The upside-down world of Hun Sen and Thaksin

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/158231/the-upside-down-world-of-hun-sen-and-thaksin

* Published: 27/10/2009 at 09:21 AM
* Newspaper section: News

The Thai government prepared to fend off a "red shirt" army at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, mounting security measures designed to prevent a repetition of the embarrassing scenes that disrupted a similar Asean meeting in Pattaya.

This time, the red shirts behaved well, unlike Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, who called the fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra his "eternal friend" and compared him to Burma's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander known for his provocative remarks, said: "Many people talk about Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, why not talk about Thaksin? That cannot be referred to as interfering."

Was Hun Sen joking? Not really. The ill-considered remark from the head of the Cambodian government illustrated the quality of leadership we have in Asean.

Hun Sen's remark was not only an insult to Th ailand but also to Burma. The Cambodian prime minister should be made fully aware that Thaksin and Mrs Suu Kyi have nothing at all in common. There are thousands of reasons for ruling out any comparison. But let's look at just a few.

Mrs Suu Kyi is dedicated to the struggle for democracy and freedom in Burma. It won't matter whether Mrs Suu Kyi becomes leader of Burma or not - today she is a symbol of change in Burma and remains a beacon of hope in spite of the attempts to belittle her by a repressive regime that has locked her up in her own home for years.

Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon, was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006. He skipped bail after an indictment on corruption charges and has since been living at various locations, including Nicaragua, Montenegro and the United Arab Emirates.

During his time at the head of the Thai government, the press in Thailand was muzzled and he launched a "war on drugs", which killed more than 2,000 people who, if they had been legally dealt with and convicted, would have served prison terms.

Thaksin claimed that he and his government knew the situation in Burma very well because the two countries are immediate neighbours. Here are some facts.

Thaksin was a known friend of Burma's military regime. His government courted the junta by offering loans, improving border trade and sending numerous delegations to Rangoon.

During the Asean summit in Bali, Indonesia, in 2004, Thaksin surprised many of the delegates by giving Burma his unconditional support and praising then prime minister and feared spy chief Gen Khin Nyunt's "sincerity". Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo later told journalists that Thaksin defended Burma throughout the entire summit.

While other governments in the region - and worldwide - were voicing increasing criticism of the junta and championing speedy democratic change in Burma, Thaksin was seen to be defending the generals, investing in the country and promising piecemeal progress.

Thailand was then Burma's third most important investment partner, exporting goods worth around US$1.26 billion (43 billion baht) annually.

Thaksin also had his own business interests in Burma. In 2003, Shin Corp, the telecoms company owned until recently by Thaksin's family, signed a deal with Bagan Cybertech, the internet service provider run by Ye Naing Win, son of disgraced prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt.

In 2004, Thaksin visited the ancient former Burmese capital Pagan to sell his Economic Cooperation Strategy, and promised Burma aid and support worth $45 million.

He also set his sights on what he called the "excellent prospects" of Burma's tourism industry, proposing the construction of a ski resort in Burma's northern Kachin State and the development of the unspoilt beaches of Arakan State.

The "Bangkok Process", hosted by Thaksin's government to advance democracy in Burma, fizzled out when Burmese representatives failed to turn up for a planned second session - a clear demonstration that even the Burmese generals didn't count on him.

Back home, Thaksin's administration cracked down on Burmese seeking economic and political refuge in Thailand, raising concerns about a conflict of interest and doubts about Bangkok's ability to act as an honest broker in Burma's political standoff.

Sadly, Thaksin's government, by its attitude towards Burmese migrants and refugees living in Thailand, played the nationalism card in order to boost the prime minister's popularity.

In early 2004, UN human rights envoy Hina Jilani visited Thailand and said: "Many of the Burmese human rights defenders feel very insecure with regard to their freedom of movement inside Thailand." Not surprisingly, Ms Jilani received a cool reception in Bangkok.

Just before the 2006 coup, Thaksin stayed in his heavily-guarded home for a day because of a bomb threat, likening the experience to Mrs Suu Kyi's enforced house detention.

He said he sympathised with Mrs Suu Kyi. What, for not being able to go shopping for a day?

So, once and for all, let's make it clear to Hun Sen that Thaksin is no Suu Kyi.

Mrs Suu Kyi may have her shortcomings, but she has sacrificed much in her fight for democratic change in Burma. Her sacrifices include separation from her family and her enforced absence from the funeral of her beloved husband Michael Aris, who died of cancer in 1999 in London.

The fiasco caused by Hun Sen's remarks at the Asean summit should have been an embarrassment to the Burmese delegation and Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein, who told his Japanese counterpart that the military regime would consider relaxing Mrs Suu Kyi's house arrest terms, if she "maintains a good attitude".

Thein Sein's cynicism matches that of his boss, junta leader Snr Gen Than Shwe, who said in a letter published after Mrs Suu Kyi's farcical trial in August that if she behaved "well" at her Inya Lake home under the restrictions imposed on her, she would be granted amnesty before her suspended sentence expired.

Astonishingly, Singapore's foreign ministry reacted positively to Than Shwe's gesture, saying that while it was disappointed at the guilty verdict it was nonetheless "happy that the Myanmar government has exercised its sovereign prerogative to grant amnesty by halving her [Mrs Suu Kyi's] sentence and that she will be placed under house arrest rather than imprisoned".

The world must be upside down, if not flat.

What does Than Shwe mean, for instance, by requiring Mrs Suu Kyi to behave well under house arrest? Did Mrs Suu Kyi mismanage the economy and lead the resource-rich country into poverty?

Did Mrs Suu Kyi order the troops to kill Buddhist monks and activists on the streets or throw them into prison? Did Mrs Suu Kyi order soldiers to kill or rape ethnic minorities?

At least, Hun Sen and Thein Sein can be credited with livening up the Asean summit, even though the grouping has no shortage of clowns.

Aung Zaw is founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. http://www.irrawaddy.org

The upside-down world of Hun Sen and Thaksin

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/158231/the-upside-down-world-of-hun-sen-and-thaksin

* Published: 27/10/2009 at 09:21 AM
* Newspaper section: News

The Thai government prepared to fend off a "red shirt" army at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, mounting security measures designed to prevent a repetition of the embarrassing scenes that disrupted a similar Asean meeting in Pattaya.

This time, the red shirts behaved well, unlike Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, who called the fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra his "eternal friend" and compared him to Burma's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander known for his provocative remarks, said: "Many people talk about Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, why not talk about Thaksin? That cannot be referred to as interfering."

Was Hun Sen joking? Not really. The ill-considered remark from the head of the Cambodian government illustrated the quality of leadership we have in Asean.

Hun Sen's remark was not only an insult to Th ailand but also to Burma. The Cambodian prime minister should be made fully aware that Thaksin and Mrs Suu Kyi have nothing at all in common. There are thousands of reasons for ruling out any comparison. But let's look at just a few.

Mrs Suu Kyi is dedicated to the struggle for democracy and freedom in Burma. It won't matter whether Mrs Suu Kyi becomes leader of Burma or not - today she is a symbol of change in Burma and remains a beacon of hope in spite of the attempts to belittle her by a repressive regime that has locked her up in her own home for years.

Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon, was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006. He skipped bail after an indictment on corruption charges and has since been living at various locations, including Nicaragua, Montenegro and the United Arab Emirates.

During his time at the head of the Thai government, the press in Thailand was muzzled and he launched a "war on drugs", which killed more than 2,000 people who, if they had been legally dealt with and convicted, would have served prison terms.

Thaksin claimed that he and his government knew the situation in Burma very well because the two countries are immediate neighbours. Here are some facts.

Thaksin was a known friend of Burma's military regime. His government courted the junta by offering loans, improving border trade and sending numerous delegations to Rangoon.

During the Asean summit in Bali, Indonesia, in 2004, Thaksin surprised many of the delegates by giving Burma his unconditional support and praising then prime minister and feared spy chief Gen Khin Nyunt's "sincerity". Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo later told journalists that Thaksin defended Burma throughout the entire summit.

While other governments in the region - and worldwide - were voicing increasing criticism of the junta and championing speedy democratic change in Burma, Thaksin was seen to be defending the generals, investing in the country and promising piecemeal progress.

Thailand was then Burma's third most important investment partner, exporting goods worth around US$1.26 billion (43 billion baht) annually.

Thaksin also had his own business interests in Burma. In 2003, Shin Corp, the telecoms company owned until recently by Thaksin's family, signed a deal with Bagan Cybertech, the internet service provider run by Ye Naing Win, son of disgraced prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt.

In 2004, Thaksin visited the ancient former Burmese capital Pagan to sell his Economic Cooperation Strategy, and promised Burma aid and support worth $45 million.

He also set his sights on what he called the "excellent prospects" of Burma's tourism industry, proposing the construction of a ski resort in Burma's northern Kachin State and the development of the unspoilt beaches of Arakan State.

The "Bangkok Process", hosted by Thaksin's government to advance democracy in Burma, fizzled out when Burmese representatives failed to turn up for a planned second session - a clear demonstration that even the Burmese generals didn't count on him.

Back home, Thaksin's administration cracked down on Burmese seeking economic and political refuge in Thailand, raising concerns about a conflict of interest and doubts about Bangkok's ability to act as an honest broker in Burma's political standoff.

Sadly, Thaksin's government, by its attitude towards Burmese migrants and refugees living in Thailand, played the nationalism card in order to boost the prime minister's popularity.

In early 2004, UN human rights envoy Hina Jilani visited Thailand and said: "Many of the Burmese human rights defenders feel very insecure with regard to their freedom of movement inside Thailand." Not surprisingly, Ms Jilani received a cool reception in Bangkok.

Just before the 2006 coup, Thaksin stayed in his heavily-guarded home for a day because of a bomb threat, likening the experience to Mrs Suu Kyi's enforced house detention.

He said he sympathised with Mrs Suu Kyi. What, for not being able to go shopping for a day?

So, once and for all, let's make it clear to Hun Sen that Thaksin is no Suu Kyi.

Mrs Suu Kyi may have her shortcomings, but she has sacrificed much in her fight for democratic change in Burma. Her sacrifices include separation from her family and her enforced absence from the funeral of her beloved husband Michael Aris, who died of cancer in 1999 in London.

The fiasco caused by Hun Sen's remarks at the Asean summit should have been an embarrassment to the Burmese delegation and Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein, who told his Japanese counterpart that the military regime would consider relaxing Mrs Suu Kyi's house arrest terms, if she "maintains a good attitude".

Thein Sein's cynicism matches that of his boss, junta leader Snr Gen Than Shwe, who said in a letter published after Mrs Suu Kyi's farcical trial in August that if she behaved "well" at her Inya Lake home under the restrictions imposed on her, she would be granted amnesty before her suspended sentence expired.

Astonishingly, Singapore's foreign ministry reacted positively to Than Shwe's gesture, saying that while it was disappointed at the guilty verdict it was nonetheless "happy that the Myanmar government has exercised its sovereign prerogative to grant amnesty by halving her [Mrs Suu Kyi's] sentence and that she will be placed under house arrest rather than imprisoned".

The world must be upside down, if not flat.

What does Than Shwe mean, for instance, by requiring Mrs Suu Kyi to behave well under house arrest? Did Mrs Suu Kyi mismanage the economy and lead the resource-rich country into poverty?

Did Mrs Suu Kyi order the troops to kill Buddhist monks and activists on the streets or throw them into prison? Did Mrs Suu Kyi order soldiers to kill or rape ethnic minorities?

At least, Hun Sen and Thein Sein can be credited with livening up the Asean summit, even though the grouping has no shortage of clowns.

Aung Zaw is founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. http://www.irrawaddy.org

ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဥပေဒထြက္ၿပီးမွ ပါတီဖဲြ႔ရန္ ပီအဲန္အို ဆံုးျဖတ္

ခြန္ေအာင္ျမတ္။
ေအာက္တိုဘာလ ၂၀ ရက္၊ ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္။
သတင္းႏွင့္မီဒီယာကြန္ယက္

အပစ္ရပ္အဖြဲ႕ျဖစ္သည့္ ပအုိ၀္းအမ်ဳိးသားအဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္(ပီအဲန္အို)သည္ ပါတီဖဲြ႕စည္းၿပီး ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို ၀င္ မည္၊ မ၀င္မည္ကို ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒ ထြက္ၿပီးမွသာ ဆံုးျဖတ္မည္ဟု ပီအဲန္အိုအဖဲြ႕မွ ဗဟိုေကာ္မတီ၀င္တဦးက ေျပာဆုိသည္။


ကုိးကန္႔အေရး နဲ႔ စစ္အစုိးရ လွည့္ကြက္ (ပအုိ၀္း ျပည္သူ႔လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရးအဖြဲ႕ဥကၠဌ ဗုိလ္မွဴးခြန္ဥကၠာႏွင့္ VOA မွ ေမးျမန္းခ်က္)

06 September 2009 (VOA)

မၾကာေသးခင္ကပဲ စစ္အစုိးရတပ္မ်ားရဲ ႔ ေခ်မႈန္းျခင္းကုိ ခံလုိက္ရတဲ့ ဖုန္ၾကားရွင္ ဦးေဆာင္တဲ့ MMDAA (Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army) ကုိးကန္႔တပ္ဖြဲ႔ေတြဟာ အနီးအနားမွာရွိတဲ့ တျခားအပစ္ရပ္အဖြဲ႔ေတြျဖစ္တဲ့ UWSA (United Wa State Army) 'ဝ' တပ္ဖြဲ႔၊ မုန္လာတပ္ဖြဲ႔၊ SSA (Shan State Army) သွ်မ္းျပည္တပ္မေတာ္ (ေျမာက္ပုိင္း) စတဲ့ အဖြဲ႔ေတြနဲ႔ PDF (Peace and Democracy Front) လုိ႔ ေခၚတဲ့ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးနဲ႔ ဒီမုိကေရစီ မဟာမိတ္အဖြဲ႔ကုိ ဖြဲ႔စည္းထားခဲ့ပါတယ္။ မဟာမိတ္ သေဘာတူညီခ်က္အရ အဖြဲ႔တဖြဲ႔ကုိ ျပည္ပရန္သူက ထိပါးလာရင္ က်န္တဲ့အဖြဲ႔ေတြက ဝုိင္းၿပီး ကာကြယ္ ေပးရမယ္ ဆုိေပမဲ့ အခု ေလာေလာဆယ္ အခ်ိန္အထိေတာ့ ဖုန္ၾကားရွင္ နဲ႔ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ဝင္တခ်ဳိ ႔ကုိ UWSA 'ဝ' နယ္ေျမထဲမွာ ခုိလႈံခြင့္ေပးထားတာကလြဲလုိ႔ တျခားတစုံတရာ ထိေရာက္တဲ့ ကူညီရုိင္းပင္းမႈေတြကုိ မေတြ႔ရေသးပါဘူး။ 

Civilians warned not to leak tunnel information

Oct 19, 2009 (DVB)–Locals in a town in central Burma say they have been warned by government troops not to leak news about a tunnel being built by the military or their villages will be razed.

The 19-mile long tunnel is being built between the villages of Ywarmon and Phatthantaung in Magwe division, according to a local in the nearby town of Natmauk.

“Now even the village authorities are too scared to talk about it,” he said. “Security is really tight in the area and taking photos is also prohibited.”

Another local in Magwe division said that four years ago the army contacted his son, a graduate of the Government Technological College, and persuaded him to work in a weapons factory being built underground in Ngaphe town near to Magwe city.

The man said that an official from the army had offered his son 35,000 kyat ($US35) per month to work on the project. “The man said he would not be able to visit home after started working in the tunnel,” he said.

In June DVB released a series of reports compiled from leaked government documents that outlined the junta’s plans to develop a network of tunnels underneath Burma that would accommodate troop battalions and armoury in the event of an invasion.

Some 800 tunnels are thought to be under construction, with sections of the project dating back as far as 1996.

The project has been clouded in secrecy, but appears to be part of a longer-term strategy to bolster Burma’s defence capabilities.

The junta is using North Korean advisors for its tunnel system, after a senior government delegation visited Pyongyang in November 2008 and took a tour round military tunnels there.

The majority of tunneling and construction equipment for the project has been bought from North Korea in a series of deals over the last three years which total at least $US9 billion, according to two purchase orders received by DVB.

The Bangladesh-based Narinjara news agency last week quoted a military source as saying that a tunnel had been dug into a mountain in Burma’s western Arakan state to store fighter jets. The tunnel is thought to be connected to a nearby air base in Ann township.

Arakan state lies alongside Burma’s border with Bangladesh, which in recent weeks has become the site of a military build-up from both sides following a dispute over ownership of gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal.
Reporting by Aye Nai

http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=2966

ဥပေဒေပၚထြက္ၿပီးမွ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၀င္ရန္ကိစၥ ပအုိ၀္းအဖြဲ႕ဆုံးျဖတ္မည္

မ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးႏွင့္ ေက်ာ္သူ

ျမန္မာအစိုးရႏွင့္ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္စဲေရး သေဘာတူညီခ်က္ ရထားသည့္ တိုင္းရင္းသားအဖြဲ႕အစည္းတစ္ခုျဖစ္ေသာ ပအို၀္းအမ်ဳိးသားအဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ (PNO) က ၎တို႔အေနျဖင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီဖြဲ႕စည္း ၿပီး ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ၀င္ရန္ မဆံုးျဖတ္ရ ေသးေၾကာင္းႏွင့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဥပေဒ ထြက္ေပၚၿပီးခ်ိန္မွ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ခ်မည္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း အဆုိပါအဖြဲ႕ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီက လြန္ခဲ့သည့္သီတင္းပတ္က ရွမ္းျပည္နယ္ ေတာင္ပိုင္း ေက်ာက္တစ္လံုးေဒသ၌ ျမန္မာတိုင္း(မ္) ႏွင့္ ေတြ႕ဆံုစဥ္ ေျပာၾကားသည္။

"ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဥပေဒထြက္ၿပီးမွ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔ ဆံုးျဖတ္ ပါမယ္။ ေလာေလာဆယ္ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔မွာ ဘာမွျပင္ ဆင္တာေတြ မရွိေသးပါဘူး။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ပါတီဖြဲ႕ဖို႔သင့္ေတာ္ မယ္ဆိုရင္ ကြ်န္ေတာ္ တို႔ ပါတီဖြဲ႕ပါမယ္"ဟု၎ကေျပာသည္။

၎က PNO အေနျဖင့္ တစ္ခုခုကို လုပ္ရန္ရွိေသာ္လည္း အစီအစဥ္ အတိ အက်မရွိေသးေၾကာင္းႏွင့္ ပါတီဖြဲ႕ပါက ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီသေဘာထက္ အဖြဲ႕အစည္းတစ္ခု (သို႔) အမ်ဳိးသားေရးအဖြဲ႕ အစည္းတစ္ခု အေနျဖင့္ ဖြဲ႕စည္းရန္ရွိ ေၾကာင္း ေျပာၾကားသည္။

ပါတီဖြဲ႕စည္းပါက ေတာင္ႀကီးခ႐ုိင္ ႏွင့္ လြဳိင္လင္ခ႐ုိင္တို႔တြင္ အေျခစိုက္ၿပီး အဆိုပါေဒသရွိ လူမႈစီးပြားေရး လုပ္ငန္း မ်ားကို လုပ္ကိုင္မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီက ဆိုသည္။

"ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔ ေနရာတိုင္းမွာ မပါ၀င္ ခ်င္ပါဘူး။ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔ ေဒသဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးေရး အတြက္ပဲ လုပ္ကိုင္မွာပါ။ တစ္ႏိုင္ငံလံုး ရဲ႕ ႏိုင္ငံေရးမွာ ပါ၀င္ဖို႔ အိပ္မက္ေတာင္ မရွိပါဘူး"ဟုု ၎က ေျပာၾကားသည္။

PNO အဖြဲ႕သည္ ၁၉၉၁ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ႏွင့္ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္စဲေရး သေဘာတူညီခ်က္ရရွိၿပီး ဥပေဒ ေဘာင္ အတြင္းသို႔ ၀င္ေရာက္လာသည့္ တိုင္းရင္းသားလက္နက္ကိုင္အဖြဲ႕ ျဖစ္သည္။

PNO အေနျဖင့္ လက္နက္ကိုင္ ေတာခိုရျခင္းမွာ ယခင္တစ္ပါတီစနစ္ က ရွမ္းျပည္နယ္တြင္ ကြန္ျမဴနစ္အဖြဲ႕ မ်ားႏွင့္ အျခားလက္နက္ကုိင္အဖြဲ႕မ်ားက ေဒသခံ ပအို၀္းတုိင္းရင္းသားမ်ား အား ဖမ္းဆီးျခင္းမ်ား ျပဳလုပ္ ခဲ့သျဖင့္ ပအို၀္းေဒသအား ကာကြယ္ရန္ျဖစ္ ေၾကာင္း ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီက ေျပာ ၾကားသည္။

ယခုအခါ နယ္ေျမၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသြားၿပီ ျဖစ္ေသာေၾကာင့္ PNO အေနျဖင့္ အထူးေဒသ(၆) ေဒသဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္ ေရးလုပ္ငန္းမ်ားကုိသာ လုပ္ကိုင္ေနေၾကာင္း ၎က ေျပာၾကားသည္။

"၁၉၉၁ ခုႏွစ္ကေန အခု ၂၀၀၉ ခုႏွစ္အထိ ပအို၀္းေဒမွာ က်ပ္သိန္း ေပါင္း ၆,၇၇၄ သိန္းေက်ာ္ အကုန္အက် ခံခဲ့ၿပီး ေက်ာင္းေတြ၊ ေဆး႐ုံေဆးေပး ခန္းေတြ၊ လမ္းပန္းဆက္သြယ္ေရး လုပ္ငန္းေတြနဲ႔ လွ်ပ္စစ္ဓာတ္အား ရရွိ ေရးလုပ္ငန္းေတြ ေဆာင္ရြက္ခဲ့ပါတယ္" ဟု ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီက ေျပာသည္။

၎က အဆိုပါကုန္က်ေငြမ်ားသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္၊ PNO ႏွင့္ အျခားအလႉရွင္မ်ား၏ ထည့္၀င္ေငြမ်ား ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာၾကားသည္။

ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီ ဦးေဆာင္သည့္ PNO အဖြဲ႕သည္ အမ်ဳိးသားညီလာခံ သုိ႔ ၁၉၉၃ ခုႏွစ္မွ စတင္ကာ တက္ ေရာက္ခဲ့သည့္ တိုင္းရင္းသားအဖြဲ႕ တစ္ဖြဲ႕လည္းျဖစ္သည္။

"ကြ်န္ေတာ္က အေျခခံဥပေဒအေပၚ မွာအေကာင္းျမင္ရွိပါတယ္။ လာမယ့္ ၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဟာ တိုင္း ပည္ အတြက္ ထြက္ေပါက္တစ္ခုလို႔ ျမင္ပါ တယ္။ ဒီေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဟာ ကြ်န္ေတာ္ တို႔ေဒသတစ္ခုတည္း တင္မဟုတ္ဘဲ တစ္ႏိုင္ငံလံုးအတြက္ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္လို႔ ကြ်န္ေတာ္ျမင္ပါတယ္"ဟု အသက္ ၇၄ ႏွစ္ရွိၿပီ ျဖစ္သည့္ ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီက ေျပာၾကားသည္။

ယခုအခါ PNO သည္ ျပည္သူ႕စစ္ အဖြဲ႕ဖြဲ႕စည္းေရးအတြက္ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ထံ စာရင္းတင္ျပထားေၾကာင္း သိရသည္။

အဆိုပါ ျပည္သူ႔စစ္တြင္ PNO မွ အဖြဲ႕၀င္ဦးေရ ၁,၃၅၀ ရွိေၾကာင္းႏွင့္ ၁,၃၀၀ သည္ တပ္သားမ်ားျဖစ္ကာ က်န္ ၅၀ မွာ အရာရွိမ်ားျဖစ္သည္။

ထို႔ျပင္ ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီသည္ ၎တို႔ တုိင္းရင္းသားမ်ားအေနျဖင့္ ျမန္မာ ႏိုင္ငံႏွင့္ အေမရိကန္ႏိုင္ငံအၾကား သံတမန္ဆက္သြယ္မူ ျပန္လည္ထူ ေထာင္မည့္ အစီအစဥ္အား ကန္႔ကြက္ရန္မရွိေၾကာင္းကို အေမရိကန္ အထက္ လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ မစၥတာဂ်င္၀က္ဘ္ အား ၎၏ ဩဂုတ္လအတြင္း ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံသို႔ လာေရာက္ ခဲ့သည့္ ခရီးစဥ္ အတြင္း ေတြ႕ဆံုရာတြင္ ေျပာၾကားခဲ့သည္ဟု သိရသည္။

"ဂ်င္၀က္ဘ္က ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႕ (တိုင္းရင္းသား)ေတြအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာနဲ႔ အေမရိကန္ သံတမန္ဆက္ဆံေရး ျပန္ ထူေထာင္မွာကို ကန္႔ကြက္စရာရွိလားလို႔ ေမးတယ္။ ကြ်န္ေတာ္က ျမန္မာနဲ႔ အေမရိကန္ ႏွစ္ႏိုင္ငံ သံအဆက္ အသြယ္ ျပန္လည္ျပဳလုပ္တာကို ႀကိဳဆိုပါတယ္လို႔ ျပန္ေျပာခဲ့တယ္"ဟု ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီက ေျပာၾကားသည္။

ထို႔ျပင္ ၎က PNO အေနျဖင့္ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္စဲၿပီးေနာက္ အထူးေဒသ(၆) တြင္ ဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးတိုးတက္မူမ်ား လုပ္ကိုင္ရန္ ႏွင့္ စီးပြားေရးလုပ္ငန္းမ်ား လုပ္ကိုင္ရန္ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ထံမွ အကူအညီ မ်ားရရွိခဲ့ေၾကာင္း ေျပာၾကားသည္။

"ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔ ေငြေၾကးအကူအညီ ေတြေရာ၊ စီးပြားေရးလုပ္ကိုင္ခြင့္ေတြပါ ရရွိခဲ့ပါတယ္။ အပစ္အခတ္ ရပ္စဲေရး သေဘာတူညီခ်က္ရၿပီး အစိုးရက က်ပ္ သိန္း ၃၀၀ ကူညီခဲ့တယ္။ အဲဒီေငြကို အင္းေလးမွာ ဟိုတယ္ေဆာက္ခဲ့တယ္။ တစ္ႏွစ္အတြင္းမွာ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔ ျပန္ ဆပ္ႏိုင္ခဲ့တယ္" ဟု ၎က ေျပာသည္။

သို႔ေသာ္ ယခုႏွစ္တြင္ ခရီးသည္နည္းေသာေၾကာင့္ အင္းေလးေဒသရွိဟိုတယ္မ်ား တြက္ေျခမကိုက္ေၾကာင္း ႏွင့္ PNO ၏ မိုင္း႐ွဴးေက်ာက္မ်က္ တူးေဖာ္ေရးလုပ္ငန္းမွာ ေက်ာက္မ်က္သိုက္မ်ား တျဖည္းျဖည္း ကုန္ခန္း လာေသာေၾကာင့္ ေက်ာက္ထြက္နည္းလာေၾကာင္း ၎က ေျပာသည္။

"ဒါေပမယ့္ ေက်ာက္စိမ္းလုပ္ငန္း ကေတာ့ ေအာင္ျမင္ေနပါတယ္" ဟု ဦးေအာင္ခမ္းထီက ေျပာၾကားသည္။

http://www.myanmar.mmtimes.com/2009/news/435/n004.htm

အဂတိလုိက္စားမႈေၾကာင့္ တရားသူႀကီးမ်ား အလုပ္ျဖဳတ္ခံရ




http://burmese.dvb.no/news.php?id=8710

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သုိ႔

ဒီမုိကရစ္တစ္ျမန္မာ့အသံမွ တာ၀န္ရွိသူမ်ား


ရက္စြဲ ေအာက္တုိဘာ ၁၄ ရက္၊ ၂၀၀၉ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ဒီမုိကရစ္တစ္ျမန္မာ့အသံမွ အြန္လုိင္း ၀ပ္ဆုိဒ္ျဖစ္တဲ့ http://burmese.dvb.no/news.php?id=8710 မွ တင္ျပသည့္ "အဂတိလုိက္စားမႈေၾကာင္႔ တရားသူႀကီးမ်ား အလုပ္ျဖဳတ္ခံရ" သတင္းေခါင္းျဖင့္ ဖတ္ရွဳလုိက္ရပါတယ္။


ဒီသတင္းကို ဖတ္လုိက္ေတာ့ က်ေနာ္စိတ္မေကာင္းျဖစ္မိပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္ ေတာင္ႀကီးကပါ၊ ဒီသတင္းတစ္ပုဒ္ထဲမွာ ပါ၀င္ေနတဲ့ တရားခံေတြကေတာ့ တရားသူႀကီး ၃ ဦး။ မူးယစ္ေဆး၀ါးတရားခံ ခြန္တလြာအပါအ၀င္ ၄ ဦး။ ခ်စ္ကမၻာ ေမြ႔ယာပုိင္ရွင္ ေဒၚခင္၀င္း၊ တုိင္းမွဴး၊ ဒု-တုိင္းမွဴး၊ ရပခ ဂ်ီ၀မ္းကေတာ္၊ မူးယစ္ေဆးအထူးတပ္ဖြဲ႔က ရဲအုပ္လွထြဍ္နဲ႔ ဒု-ရဲအုပ္ ၂ ေယာက္။ ရပခ ဒု-ဗုိလ္မွဴးႀကီးေမာင္ေမာင္ျမင့္ရဲ႕ဇနီး ေဒၚလဲ့လဲ့ဦး အားလံုး ၁၄ ေယာက္ပါ၀င္တယ္။ အဲဒီအထဲမွာ ထူးထူးဆန္းဆန္းျဖစ္တာကေတာ့ ခြန္တလြာ တေယာက္ကိုပဲ သူ႔လူမ်ိဳးအမည္ကိုပါ တပ္ၿပီးထည့္ေရးတာကို အံ့ၾသစြာေတြ႔ရပါတယ္။ က်န္တဲ့ တရားခံေတြ၊ အထူးသျဖင့္ တရားသူႀကီး ၃ ဦး၊ တုိင္းမွဴးကေတာ္နဲ႔ ေမြ႔ယာဆုိင္ပုိင္ရွင္မတုိ႔က်ေတာ့ နာမည္သာတပ္ၿပီး ၄င္းတုိ႔လူမ်ိဳးအမည္ကို ပါ၀င္ေဖၚျပျခင္းမရွိတာကို ေတြ႔ရတယ္။ ဥပမာ ဗမာလူမ်ိဳးျဖစ္တဲ့ တရားသူႀကီး၊ ကရင္လူမ်ိဳးျဖစ္တဲ့ တုိင္းမွဴးကေတာ္ (သုိ႔)ေမြ႔ယာပုိင္ရွင္စသျဖင့္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ခြန္တလြာတစ္ေယာက္တည္းကုိသာ လူမ်ိဳးနာမည္တပ္တာကုိ နားမလည္ပါ။ အဘယ္ေၾကာင့္ ဤကဲ့သုိ႔ ကဲြျပား ခြဲျခားၿပီး ေရးသားေဖၚျပခဲ့ရတာကုိ သတင္းရွဳေတာင့္ကေနျဖစ္ေစ၊ မည္ကဲ့သုိ႔ရွဳေတာင့္ကေနျဖစ္ေစ DVB မွ တာ၀န္ရွိသူေတြ (သုိ႔) သတင္းေရးသားသူ ေနာ္ေစးေဖာ တုိ႔မွ ရွင္းျပေစလုိပါတယ္။



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ေတာင္ႀကီးသား

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ဤသတင္းႏွင့္ စပ္လ်ဥ္း၍ ေတာင္ႀကီးသားမွ DVB သုိ႔ ပုိ႔စာကုိ ျပန္လည္ေဖၚထားျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။

Burma's New Constitution: A Death Sentence for Ethnic Diversity

By ZIPPORAH SEIN Tuesday, October 13, 2009

As Burma's rainy season draws to a close, ethnic Karen villagers in eastern Burma are bracing themselves for a new military onslaught. It is expected that this new military offensive will be much larger than the one in June, which forced around 6,000 people to flee for their lives.

Burma’s nuclear program

Question | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Thursday 10th September 2009, 6:58pm

Senator LUDLAM (2.28 pm)-My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. What has the government done in response to revelations made by defectors from Burma's nuclear program, reported by Professor Des Ball from the ANU and also raised by the US Secretary of State in a recent ASEAN meeting, regarding the clandestine nuclear weapons program? When will our ambassador in Vienna put this on the agenda of the IAEA board of governors or, for example, raise this with the IAEA Director- General? And has the minister been briefed by the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office?

Senator FAULKNER-
I did not actually hear the last part of your question, Senator Ludlam. Let me respond to those parts that I was able to hear. I certainly can say to Senator Ludlam that I am aware of unconfirmed reports that Burma may be developing a nuclear capability. It is true that Australia shares the concerns of the international community about Burma's possible nuclear weapons aspirations and its relationship with the DPRK. A nuclear armed Burma would be a serious threat to regional and international security and it would be a setback to efforts to advance nuclear disarmament and the non-proliferation regime. The Australian government calls on the Burmese government to be transparent about any nuclear activities. The fact that Burma is a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty requires it to place any nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Australia expects Burma to abide by all its obligations under that treaty. We also call on Burma to meet is obligations under UN Security Council resolutions 1874 and 1718, which in addition to an arms embargo prohibit the procurement from North Korea of items related to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and also ballistic missiles. (Time expired)

Senator LUDLAM-Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The minister used the word ‘unconfirmed'. This research has been on the public record now for a matter of a couple of weeks, so I am wondering if the minister can tell me whether the government has done anything at all to confirm or validate these reports. With particular regard to the minister's understanding of Russian government collaboration with the public Burmese light water reactor, which potentially supports the clandestine factor, will the minister reconsider the wisdom of uranium sales to Russia, given the clear proliferation risks and the risks to regional security implied by a Burmese nuclear weapons program? Has the government done anything at all since these reports were made public?

Senator FAULKNER-I have used the terminology ‘unconfirmed' in relation to the substance of the reports. I accept the point that you have made that reports have been published. There have been articles in a range of Australian newspapers, including reports from an Australian academic, Professor Des Ball, and a Thailand based Irish journalist, Phil Thornton, who according to those reports interviewed Burmese defectors in Thailand, as you are aware. The point that I made in relation to them being unconfirmed is not about the fact that the reports appeared; just about whether the substance of the reports is accurate. In relation to Russia, quite clearly, there is- (Time expired)

Senator LUDLAM-Mr President, I ask an additional supplementary question. I wonder whether the minister might come back to what he was about to tell us with regard to Russia. Can you specifically confirm for us that the government has not sought a briefing with ASNO, has not raised the issue with the IAEA board of governors, has not done anything to confirm or validate the research that has been put on the public record and has not raised this with the IAEA directorgeneral? Can the minister confirm that none of those actions have been taken and perhaps advise whether anything at all has been done?

Senator FAULKNER-I am not aware of the issues in relation to a briefing. I will need to find more information out about that. I am not able to talk about any classified briefings that the government might have received. However, I will certainly seek specific advice in relation to the briefing that you have requested. In relation to the Russian issue that you raised, you might recall that a new nuclear cooperation agreement was signed in September 2007 during the APEC summit by the former Foreign Minister, Mr Downer. That agreement allows for the use of Australia uranium in the Russian civil nuclear sector only and I can say that it does fully meet Australia's strict safeguard requirements.

Senator FAULKNER (New South Wales- Minister for Defence) (3.17 pm)-Mr Deputy President, you would recall that in question time Senator Ludlam asked me some questions about Burma and I provided him with all the information I had available. He asked two specific supplementary questions which I can now assist him with. Senator Ludlam asked whether the government had received any briefing from ASNO or the department on Burma in advance of or after reports that Burma had a clandestine nuclear program. The answer to that question is yes. He also asked whether the department raised the issue of Burma's nuclear program with the IAEA. I can inform the Senate that the answer to that question is yes. The IAEA contact said there was no new evidence in the media reports.

http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/question/burma%E2%80%99s-nuclear-program

ENC Fund Raising Event



Myanmar says nuclear ambitions are peaceful - Japan

By Ek Madra


Saturday October 3, 2009

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (Reuters) - Japan said on Saturday it had been assured by military-ruled Myanmar that it was not developing nuclear weapons even though it was working with Russia on a nuclear energy programme.

Myanmar has remained tight-lipped about its nuclear plans, despite speculation it has been receiving help from North Korea to build nuclear facilities near its remote capital with the intent of developing a weapon.

Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win told his Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada that his country was seeking Russia's expertise, but only in developing a peaceful energy programme for its people.

"(Nyan Win) told Japan's foreign minister that Myanmar has no intention to have a nuclear weapon," Japan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama told reporters on the sidelines of a Mekong-Japan ministerial meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

"Myanmar has conducted a consultation to have assistance from Russia for a peaceful use of nuclear energy."

Kazuo did not say if the issue of any nuclear links with North Korea was discussed.

Academic researchers said in August Myanmar was building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium facility in caves tunnelled into a mountain, citing intelligence from two defectors.

The defectors also said Myanmar, which has known reserves of uranium ore, had provided refined "yellowcake" processed uranium that can be used as nuclear fuel to Iran and North Korea.

The isolated country has been under Western sanctions for two decades and analysts say a nuclearised Myanmar could trigger an arms race in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at a security forum in Thailand in July that she was concerned about the possible transfer of nuclear technology to Myanmar from North Korea.

In reference to ties between North Korea and Myanmar, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, said there were "some signs that that cooperation has extended into areas that would be prohibited".

However, many analysts have said evidence of attempts to develop nuclear weapons is scant and have questioned the reliability of the defectors' information.

(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alison Williams)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/4/worldupdates/2009-10-03T201921Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-428901-1&sec=Worldupdates