Burmese junta sets voting dates

[The_Munchmaster]

Burma will hold a constitutional referendum in May and general elections in 2010, the country's military junta has announced on state media.

 

The regime had set out what it called a roadmap for democracy but had not previously given any firm timetable.

 

The opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) called the announcement "vague, incomplete and strange".

 

Burma, under military rule since 1962, saw rare nationwide protests against the junta in August and September.

 

The military responded with a deadly crackdown in which at least 31 people were killed, according to the UN.

 

Saturday's statement from the military leadership, broadcast on radio and television, announced: "Multi-party democratic elections will be held in 2010, according to the new constitution.

 

"It is suitable to change the military administration to a democratic, civil administrative system, as good fundamentals have been established.

 

"The country's basic infrastructure has been built, although there is still more to do in striving for the welfare of the nation."

 

NLD spokesman Nyan Win expressed surprise that the election had been planned before the results of the constitutional referendum were known.

 

"According to my understanding, the election date should be set up after the referendum results. I was surprised that they announced an election date without knowing the referendum results," he told the BBC.

 

The proposed constitutional changes have not been made public, but some suspect that they would in effect bar NLD leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi from office and perhaps ensure that a military leader was chosen.

 

Election results ignored

 

Burma held a multi-party election in 1990, two years after thousands were killed in a crackdown on popular demonstrations.

 

The NLD won the poll, but the military ignored the result and Ms Suu Kyi has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest in Burma's commercial capital, Rangoon.

 

Instead, the military formed a convention in 1993 that spent the next 14 years setting out guidelines for a new constitution.

 

Saturday's statement said the constitution, which is now being drafted by a government-appointed commission, would be finished soon.

 

The military's roadmap for democracy has been widely dismissed as a sham by observers.

 

Late last month, Ms Suu Kyi said she was not satisfied by recent talks with military rulers, expressing concern that the meetings might raise false hopes of political reform.

 

She repeated demands that the talks must involve pro-democracy groups and representatives of Burma's ethnic groups.

 

 

[bust]

Do you have a link to that Munch? I read the Irrawaddy last night and no mention of it.

[YimSiam]

bust,

 

Do a google news search, it's all over today.

 

To call the constitution drafting process a farce doesn't come close to doing it justice... Last constitutional referendum was for the 1974 constitution, when each voter was given one voting slip, to deposit in either the 'for' (military government's constitution) or 'against' (um, something else) box. Trick was, boxes were positioned out in the open where the whole village could see the voting, no anonymity, and surrounded by armed soldiers. What impresses me is that the approval rate was only something like 97% -- meaning 3% had the balls to drop their slip in the 'Fuck you, Ne Win' box...

 

(Beyond impressive and just plain baffling is the general conclusion that the 1990 elections were free and fair... what was the government thinking?! I guess it was of multiple minds at the time, Ne Win fading, etc.)

 

Perhaps Thaksin and the rest of those guys will see this as vindication that T was right all along - the roadmap is working!

 

So heartbreaking, all of it. By the time these Burmese military jackasses wake up to what they've done, Burma may well be the 24th province of China. Sanctions won't work on a myopic autocracy, military intervention is neither politically nor strategically feasible or desirable, the in-house democracy movement operates only to the degree the junta chooses to allow, and the minority insurgencies that remain are on their last breaths... Is Burma a job that only McDonald's, Microsoft and Britney Spears can handle?

 

YimSiam

 

 

 

 

[bust]

It all sounds very promising but 2 years is a very long time in Burma.

 

Can't help but be skeptical about anything the junta proposes when it comes to a democratic election. Didn't something similar happen 18 years ago?

[chelseafan]

Yim summed it up nicely. :thumbup:

 

Yes there may be elections, but they wont be free and they wont be fair.

 

The military will continue to rule either direct or through some puppet.

[kamui]

A 'Wonderland' where monks call for foreign air strikes

 

By LEWIS NORMAN

Special to The Japan Times

 

Burma is a topsy-turvy sort of place, where surprises lurk and suddenly jump out at you.

 

News photo

A monk in one of the robes that gave the Saffron Revolution of Bloody September 2007 its name. LEWIS NORMAN PHOTO

 

Prices for some goods are not just high, they are astronomical. Incredibly, a mobile phone SIM card costs $2,000, a 1990 Corolla costs $30,000 and a new Toyota Land Cruiser goes for $300,000. In Tokyo they practically give away mobile phones, nobody would pay even $1,000 for a 1990 Corolla, and a new Land Cruiser would cost less than $60,000. The fact that these goods are not uncommon and command such prices in a country with the lowest per-capita income in ASEAN is remarkable.

 

Meanwhile, in the markets around the country, foodstuffs are plentiful but the people are destitute; and in the monasteries, uniformed police still guard the entrances and camp inside, while the monks continue to go out and beg alms from the legions of faithful, their spirits unbowed, their anger unabated.

 

In this "Wonderland," the SPDC is constructing a new capital, Naypyitaw (meaning "Seat of Kings"), and an IT city with its gleaming shrines to warped priorities. And why not buy a $250-million Russian nuclear reactor to produce, we are assured, medical isotopes in a nation where annual health spending is less than $1 per capita?

 

When I mentioned my "Alice in Wonderland" feeling to an elderly Burmese he laughed and told me that a new translation of this Lewis Carroll classic into Burmese has recently been nominated for a prestigious literary prize. Timing is everything, and what could be more apt for a nation collectively experiencing the unnerving feeling of falling down the Rabbit Hole where the Mad Hatters in green are in charge and monks are shot, arrested and tortured at the Queen of Hearts' behest?

 

The newspapers, meanwhile, lay the blame for the nation's mounting problems and unrest on unpatriotic saboteurs orchestrated by evil powers who seek to control Burma for their own nefarious ends.

 

The Buddhist monks who were killed, we read, were not real monks, merely hooligans masquerading as pious devotees. Now many of the monks are gone, many returning to their homes under duress, but the whereabouts of others remains uncertain â?? some perhaps secretly cremated in the wee hours when security forces told crematorium staff to make themselves scarce.

 

In their stead are what the people derisively refer to as the "new" monks â?? soldiers who have donned robes and taken up residence in some of the most troublesome monasteries to keep an eye on things. All is not as it appears.

Risk getting the ax

 

Many Burmese are jobless, and those who do their jobs well in Wonderland run the risk of getting the ax. For example, Charles Petrie, the senior United Nations representative in Burma until December 2007, was expelled for announcing that the emperor has no clothes. The government tersely declared that he had "exceeded his mandate," which apparently in Burma means that the U.N. coordinator of humanitarian programs should not speak up about humanitarian problems.

 

On U.N. day (Oct. 24, 2007), Petrie said that the protests "clearly demonstrated the everyday struggle to meet basic needs."

 

Soon after his expulsion I asked numerous Burmese why he was expelled, and I was told that it was because he had been doing a good job. One ethnic Rakhine in Sittwe told me, "Because he told the truth in a country where telling the truth is inconvenient (for the government) and usually punished." Others said he embarrassed the SPDC because everyone knows that the gathering humanitarian crisis is a consequence of its failures.

 

By implicitly linking the political protests to the dire economic circumstances, and reportedly saying that the situation will remain explosive if the pressing needs of the vast majority remain neglected, Petrie was stating the obvious. His expulsion may also have been a shot over the bow of U.N. Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari, warning him about what the consequences might be if he offends his hosts by doing his job.

 

What Petrie said about Burma's humanitarian crisis and widespread poverty is not exactly a state secret; the signs are everywhere evident. A stone's throw from central Yangon train station, and less than 10 minutes' walk from the swank Traders Hotel, is one of the grimmest slums you might never want to encounter. There, families live in flimsy and crowded shacks built along narrow alleys and open sewers. But stunningly, the squalor is relieved by the mirage of a palatial military family estate that stands cheek-by-jowl, divided only by a fence from its impoverished neighbors. This urban oasis features gleaming condominiums sprouting satellite dishes and late-model cars, watered lawns and well-kept premises of those who are so openly despised by the people. The tenement kids noisily play badminton and soccer while the estate is lifeless, huddled in on itself.

 

RELATED LINKS

Eyewitness: Burma from the inside

Striken land of soldiers and slaves

Film focuses on 'the other Burma'

 

Given how grim conditions are in Burma, it is amazing how people manage to maintain their sense of humor and joke about their plight â?? and especially their miserable leaders. "Where do the generals go for medical care?" as the joke goes. Answer: "The airport."

 

Par Par Lay, 60, a Mandalay comedian in the locally famous Moustache Brothers Troupe, has been imprisoned three times because the regime doesn't have a sense of humor. He was released from jail shortly before I met him. He erred by making a wordplay in Pali that drew attention to the shooting of the monks, and also joined the antigovernment demonstrations.

 

He didn't seem like a man who had just spent two months in jail under constant interrogation, subjected to sleep- and food-deprivation. His interrogators wanted to know who was instigating the demonstrations, and they were not amused when he said that the monks and people were demonstrating because of government policies that made everything too expensive â?? implying that the government itself must be the instigator.

 

Despite the "minders" in the audience, Par Par Lay jokes about a Burmese man who went to Bangkok seeking treatment for his toothache. When he got there the dentist asked, "Why did you come all the way here to get your tooth treated? Don't you have dentists in Burma?" The man replied, "Yes, but in Burma we are not allowed to open our mouths."

 

Meanwhile, monks in Rakhine â?? when asked what the international community should do to help â?? replied, "Send F-16s to bomb Naypyitaw (the new capital). That's where the bad men are." It is a measure of just how topsy-turvy things are in Wonderland, when monks are calling for air strikes.

 

The Japan Times

[bust]

Than Shwe has some weird belief in numbers I read once. May turn out to be ironic.

 

By AUNG ZAW

 

Twenty years ago, millions of Burmese took to the streets to defy the dictatorial government led by Gen Ne Win. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Burma's democracy uprising.

 

The uprising is known as the four 8s, or 8.8.88, because student activists called for a nationwide uprising on August 8, 1988.

 

The number 8 brought bloodshed, tears and hope for democratic change in Burma. The irony now is that the Beijing's Olympics will begin on August 8, 2008.

 

There have been calls for a boycott against the Beijing Olympics ever since the bloody crackdown in September. But why target China?

 

The connection is simply that many people feel that Burma is China's client state. China is a main source of diplomatic, military and economic support that has prolonged the repressive rule in Burma.

 

China has repeatedly vetoed Burma resolutions at the United Nations Security Council.

 

Beijing has also said the international community should engage the regime and not to use sanctions to pressure the regime to change.

 

After the bloody crackdown in September, Beijing sent a number of mixed signals to the international community. First, China asked the junta to work toward national reconciliation and democratization. The Chinese also played a positive role in encouraging the regime to issue a visa to UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari to enter Burma.

 

Since the crackdown, Burma has twice dispatched envoys to Beijing to give special briefings on its â??internal affairs.â? Chinaâ??s support to the regime has been consistent. Critics say Chinaâ??s policy on Burma is designed to preserve the regime.

 

Aside from political backing, Beijing continues to provide military aid, economic assistance and soft loans to the junta. China now has more than 700 development projects underway in Burma, including building roads, dams and factories.

 

In return, Burma sells gas and natural resources to China and provides overland routes to access the Indian Ocean. Diplomatically, it also promotes the one-China policy.

 

But Burmaâ??s internal troubles won't go away easily, and they are on China's doorstep.

 

The Chinese are rightly worried about bad publicity surrounding the Olympics Games in Beijing.

 

The world will be focusing on Communist China, and the buildup to the Olympics could create bad press and calls for boycotts of Chinese-made goods. The Chinese leaders are nervous, and their normal reaction is to stifle dissent.

 

In December, Hu Jia, 34, was arrested by Chinese authorities for disseminating information about human rights cases and peasant protests in the country. Previously, he and his wife lived under de facto house arrest. The upcoming games, he said, has led the Chinese authorities to tighten their monitoring of dissidents.

 

True. A few months ago, a former factory worker in northeastern China was arrested for collecting 10,000 signatures after posting an online petition titled "We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics."

 

Outside of China, bad Olympic publicity increased when American actress Mia Farrow criticized China for contributing to the atrocities in the Sudan through its economic deals with the Middle Eastern government that human rights activists say is committing genocide. In a Wall Street Journal article, Farrow said China was getting ready to hold a â??Genocide Olympics.â?Â

 

Beijing has gone on the defensive, saying sports and politics should be separated.

 

Liu Jingmin, the vice mayor of Beijing and vice president of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, said itâ??s unfair to link China's policies on Burma to boycotts.

 

"I believe that any political issue or issues that have nothing to do with the Olympics should not be linked with the Olympic Games," he told correspondents in Beijing late last year.

 

"The Chinese government has played a constructive and responsible part in the Myanmar [burma] issue," Liu said. "The constructive role by China has been recognized by all. I think the attempt to use this issue as an excuse to boycott the Beijing Olympics is both inappropriate and unpopular."

 

But many activists say everything is on the table in politics. China is now a major player in world affairs, and, as such, itâ??s subject to criticism.

 

China can arrest people for peaceful criticism in its own country, but it canâ??t prevent dissent and criticism in democratic countries.

 

Beijing's diplomatic and military support to the repressive junta has remained unchanged.

 

The anti-junta campaigns planned for the Beijing Olympics are gathering momentum. In the near future, foreign and Burmese activists will stage demonstrations and issue calls for the Chinese government to use its influence to pressure the generals to engage in serious political reform.

 

Burma activists will not call for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

 

Even Western governments that are among the strongest critics of the junta are cautious about such calls. The plain fact is that China is an economic powerhouse.

 

The United States, a strong critic of the junta, is not going to sacrifice its bilateral relations with Beijing over Burma or Aung San Suu Kyi.

 

US President George W Bush will attend the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Washingtonâ??s and Beijingâ??s policies on Burma are diametrically opposed. Indeed, it is a case of not mixing sports with politics.

 

Weâ??ll see â??Free Burmaâ? leaflets and â??Free Suu Kyiâ? banners unfurl starting on August 8. The protests will occur, if not in China.

 

But in Burma, on the day when the Beijing Olympics begin, many Burmese activists and monks who have been imprisoned will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of 8.8.88.

 

Burmese refugees and internally displaced people hiding in the jungles from the juntaâ??s soldiers who are equipped with Chinese-made automatic rifles, trucks and jet fighters understand why Mia Farrow called for a boycott of the "Genocide Olympics."

 

The Olympicâ??s inaugural ceremony on August 8, 2008, symbolizes the heavy price the Burmese people have paid at the hands of a repressive dictatorship.