PNLO Statement On Pa-Oh National Day 2010

PNLO Statement on Pa-Oh National Day 2010

PNLO Honorable Message to Pa-Oh National Day 2010

PNLO Honorable Message for Pa-Oh National Day 2010

NCGUB Honorable Message to Pa-Oh Natoinal Day 2010

NCGUB Honorable Message to Pa-Oh National Day 2010

ဘန္ေကာက္တြင္ ပအို႔၀္ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ပြဲေတာ္က်င္းပ

Saturday, 27 February 2010 17:10 ဘေစာတင္

ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံ ဘန္ေကာက္ၿမိဳ႕၌ ယေန႔တြင္ ပအို႔၀္ တိုင္းရင္းသားမ်ား၏ ႐ိုးရာ အဆိုအက၊ စာေပ အႏုပညာမ်ား ပါ၀င္ျပသသည့္ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈပြဲေတာ္ က်င္းပသည္။

ပအို႔၀္ အမ်ိဳးသားေန႔ ျဖစ္ေသာ ယေန႔တြင္ ပအို႔၀္ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈပြဲေတာ္ကို ရိုးရာ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ အစဥ္အလာမ်ား မေပ်ာက္ပ်က္ေရး၊ ပအို႔၀္အခြင့္အေရး တန္းတူညီမွ်ေရး၊ အမ်ိဳးသား စိတ္ဓာတ္ျမႇင့္တင္ေရး၊ ေသြးစည္း ညီ ညြတ္ေရး စသည့္ ဦးတည္ခ်က္မ်ားျဖင့္ က်င္းပျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္ဟု ပအို႔၀္ ေဖာင္ေဒးရွင္းမွ အေထြေထြ အတြင္းေရးမႉး ကိုခြန္၀င္းက ဧရာ၀တီသို႔ ေျပာသည္။

Loans to Burma benefit Thaksin

Loans to Burma benefit Thaksin

* Published: 26/02/2010 at 08:38 PM
* Online news: Breakingnews

The Supreme Court judges said that ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra benefited from a low interst government loan made to Burma during his time in office.

Judges found that Thaksin abused his power in ordering the approval of Export-Import Bank of Thailand loans worth 4 billion baht to Burma.

The action benefited Shin Satellite, a company which he controlled.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/169849/loans-to-burma-benefit-thaksin

Atrocities in Karen State “Systematic”: KWO

By LAWI WENG
Thursday, February 25, 2010

In the increasing instability due to ongoing military conflict in Karen State, eastern Burma, Karen women faced ongoing systematic abuse including beatings, torture and gender-based violence, according to released a report by the Karen Women's Organization (KWO).

Based in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border, the KWO released its report titled Walking Amongst Sharp Knives: the unsung courage of Karen women village chiefs in conflict areas of Eastern Burma on Thursday.

The report details 95 cases of women who served as village chiefs in Papun, Kwakareik, Thaton, Nyaunglebin and Pa-an Districts in Eastern Burma.

Testimonies from the women chiefs in the report “show a consistent pattern to the Burma's Army's treatment of local communities.

“Not only do their troops constantly demand labor, food, building materials, 'taxes' and intelligence, but they are clearly authorized to use terror tactics to subjugate villagers to prevent them from cooperating with the Karen resistance,” the report said, adding that one third of the women interviewed were physically beaten or tortured and that neither their status a chiefs nor their gender caused the troops “to exercise restraint in their brutality.”

Speaking about the report in Chiang Mai on Thursday, Blooming Night Zan, a secretary of KWO, said, “Men in five districts didn't serve as village chiefs because they would be tortured and killed by junta troops. Only women could serve in this position.”

Dealing with State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) troops while trying to protect the rights of villagers was “similar to walking between sharp knives,” said one women chief in the report.

As village chiefs, it was the duty of the women to deal with Burmese army troops when they entered villages. They would have to collect food for them and would have to follow them from one village to another. On the way, they faced torture, beatings and would be threatened with sexual violence.

According to Blooming Night Zan, between 2005 and 2009 about 100 men and women were killed in Thaton and Pa-an districts in Mon and Karen States.

In one incident described in the report, junta troops accused two young villagers looking after cows of being rebel soldiers and summarily beheaded them.

If SPDC troops are attacked by Karen National Liberation Army troops, they torture villagers to extract information about the enemy. Interviewees described how villagers were buried up to their heads and kicked or had their heads covered with plastic bags before they were repeatedly immersed in water.

Blooming Night Zan said one woman chief observed that however many times Burmese junta battalions were changed or rotated in Karen State, their policy of abuse remained the same.

One interviewee described how her only daughter was gang-raped by junta troops, causing indescribable pain as she watched her child become suicidal and mentally ill. Interviewees frequently spoke of sexual violence and intimidation perpetrated by Burmese army against villagers.

“Most of the women village chiefs were raped by SPDC troops. They did not care whether they were single or married women,” said interviewee 54 in the report.

Women chiefs were also forced to provide “comfort women” for the SPDC troops and would be fined if they failed to provide them, the report said, adding that there was clear evidence of a prevailing climate of impunity for sexual violence by Burma Army troops.

Tin Tin Nyo, who is a member of the Chiang Mai-based Women's League of Burma said, “The Burmese government says the situation is stable in Burma, but this report proves this is simply not true. The UN should take action.”

“Women are not safe in these districts. We want the UN to put pressure on the Burmese military to stop abusing women,” said Blooming Night Zan.

In 2004, the KWO published a report titled “Shattering Silences,” which claimed that Burmese troops systematically raped Karen women. The report documented 125 cases of sexual violence committed between 1988 and 2004. The report said that half of the rapes were committed by military officers, 40 percent were gang-rapes, and in 28% of the cases the women were killed after being raped.

Women’s organizations in other ethnic areas have reported similar incidents. In 2002, the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) released a report titled “License to Rape,” which detailed testimonies from 173 ethnic Shan women who had been raped or encountered sexual violence at the hands of Burmese soldiers.

“The Burmese regime's troops destroyed about 500 homes in Shan State last year and they raped Shan women,” said Charm Tong, one of the founders of SWAN, which published License to Rape, a report documenting the Burmese army’s extensive use of sexual violence as part of its operations against ethnic insurgents.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17895

Lahu re-elected as leader of Shan State

Tuesday, 09 February 2010 16:15 S.H.A.N.

The 76 year old Kya Bo Long of the Lahu Democratic Union was recently re-elected by winning 41% of the votes as the Chairman of the Provisional Shan State Congress formed in December 2008 at Loi Taileng, opposite Maehongson.

Out of 78 eligible voters from 26 organizations, Kya Bo Long, a native of Kengtung and a former recipient of the student support fund created by the late Prince of Kengtung Sao Sai Long, received 32 votes. His two Shan challengers got 23 votes each.

“Even I cast the vote for him,” said Peunkham Payakwong, representative of the Chiangmai-based Tai Coordination Center (TCC). “He is very disciplined and strict. What’s more, he’s not a Shan but able to get on well with everyone. We need his kind to make Shan State a suitable place to live.”

“I’ll be patient with all, Lahu or non-Lahu,” Kya Bo Long, who is remarkably healthy and energetic for his age, told SHAN.

The SSC, formed by the Shan State Army (SSA) South, Lahu Democratic Union, PaO National Liberation Organization, Wa National Organization and others following increased pressure on the ceasefire groups including the United Wa State Army to become part of the junta-run Ttamadaw (National Armed Forces), had made several overtures to them. The results, according to an SSA member, were not so bad.” “The used to fight against us on the side of the Burma Army,” he said. “But now they have assured us there won’t be any more fighting between us.”

One of the three reasons why Naypyitaw has been extending its deadline for the ceasefire groups to accept its Border Guard Force (BGF) program, according to him, is because of its fear that the groups would flock over to the SSA “South”, the principal armed opposition movement in Shan State. “Another is Beijing’s tireless lobbying not to make war on the Chinese border,” he said. “The third reason is that the generals may believe they can win without having to fight.”

The killing of Mongla-based National Democratic Alliance Army’s General Secretary Min Ein last month, some believe, was engineered by Naypyitaw’s agents. The gunman, after two weeks, is still at large.

The SSC, holding its second annual meeting, 4-6 February, had resolved to expand its campaign to win as many as possible groups inside Shan State.

The Shan State, is a co-founder of the Union by virtue of 1947 Panglong Agreement, is the biggest state in Burma. Five of its non-Shan ethnic groups: Danu, Kokang, Palaung, PaO and Wa, were granted Self Administered status by the junta drawn 2008 constitution. But most opposition groups have put it down as a cosmetic one. “We enjoyed more autonomy during the days of the Sawbwas (feudal lords),” a non-Shan participant told SHAN.

http://www.shanland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2909:lahu-re-elected-as-leader-of-shan-state&catid=85:politics&Itemid=266

Karen deportations put on hold

Karen deportations put on hold

* Published: 6/02/2010 at 12:00 AM
* Newspaper section: News

The planned deportation of about 1,700 Karen refugees back to Burma yesterday has been shelved temporarily because of mounting domestic and international pressure.

Activists, led by the Friends of Burma and the Karen Women's Organisation (KWO), yesterday submitted a letter of appeal to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva following an earlier call seeking suspension of the deportation which failed.

They had asked the National Security Council and the ministries of interior and foreign affairs to stop the plan to send the refugees back to Burma.

The 3rd Army had initially said the deportation would take place yesterday. But the plan has been halted for the time being as opposition to the policy has been increasing.

The Karen refugees fled to Thailand last year following a summer military offensive by the military junta.

The KWO said the repatriated refugees could be subject to horrific human rights abuses, including rape, torture and even execution if they were sent home.

Thai human rights activists also said landmines are buried across the border and a return on foot would be too dangerous for the refugees.

The NGOs said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) may need to play a role in ensuring the safe return of the refugees in keeping with international standards.

US Congressman Joseph Crowley called on Thailand to halt the deportation of the Karen to the dangerous conflict zone in eastern Burma.

"If this decision isn't reversed, thousands of Burmese refugees will be forced to live in grave danger," said Mr Crowley who joined 26 fellow congressmen in conveying their concern to Mr Abhisit in a letter dated Feb 4. They warned the deportation would tarnish Thailand's reputation for helping resettle refugees.

Noppadol Watcharajitbovorn, commander of the 35th Ranger Regiment's task force, yesterday led representatives from the UNHCR, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium and the American embassy to witness the repatriation of 16 Karen refugees who returned home on a voluntary basis.

Col Noppadol said the Defence Ministry has told his task force to suspend all further repatriation.

"We have been asked by Bangkok after a request by the US seeking a temporary suspension. We are also re-evaluating the situation after rights groups voiced concerns," he said.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/32375/karen-deportations-put-on-hold