has opened and closed several times since June 9, 2011, when fighting started between the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Tatmadaw, the Burmese national army. “It has been quiet recently,” she said.
Amid ongoing rumors that the Burmese army intends to storm the Burmese town—a KIO stronghold bordering China—Nang Tung Maran says that “before there was heavy artillery and noise very day, and we fear it could start again anytime.” (more…)
Teenagers tell of forced labour in Kachin conflict – The Irrawaddy
February 24th, 2012
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=23095
Teenage porters/forced labourers, 2 of whom are under 18 and 2 of whom were forced to fight, pictured at KIO/KIA compound in Laiza (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
LAIZA, Kachin State—The Burmese army is using underage boys for forced labour and is coercing porters to fight on the front line against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), according to accounts given to The Irrawaddy by four teenagers who say they served as porters for the army.
Two of the four say they are under 18, and two others, age 18 and 19, say they were forced to march in front of infantry as the soldiers approached KIO/KIA positions. All four say they were coerced into joining the Tatmadaw (the name for the Burmese army) after being promised jobs by army officers, at different locations and at different times during 2011.
Burma’s government forces have long been accused of forcing civilians to work as porters and for using child soldiers in its campaigns against ethnic militias in the country’s borderlands. According to January 2012 figures, since 2007 there have been 1,160 forced labour complaints registered with the International Labour Organization, which recently agreed with the Burmese government to renew its complaints process for another year.
Fighting between the Tatmadaw and the KIA resumed on June 9, 2011, after a 17-year ceasefire. Since then around 70,000 people, mostly Kachin villagers, have fled their homes due to fighting.
Aung Nan, aged 14, is the youngest of the four. “I was forced to go with the army to Kachin State on Sept. 9,” he said. “They stopped me one night after I had been watching a movie with friends in my hometown in Mon State.” (more…)
Myanmar: show me the money, but only if it’s crisp – Christian Science Monitor
February 18th, 2012
Horse-and-cart still widely-used by Burmese farmers, such as this one in Mandalay (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
It may take more than a lifting of sanctions to revive Myanmar’s isolated economy.
YANGON, MYANMAR – As Myanmar’s reform-inclined government undertakes a political opening, Western businesses are watching to see if this leads to an end to Western sanctions imposed during the country’s brutal military rule.
But even if sanctions are removed, potential investors would face many hurdles in an economy where opaque rules and edicts have made life tough for ordinary citizens.
“We are still living in the dark ages, we haven’t seen many changes,” says Aung Zeyn, who runs a small business repairing photocopiers, and whose opinion echoes similar sentiments across Yangon. (more…)
