Kay Latt

Reuters
Jakarta, March 25, 2009

The European Union will wait until next month before deciding whether to extend sanctions against Myanmar, a special envoy said on Tuesday, although another EU official saw little prospect of them being lifted.

There has been an emerging debate in the international community over policies towards Myanmar after Washington said it was reviewing its policy and conceded that sanctions had not influenced the junta on human rights and democracy.

The EU's special envoy to Myanmar, Piero Fassino, said there had been no decision yet on new sanctions, which expire at the end of April.

"Our attitude about this is in relation with the evolution of the situation. If there will be some positive new steps, we take note," said Fassino, who is on a trip to the region before reporting back to Brussels.

"The European Council many times declared we are ready to change the sanctions if there are some positive steps in (the) direction to obtain our goals," he said, without elaborating.

But another EU official was pessimistic there could be progress within a month to justify lifting sanctions.

"The chances that (the junta) will move in the next month, there is only one month's time, I don't think they're very big," the official told Reuters, asking not to be identified.

The sanctions apply to a long list of Myanmar officials and firms associated with its military rulers.

The EU has been pushing Myanmar to open a dialogue with the opposition, release political prisoners and guarantee elections due in 2010 are free and fair.

The junta, which has ruled the former Burma since 1962, has refused to recognise a 1990 landslide election victory of the opposition National League for Democracy. Its leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for most of the past two decades.

Myanmar has been pursuing its own "roadmap" to democracy, which includes a referendum on an army-drafted constitution.

Western governments have criticised the poll as a sham aimed at entrenching military rule. The 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, has sought to address democratic reforms and human rights issues in the former Burma under a policy of "constructive engagement".

But the EU and Washington have urged ASEAN to put more pressure on their neighbour.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month on a trip to the region that the sanctions had not influenced the junta, but also said that trying to engage them had failed.

Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 2:00 pm
Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission

Myanmar: Special Humanitarian Request For Urgent Medical Treatment For Detainee Suffering From Heart Condition

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is writing this special appeal to you out of grave concern that a person currently being detained in Myanmar is seriously incapacitated and could die for want of adequate medical attention.

The detainee in question is Ma Su Su Nwe, 39, who was convicted of five charges and sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in jail for her part in the events of August and September 2007, which was reduced on appeal to eight-and-a-half years in February 2009. Ma Su Su Nwe, as you may be aware, has a congenital heart defect and has been on medication for a long time.
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However, we are gravely concerned that since she has been held in custody, Ma Su Su Nwe's health has worsened dramatically. According to visitors to Kalay Prison in Sagaing Division, where she has been held since November 2008, Ma Su Su Nwe is unable to walk without support from wardens and appears to be extremely weak and pale.

While we are aware that Ma Su Su Nwe has obtained some treatment at the Kalay hospital, we are gravely concerned that so long as she is held in the extremely poor conditions in the prison her health will only continue to worsen.

We are also aware that one of the reasons for Ma Su Su Nwe's seriously deteriorating health is that, like many other persons convicted over the incidents in 2007, she has been sent to a prison far from her residence, making it very difficult for friends and family to visit regularly and attend to her needs.

Without regards to other factors, we sincerely request you to allow Ma Su Su Nwe to get the urgent medical treatment that she needs to secure her health, preferably as an inpatient in a hospital outside of prison. In this respect we also kindly request that you consider transferring Ma Su Su Nwe to a prison closer to her family and relatives, in the Ayeyarwaddy or Yangon Divisions, so that other persons too may assist in seeing that she receives the food and medicine and other things that she needs.

Please be informed that we are making this request on strictly humanitarian and compassionate grounds, for the sake of the health and wellbeing of a woman detainee. We believe that your prompt intervention will allow for Ma Su Su Nwe to obtain the assistance that she needs without further delay.

We also take this opportunity to urge that the International Committee for the Red Cross again be allowed access to detainees in Myanmar in accordance with its international mandate as a matter of the highest priority.

We trust that you will give this request your highest consideration and thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours sincerely

Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong

Mar 25, 2009 (DVB)–The European Union has said that it may consider easing sanctions on Burma if democratic progress in the country is seen, said the EU’s senior envoy to Burma yesterday.

“The European Council many times declared we are ready to change the sanctions, suspend the sanctions, if there are some positive steps in the direction of our goal,” said Piero Fassino.

The EU is due to meet with senior Burmese officials next month. Conditions for the easing of sanctions included the lifting of restrictions on opposition groups ahead of the proposed 2010 elections.

“It is impossible to achieve a free and fair election if the leader of the opposition is in prison,” he said.

“If in the next month there is some positive evolution, for example putting in place real democratic guarantees, we will consider [easing sanctions].”

The statement coincides with the first visit by a US senior official to Burma since the ruling State Peace and Development Council took office in 1997, and points to the possibility of a general softening in policy from the international community.

Reporting by Francis Wade

Mar 23, 2009 (DVB)–Villages in Irrawaddy division are still struggling for fresh water nearly a year after sources were inundated by seawater and debris, including human and animal corpses, from cyclone Nargis.

According to locals and aid workers in Irrawaddy, finding fresh drinking water had remained difficut for residents in about 80 villages in Bogalay, Mawlamyaingkyun and Laputta townships.

Many villagers have had to travel long distances via boats to fetch water since the cyclone hit last May.

“In some villages, people have to travel to far places, sometime an hour’s boat ride away on the river to get to fresh water wells,” said one villager.

“Those who are unable to travel can buy water from those who sell it in the villages for 1000 kyat [$US1] a bucket.”

Some NGOs and international organisations, including France’s Red Cross, have been installing water purifying machines and digging new wells in affected areas, said the villager.

Their geographical spread, however, has meant that not all areas have been covered.

The leader of the National League for Democracy’s Nargis Relief Committee, Ohn Kyaing, said it was a worrying situation for the villagers located in a region that was known for water shortages in summer even before the cyclone hit.

“In places that are near to the sea, like Laputta, people in summertime have to rely on rainwater from the previous year which has been stored in lakes and ponds,” said Ohn Kyaing.

“But for this year, they will have no water to use as all the local lakes and wells were polluted by muddy seawater, dirt, and dead human and animal corpses during the cyclone.”

The Nargis Relief Committee had managed to help clean around 100 wells in 60 villages in the south of Laputta last year, he added.

The owner of a clinic in Laputta, Dr Aye Kyu, said that the water pollution crisis may lead to an outbreak of diseases such as cholera, which is common in the region, and broke out in Laputta nearly seven years ago.

Farmers have also suffered as a result of continued contamination of land.

Farming equipment bought on credit from private companies has been taken back after farmers failed to pay installments following a poor harvest that left them with insufficient money, said a local in Bogalay township.

Reporting by Nan Kham Kaew

Mar 23, 2009 (DVB)–The International Labour Organisation has confirmed that over 2000 acres of farmland confiscated by the army in Magwe division has been returned following meetings between the ILO and local authorities.

The land had been taken from farmers in Aunglan township, Magwe, two years ago after they refused to bow to government pressure to grow sugarcane for army-run Aunglan township’s sugar factory.

Following a meeting on 11 March between the ILO and the military, 2003 acres of land was returned.

“Satisfactory conclusions were reached in respect of the farmers having the right to access their land or in other areas to receive an equal quantity of land which they would then have to the right to use to grow whichever crops they wished to grow,” said the ILO liaison officer in Rangoon, Steve Marshall.

“The principles and agreements…now are in the process of being put into practice,” he added.

Reporting by Htet Aung Kyaw

Mar 20, 2009 (DVB)–Chin state locals who suffered food shortages last year due to mass flowering of bamboo have been forced to grow and sell opium to generate income, said a researcher who visited the region recently.

Last month, Chin ethnic researcher Pu Be Jong visited the areas in Chin state, including Plattwa township, affected by the food crisis. The mass flowering of bamboo occurs about once in every 50 years, and attracts hordes of rodents which destroy food crops.

Pu Be Jong said that local people from villages in Plattawa township, alongside the Kaladan River, were growing poppy crops to earn money for food.

“The villagers have been secretly growing poppy in nearby forests since September last year,” he said.

“The locals said they didn’t really want to make money through such a business but they had no other choice.”

The opium produced after the harvest earlier this year was sold in Bangladeshi and Indian towns across the border.

Burma is the world’s second biggest exporter of opium after Afghanistan, according to the United States.

Reporting by Khin Maung Soe Min

Mar 20, 2009 (DVB)–Two female stall holders at a market in Bago were assaulted by local butchers earlier this month, and one then sued by police for insulting and obstructing officials on duty, said a stall holder.

Local butchers Kyint Sein and Thant Zin attacked a meat curry vendor named San San Hla after she refused to source meat from them. They also attacked another stall holder.

Market official Than Win and Captain Myo Myint Aung of the army’s Brigade-77 watched while the assault took place, said San San Hla.

“They pulled my hair and beat me up,” she said. “I fell down and lost consciousness.

“Other people came to watch and the men hastily drove away. They dragged another girl, who was selling pork barbeque at the top of the road, by her neck and took her to the municipal office."

“They told me they did that because the captain was here.”

San San Hla and the girl reported the incident to No.3 police station but officers refused to accept their case.

Market official Than Win and butcher Thant Zin then sued San San Hla for obstructing officials on duty, and butcher Kyint Sein and Thant Zin sued her for insulting them.

A police officer at No.3 station said that witnesses are being interviewed and the police will press charges only after legal experts are consulted.

San San Hla also claimed that Myo Myint Aung encouraged the attackers while they were assaulting her.

An officer on duty at Brigade-77, Lieutenant Colonel Tin Htun Oo, denied the accusation and said that the people concerned are being interviewed.

"It is the army's duty to make things better, not to make things worse," he said.

Local residents claim that Myo Myint Aung has been extorting money from guesthouses, slaughter houses and gambling centres for some time.

They added that he is often seen drinking with Kyaw Win, a member of the pro-government Union Solidarity and Development Association party.

On the same day, chicken vendor Nyan Win claims he was also attacked by local butchers and municipal officials.

He said that the butchers mistook his chicken meat for pork meat, for which they are trying to get a monopoly over distribution.

"Four people punched me first,” he said. “As I fell down I asked them why they punched me, and they said they are from the arresting squad.

“My lips needed three stitches from the punches and from being shot with catapults."

Nyan Win said he is also being sued for obstruction and profanity.

Reporting by Ahunt Phone Myat

Mar 19, 2009 (DVB)–Underage workers at a garment factory in Rangoon’s New Dagon township have complained of labour rights abuses by their employers after being forced to work unpaid overtime.

Four female workers, all under the age of 18, recently quit their jobs at the Hercules factory, which is owned by a South-Korean businessman.

They allege that the factory’s management were treating workers unfairly by demanding overtime with no extra pay and no health and medical care provided.

“They also demanded us to produce 30 garments each within 40 minutes,” said one of the girls, aged 16. “We were cursed so badly when we failed.”

She said about 700 workers in the factory were paid a minimum wage of 20,000 kyat ($US20) per month.

“They often called for overtime work with no extra pay, and they never paid our salary on time,” said the girl.

“We have debts and when we don’t get paid on time we get in trouble with our loan sharks.”

She said only workers who were favoured by factory managers were allowed to talk to government officials who inspected the factory regularly.

Reporting by Nan Kham Kaew

Mar 19, 2009 (DVB)–Burmese families relying on remittances from overseas relatives have suffered as the global recession has caused an unfavourable exchange rate for foreign currency entering Burma.

A usually weak Burmese kyat has gained strength recently as much of the world has suffered a general devaluation in currency since the onset of the global recession.

This has meant that Burmese nationals, who previously horded foreign currencies due to their comparative stability, were favouring the kyat.

A Burmese national in Bangkok who ran a private money transfer service for Burmese workers abroad said several other firms doing the same business were forced to shut down after the currency market was upset by the recession.

“There used to be about eight different Burmese firms in Bangkok doing the same money transfer business between Burma and Thailand,” he said.

“Now only about three are left as the rest of them had run out of Burmese kyat in their offices in Rangoon due to high demands.

“The problem is, they couldn’t sell out Thai Baht and other foreign currencies they had in their Bangkok offices because the prices for those are too low at the moment to make profit.”

The weakening value of foreign currencies is also hampering the lives of Burmese nationals who work abroad, as they can only send their families comparatively smaller amounts of money in remittances.

“Now 100,000 kyat is worth about 3500 Thai baht and it used to be only about 2500 baht in the past,” said a Burmese woman working in Thailand’s northern capital Chiang Mai.

Most of the private money exchanging businesses in Burma’s border areas had also stopped due to low demand of foreign currencies, said business owners in the border towns.

Khin Maung Nyo, a Burmese economist in Rangoon, said the situation was a regular phenomenon that occurs when demands on foreign currencies are low.

“This is not a strange thing in marketing theory, because of low demand on foreign currencies,” said Khin Maung Nyo.

“Now nobody wants to own US dollars and even those did want to sell them desperately because its value is falling down.”

by Salai Pi Pi
Friday, 20 March 2009 22:08

New Delhi (Mizzima) –The international community should take up the opportunity of the ongoing relief process in Burma to inject more funds needed for humanitarian assistance of the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, a new report urged.

US-based Refugee International (RI), in its new report, entitled ‘Burma: Capitalizing on the Gains’ released on March 18, urged the global community including the United States, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Burma is a member, to increase funding for development work in Burma.

Jake Kurtzer, who conducted the assessment on Burma’s humanitarian situation, in the report said, though Burma’s ruling military junta initially blocked humanitarian aid, with relief now being mobilized in Cyclone Nargis hit areas of the Irrawaddy delta, the international community should take advantage of the opportunity to inject more funds for humanitarian aid, in other parts of the country.

In its recommendation, the report urged the United States to join other donor nations in making a significant appropriation for humanitarian aid in Burma.

“It should allocate USD 30 million for FY10, with plans to increase its contribution to USD 45 million in FY11 and USD 60 million in FY12,” the report said.

The report said, while the Irrawaddy Delta remains the main focus of humanitarian assistance, after it was hit by Cyclone Nargis, other regions also need similar attention as they too were reeling under humanitarian crisis.

The report said it was necessary that the funding for INGOs’ operation to do assessment in the areas, outside the delta regions, such as drought prone areas of Magwey, Mandalay, Bago Division and the home of Rohingya people in northern Arakan state and the southern part of Chin state, which faces a shortage of food due to being infested by rats.

According to the report, northern Arakan State in Burma, which is home to the Rohingya Muslim minority, continues to be one of the areas of greatest concern.

“Deteriorating living standards, news of increased forced relocations, continuous restrictions on all aspects of normal life, and the expulsion of Rohingya refugees from asylum countries in the region, have focussed the attention of the international aid community there,” the report explained.

The report also urged ASEAN to apply the Tri-Partite Core Group model for use in the discussion of other issues of concern regarding Burma, such as the Rohingya.

RI also urged Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, by hiring a senior humanitarian advisor to strengthen support to the UN Country Team to receive support and adequate guidance.

--PHOTO: AP
YANGON (Myanmar) - MYANMAR has earned more than 140 million euros, (S$288 million), from sales of jade at its latest government-sponsored gem auction, despite a US ban on their import, a merchant said.

More than 3,500 lots of jade were sold at the Jade, Gems and Pearl Emporium, said the merchant who participated in the auction but spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal.

Revenue figures for gemstones and pearls were not available.

Organized by the Mines Ministry, gem auctions are a major revenue earner for Myanmar's ruling junta, which faces economic and political sanctions from the West because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.

The government, which takes a 10 per cent tax from the sales, does not release official sales figures from the auction.

The sale ran from March 8-20 in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, and drew more than 3,000 gem merchants, mostly from China and Hong Kong. Attendance and revenue was roughly the same as at previous auctions, despite the sanctions and the global financial crisis.

Last year, the United States banned the import of gems from Myanmar, which already was the voluntary policy of retailers such as Tiffany's and Bulgari. US officials said at that time that Myanmar has been evading earlier gem-targeting sanctions by laundering stones in other countries before they are shipped to the United States.

Because of US economic sanctions imposed on Myanmar in July 2003, which froze all US dollar remittances to the country, international business transactions including the gem sales are done in euros.

Myanmar gem sellers say the sanctions have little impact on their business because their major buyers are gem merchants from Asia. -- AP

By HTET AUNG KYAW
Published on March 24, 2009

LAST WEEKEND, the Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a report entitled "Enemies of the Internet", which named Burma as one of 12 countries that actively practices censorship and restricts freedom of speech on the Internet.

"The 12 enemies of the Internet … have all transformed their internet into an intranet in order to prevent their populations from accessing 'undesirable' online information," the RSF report said.

As I work for a daily news service, this report is nothing surprising for me. But I was surprised when I learned that a group of hackers from the jungle capital of the low-speed intranet country attacked high-speed websites in the world's richest country.

"Yes, this cyber attack was made by Russian technicians. However, they are not in Moscow but in Burma's West Point cyber city", claimed Aung Lin Htut, the former deputy ambassador to Washington and a former spy for ousted Burmese prime minister Gen Khin Nyunt. (Many Burmese observers compare the country's Maymyo Academy of Defence Services to the US Army's West Pont academy).

Last September, which was the anniversary of the "saffron revolution" led by Buddhist monks, the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) website and two others leading websites (of the Chiang Mai-based Irrawaddy magazine and Delhi-based Mizzima) were attacked by unknown hackers.

"We can easily say that the Burmese government is behind this attack," said a DVB statement. They used DdoS, or distributed denial-of-service, which overloads websites with an unmanageable amount of traffic."

But the DVB technicians doubt that the attackers are government-backed hackers who are based in Russia. "Technically, it is of course difficult to say who is behind the attack," the statement said.

According to Aung Lin Htut, thousands of Burmese army officers are studying Defence Electronic Technology at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), and hundreds of them return to Burma each year to work in Maymyo after they receive the four-year Masters Degrees. The subjects for Burmese officers studying there are computer software programs, nuclear technology, short range and long range missiles, and aeronautics and engineering.

"There is full-scale electricity supply and hi-speed Internet connections at Napyidaw (the country's official capital city) and the West Point cyber city. The cyber attack is just the beginning of their plan to attack the democracy movement," the former spy told this correspondent in an electronic conversation from Washington.

I asked how these officers would be able to apply their knowledge in Burma, where the electricity supply is intermittent.

Although the two VIP locations are very advanced in IT, the rest of the country is still in the dark. There is not enough electricity, telephone lines, or hi-speed Internet connections for the general population.

"Our office telephone line has been cut for over two years. There is no response from the authority whenever we ask the reason," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition National League for Democracy.

"To open an e-mail address for the NLD may lead me to Insein (prison)" he added.

The junta recently arrested dozens of students and activists, including Min Ko Naing's 88 Generation students' group, which took part in the September 2007 uprising and who were involved in distributing relief after Cyclone Nargis ripped through the country last year. A number of the students and activists were sentenced to 65 years in prison for violations of the electronic law, meaning that they had used cellphones, cameras, e-mail and the internet without permission from the authorities.

"I'm very interested in IT and so I learned something about it on the Internet. This is only my guilt that will send me to Insein," said one activist named Zagana as a judge sentenced him to jail.

A recent UN report says that 6 out of every 10 people in the world use a mobile phone.

"But I think the NLD is the only political party in the world that has no telephone, no Internet or website in the 21st century," Nyan Win lamented to me during a cellphone (which he rents from friends) conversation from Rangoon. The NLD members and activists have no permission to buy a cellphone, and are not permitted to own or even use an Internet line or a laptop computer in Burma. If you live in Burma, you need permission from the authorities to buy a cell or land phone, a fax machine, an Internet line, computer, camera, satellite TV, or short-wave radio.

"This is an unacceptable condition for the party that won the 1990 election, while the junta allows everything for the USDA - the pro-government Union Solidarity Development Association - for the 2010 election campaign," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for exiled 88 Generation students and the Forum for Democracy in Burma.

"Cellphones and the Internet are daily basic necessities for politicians and the party," he said to this correspondent in a text message from his Blackberry. "This is very useful and you will see how US President Obama does his daily job using this phone," he added from Bangkok.

But in Burma, the ageing NLD leadership in Rangoon and the army generals in Napyidaw have no Blackberry or cellphone. The generals have banned cellphones in the capital for security reasons, while the NLD leaders have not been able to get either a land phone, a cellphone or an e-mail account.

"This is not just the nature of a generation gap between Obama and Than Shwe. Burma's politics is wrong indeed," Soe Aung added.

Htet Aung Kyaw is a senior journalist for the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma.

Source: The Irrawaddy Date: 23 Mar 2009
By Yeni

Nearly a year after Cyclone Nargis caused catastrophic destruction in Burma's Irrawaddy delta, the road to recovery remains as bumpy as ever, despite claims of "unprecedented cooperation" between the country's ruling junta and international aid agencies.

Less than a month ago, Burma's regional neighbors were welcoming the junta's announcement that it would extend the mandate of the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), the main body responsible for coordinating the Nargis relief effort.

But even as it was giving the TCG—which consists of representatives of the regime, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)—a new lease on life, the junta was moving to limit its effectiveness.

The first sign of trouble came in early February, when the TCG's chairman, former Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu, was reassigned to head the Civil Service Selection and Training Board, an inactive ministerial position.

This worried many aid workers involved in the Nargis relief effort, because Kyaw Thu was seen—uncharacteristically for a senior member of the Burmese government—as cooperative and open to pragmatic solutions.

Last week, the concerns of aid workers proved well-founded, after it was revealed that the regime had halted a program introduced by Kyaw Thu to expedite visa applications for foreign aid workers involved in Nargis-related projects.

The move means that foreign employees of international NGOs must now follow the complicated and time-consuming visa application process that was in place before Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta last May.

The decision to tighten visa restrictions on foreign experts is seen as a serious setback for the relief effort, which is already hobbled by tight controls on the activities of local aid workers.

"We must submit information about every step of our activities to them," said a Burmese relief worker.

Meanwhile, there are growing calls for the international community to press Burma's military government towards greater transparency and accountability in receiving assistance.

A recent report titled "After the Storm: Voices from the Delta"—a joint project of aid workers from the Thai-Burma border and US-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health—accuses the regime of numerous abuses, including interference in assistance, confiscation and resale of aid, arrest of aid workers, discrimination in aid along ethnic lines, forced labor and confiscation of land.

Last week, a protest by Nargis survivors in Twante Township, Rangoon Division, echoed widespread dissatisfaction with the junta's role in the relief effort.

The protesters, from the village of Zeekone, appeared at the local cyclone reconstruction committee office to voice complaints that they were still without homes, even as the rainy season approaches.

The protest was small, but it should be considered a sign that much more needs to be done to speed up the unnecessarily slow pace of reconstruction.

Perhaps even more disturbing than the failure to rebuild the delta nearly a year after Nargis is the fact that Burma still has no effective disaster prevention system.

No one can predict when another deadly storm will hit again, but if the regime is allowed to continue to put its own priorities ahead of the safety and well being of the public, it is safe to say that many more people will die needlessly.

Source: The Irrawaddy Date: 23 Mar 2009
By Lawi Weng

More than 20 homeless survivors of Cyclone Nargis demonstrated at the cyclone reconstruction committee headquarters in Twante Township in Rangoon on Friday.

The protesters, from Zeekone village, appeared at the cyclone reconstruction committee office about 10 am to voice complaints that they are still without homes and the rainy season is drawing near, according to a NLD youth member in Twante Township.

"They are real cyclone victims," he said. "But they didn't get their houses [rebuilt] like other people. They were neglected and abandoned. The committee only takes care of their relatives." He charged that the committee has misused reconstruction funds.

The protesters, accompanied by NLD youth members, stopped the demonstration about 4:30 pm when members of the Myanmar Red Cross (MRC) met with the group.

The MRC has promised to rebuild houses at a cost of 400,000 kyat (US $400) each, according to the Red Cross.

Reconstruction committees were formed in each township to coordinate the rebuilding effort, along with a committee in each village.

www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-23 10:47:50

YANGON, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar built 8,748 basic education schools for the past 20 years, bringing the total to 38,162 as of 2008 since 1988, according to the latest official progress-indicating figures published in Monday's New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

These basic education schools include primary, middle and high schools, of which the primary schools stood the most with 31,329 and schools with multi-media classrooms being 1,829.

A total of 20 teacher ship education colleges were introduced over the two decades.

Relating to higher education, 17 university colleges were built over the period, bringing the total to 44 in 2008.

Other figures revealed that the number of teachers and students went to over 260,000 and 8.83 million respectively as of 2008.

With regard to science and technology education, 30 technological universities, 4 such colleges and 26 universities of computer studies were constructed with one each of Aerospace Engineering University and maritime university added over the period.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has been striving for the increase of the country's adult literacy rate annually with the figures attaining 94.83 percent in 2008, up from 83 percent in 1996.

The Ministry of Education, international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations, regional and local authorities and the communities reportedly made the efforts.

In the formal education sector, endeavors for 100 percent enrollment for all school age children and all students to complete basic education were exerted as a mass movement.

The education authorities urged more active participation in the literacy campaign to improve the education and socio-economic life of the people.

Moreover, Myanmar is also striving for the rural schools to keep pace with urban ones to reduce the development gap of education between the two areas.

www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-21 19:54:52

YANGON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is implementing a new hydropower project, Nancho, near the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw as part of its bid to add more electricity to the country, sources with the Electric Power Department said on Saturday.

The project, lying 25.6 kilometers east of Nay Pyi Taw, is targeted to complete by the year 2010, the sources said.

The Nancho power plant, equipped with two 20-megawatt turbines, can generate electricity of 152 million kilowatt-hours yearly after completion, the sources added.

According to the Myanmar authorities, since Myanmar worked out a series of state-level special projects which also include hydropower ones for implementation, six has been completed and 22 others are underway.

With installed capacity of a total of 442 megawatts (mw), the six completed hydropower projects up to 2008 are Zawgyi-2, Zaungtu, Thaphanseik, Monechaung, Paunglaung and Yenwe.

The 22 ongoing projects will add a total 16,599 mw more to the country's electric power installed capacity on completion, the department said earlier, adding that 15 more hydropower projects are being planned in addition.

The 15 hydropower projects with an installed capacity ranging from 48 mw to 2,800 mw, lie in seven divisions and states.

Of the projects, seven are located in the northernmost Kachin state, six of which range over 1,200 mw, the report said, adding that the rest of the projects are scattered in Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway and Bago divisions, and Rakhine and northern Shan states.

The 15 projects on completion in the future will add another 13,847 mw to the country's installed capacity.

Meanwhile, Myanmar claimed in its monthly statistical report that the country's electric power installed capacity reached a total of over 1,684 mw as of the end of 2008 and the power generated stood 6.603 billion kwh in 2007-08, up from 6.164 billion kwh in 2006-07.

www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-21 19:29:13

YANGON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's foreign trade volume hit11.492 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, up 17.8 percent from 2007, according to the latest government monthly economic indicators.

Of the 11.492 billion dollars' foreign trade, the exports amounted to 7.106 billion dollars, up 10.8 percent, while the imports took 4.385 billion dollars, also up 31.2 percent, enjoying a trade surplus of 2.721 billion dollars.

The government sector accounted for 4.656 billion dollars or 65.5 percent in the country's exports, while the private sector represented 2.597 billion dollars or 59.2 percent in its imports.

The apparent increase of Myanmar's foreign trade in 2008 was attributed to the export of natural gas which topped the country's exports during the year with 2.486 billion dollars.

In 2007, Myanmar's foreign trade registered 9.755 billion dollars with its exports showing 6.413 billion dollars and its imports 3.342 billion dollars.

Myanmar trade surplus has been gained since 2002, before which the country suffered a trade deficit for many years.

Myanmar's foreign trade is mainly with Asian countries which accounts for 90 percent of the total. The trade with other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) represents 51.3 percent. The remaining are with European countries with 4.8 percent and American countries 1.5 percent.

Myanmar's main export goods are natural gas, agricultural, marine and forestry products, while its key import goods are machinery, crude oil, edible oil, pharmaceutical products, cement, fertilizer and consumers goods.

Source: Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC)
Date: 20 Mar 2009

Executive Summary

his report describes the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) programme during the second half of 2008 and presents an operating budget of baht 1,130 million (USD 33 million or EUR 26 million) for 20091. It tells a remarkable story of how TBBC managed to maintain its services in a year of turmoil, but also describes the tough challenges ahead for 2009.

Refugee Situation:

As the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) militarises, assimilates and exploits the natural re­sources of the border areas of eastern Burma, the human rights of indigenous ethnic groups are abused with impunity and a steady flow of new refugees continues to flee into Thailand. The TBBC feeding figure was 135,623 at the end of December 2008, but although this represented a reduction of 3,347 since June, it was known that there were large numbers of unregistered people in the camps, probably more than 40,000. These were mainly in Tak Province where, in the absence of a refugee status determination process, TBBC maintained artificially low feeding figures.

The growing number of unregistered people and the difficulty in determining reliable feeding fi gures are demanding the attention of all stakeholders. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been working with the Royal Thai Government (RTG) to establish a new "pre-screening" process to "screen out" those "without a manifestly just claim to asylum", which will be piloted in four camps during the first half of 2009. Meanwhile, TBBC is in the process of verifying the number of camp residents, both regis­tered and unregistered, and compiling this into a data base. The data base will be used with a new ration book system in 2009 to more closely control rations. However, with more reliable data available from both the pre-screening process and TBBC's verification exercise, the result may well be higher feeding figures during the year, and increased expenditures.

Resettlement is currently the only durable solution available for the refugees and 17,172 left for resettle­ment to third countries in 2008. The fact that this did not significantly reduce population numbers makes the search for new strategies even more urgent. Whilst it is important that the pre-screening process is effective to ensure that only genuine asylum seekers access assistance, it also important to find ways to help the refugees become more self-reliant though livelihood opportunities. While the scope for promoting livelihood opportunities is very limited when refugees are confined to remote camps, donors are increasingly unwilling to support the status quo. The urgent need for donors, the RTG and UNHCR to develop a common medium term strategy was pursued by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the annual RTG/ NGO Workshop held in December.

TBBC Programme:

As recommended by European Commission consultants last year, to improve programme effi ciency, a logistics and supply expert seconded by the Swiss government has been working with TBBC to review and strengthen the whole supply chain management from procurement of commodities, through delivery, storage and distribution. A central warehouse is planned in Mae Sot to streamline deliveries and additional field staff are being recruited to improve monitoring. So far eight new positions have been created, four supply officers responsible for monitoring deliveries and four data entry personnel. TBBC is also committed to reversing the trend of aid dependency by supporting livelihood initiatives where possible. Surveys are being conducted to explore possibilities within existing constraints, and two new staff positions have been added to support agriculture and livelihood activities.

Source: Medical Emergency Relief International (Merlin)
Date: 20 Mar 2009

On World Water Day 2009, Merlin would like to draw attention to the critical clean drinking water shortages in the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar.

Clean drinking water has always been a scarce resource in the Delta, but these shortages have been exacerbated by the devastating effects of Cyclone Nargis in May last year. The fact that the height of the dry season is fast approaching means that water shortages will peak imminently.

The Delta opens out onto the Bay of Bengal, meaning that southern stretches of the river are saline whilst the more northern parts are fresh water. As the dry season advances, what is known as the salt/fresh water interface moves up the Delta, as less fresh water arrives from inland rivers. Waterways in the affected area become progressively more saline as the dry season wears on.

Each year, many communities' water ponds are insufficient to last throughout the dry season, and villages without access to freshwater sources are faced with the challenge of importing water from other villages with more extensive ponds. Pre-cyclone, it was usually just a case of buying water from the nearest village, and a whole industry of boat-borne water vendors thrived during the season.

However, many of the boats used by the villagers and by water vendors were destroyed in the cyclone and those who still have transport will probably have to go much further afield to find water. More critically still, people just don't have the resources they normally do to buy water, having had their assets and livelihoods destroyed by Cyclone Nargis.

Andre Steele, Merlin's Water and Sanitation Technical Manager, says: "The immediate need is to provide clean drinking water. And in the long-term, communities need support to be able to capture and store the abundant amount of rain that falls in the wet season."

Since Cyclone Nargis, Merlin has carried out an extensive programme to clean community drinking water ponds, rebuild damaged water tanks and distribute jerry cans and water filters.

The water and sanitation team, consisting of two expatriates and 33 national staff, has installed and is running one water treatment unit and six reverse osmosis machines. Reverse osmosis machines are able to produce drinking water from otherwise contaminated sources including river water. Using 12 cargo boats, Merlin is distributing water to 90 villages, with a total population of 40,000 and to date has distributed 1,115,000 litres of purified water.

Dr Paul Sender, Merlin's Country Director in Myanmar, says: "This life-saving intervention will reach all members of all households, with a particular emphasis on the most vulnerable population groups, including children, the elderly and disabled. Children are particularly important, as they are most at risk of contracting water-borne diseases. In order to provide a comprehensive and sustainable approach to the problem, we are simultaneously addressing the issue of poor sanitation."

Merlin is adopting an approach called Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), a process devised to mobilise a community into building and using latrines and to stop open defecation by creating an understanding amongst villages of the risks associated with poor household level waste disposal.

Sanitation teams visit villages to talk about the dangers of open defecation and support and encourage people to change their behaviour and start building latrines. This approach has rarely been tried in the aftermath of such a large-scale natural disaster but has proved to be a highly effective intervention and so far this activity has been completed in 25 villages out of the 90 villages receiving water distribution.

All of the above programmes are having an immediate impact, in terms of reducing water-borne diseases, but more sustained investment is needed to make a real difference in the long-term.

www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-20 11:21:01

YANGON, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is using fuel as an alternative way to generate electricity for distribution to the former capital city of Yangon when water resources, which create hydropower, are reducing in the present summer.

The reduction in water resources has led to the generation of only 300 megawatts (mw) of electricity, which include that from four gas-run power plants, to feed Yangon against the city's demand of over 500 mw for daily power consumption, the local Biweekly Eleven said Friday.

In order to enable alternate electricity supply to residential houses and 450,000-workforce industrial zones for at least five hours, the authorities temporarily stopped operation of some high power-consuming heavy industries such as some steel plants in the Myaungtaka Industrial Zone in Yangon, it said.

At a time when running of such heavy industries are suspended, Myanmar is using fuel for electricity generation, the report added.

Meanwhile, the prolonged abnormal electricity supply in Yangon has impacted the business of all walks of life.

For successive months since the end of last year, residents in Yangon have been generally experiencing a hard time under serious electricity shortage with intermittent power supply available only in a day instead of round-the-clock supply normally.

With business and industrial enterprises mostly lying in Yangon, the city's electricity consumption takes up 60 percent or about 530 mw.

At the time of electricity and water shortage, a large number of people equip themselves with big and small petrol- or diesel-run generators to lead their lives.

The running of generators has created much noise and unpleasant smell from its exhaust which add to the environment issue, residents reflected.

By Hannah Beech / Arakan and Kachin States Thursday, Mar. 19, 2009

Last year, the Chinese came. The villagers living in western Burma's remote Arakan state couldn't quite fathom what the Chinese told them, that below their rice fields might lie a vast reserve of oil. For three months the Chinese drilled the earth near the muddy Kaladan River in search of black gold. Then, just as suddenly, they left.

In December, the Indians arrived. Through Burmese intermediaries, they took the village's paddies as their own, depriving locals of their main source of income. Compensation was promised, villagers tell me, but none has been paid so far. So the impoverished residents of Mee Laung Yaw village, who lack electricity and eat eggplant curry as a poor substitute for meat, spend their days gazing at their expropriated fields, now fenced in and dominated by an oil-exploration tower that dwarfs their bamboo shacks. Several villagers took lowly construction jobs on the site but they were never paid so they've stopped showing up for work. "I hope they don't find any oil," says village chief Aye Thein Tun. "Because even if they do, none of it will come to us. It will just go to other countries."

The Western dialogue over what to do about Burma's repressive military regime is often framed as a single dilemma: whether or not to impose international sanctions. The debate is polarizing. The pro-sanctions crowd claims the moral high ground, deploring the enrichment of a clutch of ethnocentric Burmese generals whose impulses are most brutal against the roughly 40% of the population that, like the villages of Arakan state, is composed of ethnic minorities. The engagement side preaches practicality, arguing that some investment will trickle down to the populace and that cultural exchange is better than imposed isolationism. When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Asia on her inaugural foreign trip last month, she weighed in on the Burma question, acknowledging: "Clearly the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta ... [which is] impervious to influence from anyone." (See pictures of Burma's discontent.)

The truth about Burma, renamed as Myanmar by its generals, is that the sanctions debate is immaterial. While American and European foreign policy thinkers ponder how to financially strangle an army government that has ruled since 1962, Burma's regional neighbors are embarking on a new Great Game, scrambling to outdo each other for access to this resource-rich land. "Sanctions don't work if most countries ignore them," says Naw La, an exiled environmentalist with the Kachin Development Networking Group in Thailand. "The military is selling our natural heritage without any concern for our people."

The Mosquito Coast
In return for oil, natural gas, timber, hydropower, gemstones, cash crops and a periodic table's worth of minerals, countries like China, India, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea are propping up — and massively enriching — Burma's top brass. In the first nine months of 2008, foreign investment in Burma almost doubled year on year to nearly $1 billion, according to government figures that don't even take into account significant underground economic activity. Burma today is estimated to produce 90% of the world's rubies by value, 80% of its teak, and is home to one of Asia's biggest oil and natural-gas reserves. The country's jade is the world's finest, and its largely untouched rivers promise plentiful hydropower for its neighbors. "Multinationals are getting rich off Burma, and so is the military regime," says Ka Hsaw Wa, co-founder of EarthRights International, an NGO that sued U.S. energy giant Unocal, which eventually provided out-of-court compensation to villagers who are believed to have toiled as slave labor for the Yadana gas pipeline from southern Burma to Thailand. "It is the local people who are suffering and dying," says Ka Hsaw Wa.

But as resource-hungry countries cozy up to the junta, they are discovering that Burma's natural wealth is most bountiful in areas where ethnic minorities simmer under the rule of the ethnic Burmese generals. Officially, the Burmese junta recognizes that the country is a union of at least 135 distinct groups. Yet the top ranks of the military are practically devoid of any non-Burmese presence. Army persecution of Burma's diverse tribes has festered for decades, and the proliferation of junta-controlled mines and concessions in the minority regions only exacerbates the tensions. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic villagers have been forced to relocate or have been conscripted into chain gangs, according to human-rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Even when operations begin, paid jobs land disproportionately in the hands of ethnic Burmese migrants, not those of local minorities. A new report by the Geneva-based International Displacement Monitoring Center estimates that in eastern Burma alone nearly half a million minority people have been displaced.

The British, trying to hold together an ethnic patchwork of a colony, knew too well the perils of Burma's tribal politics. They resorted to divide-and-conquer schemes, much as the current military regime has done. Intense negotiations by the junta led to many ethnic insurgencies laying down their guns in the 1980s and '90s — and opened up a vast territory for resource exploitation. But as the inequities between the Burmese majority and the tribal groups — the Arakanese, the Shan, the Kachin, the Karen, the Mon, the Wa and the Chin, to name a few — yawns ever wider, the chance of renewed armed conflict grows stronger. "To the military, we [ethnic minorities] are like mosquitoes," says a young Arakanese Buddhist monk, who participated in the crushed antigovernment uprising of September 2007 and chafes at Burmese discrimination against his people. "We buzz in their ear, and they slap at us and don't care if they kill us." But, he adds, "there are many mosquitoes." In the end, it may be the foreign participants in this new Great Game, unschooled in how to navigate ethnic complexities, who will get bitten.

Minority Report
Arakan's capital, Sittwe, is a sleepy port near the Bay of Bengal where the pace of life inches along at the speed of a pedicab. But nearby, the rush for oil and gas is intense; last year, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese companies signed exploration deals with the junta. In late December, a consortium of four foreign companies, led by South Korea's Daewoo, inked an agreement with the junta and China National Petroleum Corp. to extract natural gas from Arakan's offshore Shwe fields and pipe it northeast through Burma to China's Yunnan province. The pipeline, along with a plan for a new deepwater port in Arakan where ships laden with Middle Eastern oil can dock and disgorge their valuable cargo, gives China an alternative to the expensive and sometimes dangerous Strait of Malacca by directly supplying energy to its landlocked west. The Shwe project is Burma's largest ever foreign-investment commitment. (The second largest is the Yadana pipeline to Thailand.) Though Arakan sits on the country's biggest oil and natural-gas fields, Sittwe only gets three hours of electricity a day. The town boasts an "e-library" located in a government building, but all the computers sit unused because there is no power during office hours.

When I flew on a wheezing Myanma Airways plane to Sittwe, a squad of military officers with pistols on their hips boarded the flight. As the plane climbed into the air, two men in uniform stood in the aisle and unrolled a large, laminated map that showed the Shwe pipeline route in red. Yet the general public in Arakan has not been told what many suspected and what the map I saw indicated: that the pipeline, on which construction is scheduled to begin this year, will travel through populous areas and will likely result in extensive village relocations. (Both Daewoo and the Indian company exploring for oil in Arakan did not respond to Time's requests for comment.) For locals, reporting what I had seen on the plane could land them in a labor camp for compromising national security. The week before I arrived, several Arakanese with vaguely political backgrounds were rounded up by the police and haven't been seen since. "They close our ears and they close our mouths," says an Arakanese political dissident, noting the heavy Burmese security presence that can make even casual conversation at a teahouse fraught. "And now, they are taking our treasures, our oil and gas. What do we get in return? Nothing."

The inequity is straining the network of fragile cease-fires in tribal areas. "We have sent many letters registering our complaints to the government, but we haven't heard back," says Colonel Gun Maw. Not hearing back from the Burmese junta is something to which the spokesman for the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) is accustomed. An ethnically based movement in northern Burma's Kachin state, the KIO waged a long insurgency against the Burmese regime before signing a peace treaty in 1994. Most Kachin are Christian, and they believe their faith makes them particularly vulnerable to persecution by the exclusively Buddhist junta. In a complicated arrangement, the KIO controls some territory on Kachin's border with China. Chinese trucks that rumble through KIO turf pay taxes on the jade, gold and timber they're carrying, and KIO officials say the Chinese generally pay up, lest instability infect the area. "China wants Burma as a buffer state," says Gun Maw. "It wants Burma to be secure — so China will be secure."

Today, the KIO is waging an information campaign on a series of seven planned dams in Kachin, which will flood hundreds of villages and could threaten many others because the region's frequent seismic activity could trigger reservoir floods. (Two previously built dams in Kachin were rendered useless after breaking, and nearby villagers, who never received any electricity, were killed by the rush of water.) The dams, which are slated to generate seven times Burma's entire current electricity capacity, are being jointly developed by state-owned Chinese companies and a Burmese firm, Asia World, whose managing director was the target of U.S. sanctions last year. China will receive most — if not all — the generated power, leaving the Kachin people literally in the dark. The largest dam will be at Myitsone, where two rivers meet to become the mighty Irrawaddy. Chinese engineers and ethnic Burmese workers are already on-site. "All we can do is pray that the dam doesn't get built," says Nlam Brang Nu, the Baptist pastor of Tang Hpre village, which will be inundated when Myitsone is completed. "It is in God's hands."

Cycle of Depression
The Chinese are learning that the Kachin, like other ethnic groups in Burma, may not be willing to turn the other cheek much longer. Last year, armed KIO soldiers showed up at a pair of dam sites staffed by Chinese workers and demanded work cease until the Chinese paid them taxes. The projects are located in an area nominally under KIO control, but the former rebels were angry that the dam deal was negotiated directly between the Burmese government and Chinese hydropower firms without their input. (Eventually, the Chinese paid up.) More foreigners could get caught in the cross fire. Next year, Burma's generals will oversee nationwide elections, two decades after they ignored the results of the last polls. But for the cease-fire groups to participate in the balloting, the junta requires them to give up their guns. For many ethnic organizations, the KIO included, that's not acceptable. Between sips of whiskey chased by Red Bull, a gun runner in the Kachin capital Myitkyina tells me that he's fielding more orders for Chinese-made arms from various ethnic insurgent groups. "We have to defend ourselves," he says. "Otherwise the government will keep taking from us until we have nothing left."

That's the plight of most everyone in Burma, even the ethnic Burmese. Balancing on a narrow bamboo raft in the middle of the Irrawaddy River, ethnic Burmese migrant Aung Tun sifts for specks of gold. Over the past decade, Chinese demand for gold has skyrocketed, and thousands of ethnic Burmese have moved to Kachin to pan for the mineral, as well as mine jade. But for the right to float his raft on the river, Aung Tun must pay fees to the Burmese government, the Burmese police and the KIO. If the specks of gold add up, he can make the payments. Otherwise, Aung Tun goes into debt. If he survives, that is. During the five years that Aung Tun has panned the Irrawaddy, 25 people have died in his work group, which numbers no more than 40 laborers at one time. Some drowned during storms, while others succumbed to malaria or never came up after diving deep into the river. "The foreigners want gold," he says, squinting for yellow dust in the brown silt. "So we look for it." The equation in Asia's new Great Game is simple — and deadly.

Source: United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT)
Date: 19 Mar 2009

Fukuoka, Japan - The Government of Japan will fund a UN-HABITAT project to assist victims of the cyclone Nargis disaster in Myanmar, to the tune of USD4 million.

The Community Water Supply and Sanitation Recovery Project aims to improve the health of families in the Delta who were affected by the Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, by providing access to safe water and sanitation facilities, while raising awareness of hygiene and health related issues.

The project also supports the objectives of the post-Nargis Recovery and Reconstruction Plan.

Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar on 2 and 3 May 2008, making landfall in the Ayeyarwady Division and directly hitting the capital Yangon, causing the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Myanmar. The cyclone caused catastrophic destruction and at least 146,000 people died, with thousands more still missing.

Some 40 townships in Yangon Division and seven townships in Ayeyarwady Division, with an estimated population of 2.5 million were designated as disaster areas.

The main source of water for rural communities in the Delta is rainwater. Due to the damage done by Nargis, water shortages will continue in many areas throughout the dry season and when the rains do come in June, rain water collection and harvesting will be minimal due to the destruction of harvesting systems during Nargis.

Ponds, wells and rainwater harvesting equipment were all destroyed along with the shelters which provided much of the catchment area (roofing). In addition to water shortage, most sanitation facilities were destroyed, which has resulted in increasingly unhygienic sanitation practices.

The project will work with 250 communities rebuilding water and sanitation infrastructure at the community level, including schools, village ponds, deep tube wells, and at household level will provide improved access to water and sanitation. The project will serve Bogalay, Dedaye, Kungyangon, Pyapon, and Kyailat. In the event of severe water shortage, UN-HABITAT will support water distribution to 10 villages.

UN-HABITAT has eight years of experience in successfully implementing water and sanitation programmes in Myanmar. The Community Water Supply and Sanitation Project was implemented from 1994 through 2002 by UN-HABITAT engaged as the implementing agency for UNDP. The project was a considerable success and provided a wealth of learning. The new Japan-funded project will build on the experience of the Community Water Supply and Sanitation Recovery Project and also collaborate with the Water for Asian Cities Programme.

Source: The Irrawaddy
Date: 19 Mar 2009
By AUNG THET WINE

LAPUTTA — Burma's Irrawaddy delta region faces an extreme shortage of drinking water this summer because lakes and ponds used for drinking water were destroyed by salty sea water after Cyclone Nargis hit in May 2007.

Local residents worry about an outbreak of infectious diseases because many people are forced to drink unclean water.

Villagers say emergency assistance is urgently needed to solve the problem.

The Laputta region, one of the hardest-hit areas, has 50 village tracks composed of about 500 villages. Currently, United Nations agencies, Save the Children, Merlin, and other international aid groups work to distribute clean drinking water in the area.

A French INGO that distributes drinking water to 88 villages in Laputta Township uses 15 boats which can carry about 100 gallons of water each.

A staff member said governmental red tape is one of the factors that hamper distribution.

"There are many obstacles," he said, requesting anonymity. "For example, before we can distribute water to a village, we need to get permission from the Township Peace and Development Council, a military command unit and other local government agencies. We must submit every step of our activities to them."

"In fact, we can solve the local villagers' problem if only the government authorities and the aid organizations could work together better," he said.

Many outlying villages, at the far reaches of the aid groups, have an even harder time getting safe drinking water.

"Our village track has 24 villages," one villager told The Irrawaddy. "All the villages are now facing a shortage of drinking water."

The drinking water distribution network conducted by international aid agencies in Laputta doesn't meet the needs of the outlying population, according to a villager in Michaung Ai village.

"At the end of February, the aid agencies set up a fiber tank and started to provide drinking water in Michaung I village, where more than a 100 people are living in 48 households," he said. "At the beginning, they carried drinking water with a boat and filled the tank every three days. Each villager got three liters of water. But now they haven't come to fill the tank for 20 days."

"Our lake was destroyed by salty water, and it now has such a low water level that we can see the ground because the people use it more and more as a water resource," he said.

He said it's difficult for many villagers to get to Laputta, and even then, some people can't afford to buy drinking water

The situation at inland villages is worse because they are farther from rivers and streams, said a villager in Htin Su village in the Alagyaw village track. "They are also out of reach of the drinking water distribution by aid groups."

Even villagers who live close to Laputta Township have difficulty obtaining clean water. When villagers go to Laputta to buy water, they pay 1,200 kyat (US $ 1.20) per barrel.

"To buy water from the town, we need to have access to a boat, fuel and money to buy water," said one villager.

People have asked Laputta Township authorities to find a solution, according to a member of the village Red Cross in Michaung Ai village, but officials have not yet come up with a plan.

"We even participated in paramilitary training with the hope that the authorities will help solve our problem," he said. "But nothing happened."

Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - Regional Centre for Emergency Training in International Humanitarian Response (eCentre)
Date: 19 Mar 2009

Emergencies can occur at any time, and when they do careful planning can make the difference between a successful response and lives lost. This was the principle lesson of the Contingency Planning Workshop organized by the eCentre from 11 to 14 March in Yangon, Myanmar.

Following its successful pilot workshop on International Humanitarian Response in Myanmar in November 2008, the eCentre returned to Yangon at the request of the Myanmar Government to organize specific training on Contingency Planning. The Myanmar Contingency Planning Workshop looked specifically at the case of voluntary return and reintegration of refugees from Thailand, and the planning that would be needed to ensure their return with safety and dignity. Following planning steps laid out in Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines* the participants assessed the situation, developed scenarios, analyzed warning factors and considered policy and operational assumptions. They then modeled the response planning process by analyzing likely tasks in major sector or cluster areas, and likely responders who would be available to contribute to response. Presentations from UNHCR's Regional Training Officer for Protection brought perspectives on how to achieve sustainable return within the framework of a protection and rights-based approach. Finally, the group concluded with an analysis of further needs to perfect planning for this and other scenarios in the future.

The Myanmar Contingency Planning Workshop coincided with a visit from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres to that country, in which the importance of UNHCR's continued presence was stressed, the extension of UNHCR's programme for the population of northern Rakhine State was agreed, and increasing scale of activities to complement UNHCR's protection role in relation to voluntary return and reintegration were discussed.†

In all, the Myanmar Contingency Planning Workshop was attended by 22 government officials, 2 NGOs and 6 staff of UN or other international organizations. Most reported leaving with a better understanding of the contingency planning process in general, and a greater understanding of the needs of returning refugees in rebuilding their lives in particular. Equally important, the increased understanding of UNHCR's humanitarian work offers the possibility of affording better protection and assistance for displaced people in Myanmar and those who voluntarily return.

The Myanmar Contingency Planning Workshop was organized by the eCentre in cooperation with the Government of Myanmar. Additional help was provided by InterWorks LLC and the UNHCR Representation in Yangon.

*To see UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee Guidelines for Contingency Planning, click here.

†To see full press release on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' visit to Myanmar, click here.

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
Date: 19 Mar 2009

YANGON, 19 March 2009 (IRIN) - The positive aspects of the Cyclone Nargis response in the Ayeyarwady Delta have yet to translate into better access or more funds for aid operations in the rest of Myanmar, where needs are great and often unmet, according to aid workers.

"The needs in the country are large and very little is done," said Frank Smithuis, country director of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Holland. "Myanmar is the lowest recipient of overseas development aid in the world. Much more money is needed for the health of the people."

After a frustratingly slow start, aid agencies say the humanitarian response to Cyclone Nargis, which struck Ayeyarwady Delta in May 2008 and left close to 140,000 dead or missing, has been highly effective.

Much of this is credited to the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), comprising the government, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the UN, whose mandate has been extended for another year.

The government eased bureaucracy and restrictions on access for humanitarian agencies in the delta, and money and resources have poured in.

Outside the cyclone area

However, this is not the case in the rest of Myanmar, where more than 100,000 children under five die each year, most of them from preventable diseases.

One third of under-fives are underweight, says the UN, and malnutrition is a contributory factor in about half those deaths.

"When Nargis happened it was impossible to focus elsewhere," Chris Kaye, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Myanmar, told IRIN in Yangon. WFP had a huge US$115 million programme to feed those who had lost their livelihoods in the cyclone.

"That was at some cost it seems now, because we have not been able to follow through and get the attention of donors elsewhere [in Myanmar]."

Last year, WFP raised half of its funding needs for areas such as Northern Rakhine State, near the border with Bangladesh.

"We had to cut back on certain activities - a very difficult decision to take - and in the end decided to cut support for vulnerable households through schools," said Kaye.

This Food for Education project provided a family food ration to a child who attended school 80 percent of the time, often forming a major component of the daily diet during the lean June-October monsoon season.

Ongoing restrictions

The TCG mechanism does not apply outside the delta, and long-standing government restrictions on aid agencies are unchanged. Aid workers must seek permission to travel to project sites, which takes three weeks.

Some NGOs have not been able to secure agreements to work in Myanmar at all, and operate informally through local partners. Many UN agencies do not have access to much of the country.

"There are huge developmental deficits," said Kaye.

Such constraints have added to the reluctance of donors to provide aid to Myanmar, which receives far less assistance than other countries in the region with similar poverty levels.

Laos, for example, receives $50 per person per year, and Cambodia receives $40. Myanmar, by contrast, receives $2-$3.

Healthcare needs

But the needs are great. MSF Holland estimates there are between five and 10 million malaria patients each year, in a country of 53 million. Only a small proportion receive effective treatment and thousands die each year.

"As a consequence, the people of Myanmar suffer, in particular the poorest, who can't afford to pay for their healthcare," said Smithuis.

He argues that MSF's 17 years in Myanmar, plus the more recent cyclone response, prove that aid can be delivered effectively.

"If there is a good monitoring system that guarantees the population benefits directly, then there is absolutely no reason to withhold large-scale assistance to Myanmar people," he said.

Mark Canning, the British ambassador to Myanmar, said the relative success of the Nargis aid operation could inspire greater confidence among major donors such as the UK.

"The issue of confidence is fundamental," Canning told IRIN. "A virtuous circle can be created - the more donor money is used effectively, the more money is drawn in. But the reverse also applies. Assistance needs to be whiter than white."

contributor/ds/mw

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03/19/09 - 08:02 AM EDT
The Associated Press

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Foreign investment in military-ruled Myanmar nearly doubled in the first 11 months of 2008 to $974.9 million, with China pouring the bulk of it into mining, a government statistics report said.

The total investment from January to November 2008 was a 93 percent increase from the $505 million registered during the same period of 2007, the Ministry of National Planning and Development said in latest statistical report obtained Thursday.

The report said that the mining industry drew more than 88 percent of the foreign investment in 2008, a new record for that sector. It did not specify which mining industries benefited most.

China accounted for $855.99 million of the foreign investment, the report said. Newspapers last year reported that China Nonferrous Metal Group, a state-owned company, signed an agreement with Myanmar to mine nickel. The deal that was described as the largest ever mining deal between the countries but newspapers did not detail figures.

Russia invested $94 million and Vietnam $20 million, both in the oil and gas sector, while Singapore invested $5 million in the mining sector, the report said.

Source: Refugees International (RI)
Date: 18 Mar 2009
Policy recommendations

- The United States should join other donor nations in making a significant appropriation for humanitarian aid in Burma. It should allocate $30 million for FY10, with plans to increase its contribution to $45 million in FY11 and $60 million in FY12.

- The United Nations should stengthen its support for the Burma Country team by hiring a Senior Humanitarian Advisor to work with the RC/HC and ensure that teams in Bangkok and New York are providing adequate guidance and support.

- ASEAN should look to apply the Tri-Partite Core Group model for use in the discussion of other issues of concern with Burma, such as the Rohingya.

In the past year, humanitarian assistance to Burma has been primarily focused on victims of Cyclone Nargis, which struck the Irrawaddy delta on May 2, 2008. Though the initial delivery of assistance was hampered by government obstruction, the aid programs that have since developed in the delta have benefited from an ease of operations unseen in other parts of the country. Relief work in the delta is progressing smoothly, but attempts to expand access to the rest of the country are struggling. Nonetheless, to capitalize on the existing gains, the U.S. should provide significant funding for programs throughout the country.

Operations Inside the Delta

Since June 2008, international aid organizations have expanded their operations to an unprecedented level inside Burma in order to respond to emergency needs created by the cyclone. Because of the small number of agencies working in the country prior to the storm, many that did not have emergency experience have modified their operations to provide relief. These changes, combined with the self-reliance of delta residents, have been largely successful in meeting the immediate needs of cyclone victims.

Agricultural production has revived, temporary housing has met the shelter needs of most residents, and income generation programs are beginning to address the economic needs of cyclone victims. In addition, the number of international NGOs in the country has doubled from 40 to almost 80, greatly increasing the capacity to support longer-term stabilization activities. Similarly, there has been a tremendous growth in the formation of local NGOs providing humanitarian assistance in the delta region.

Despite the impressive results of this first phase of recovery activities, NGOs and delta residents still identify three priorities for the near future. First, the availability of clean water continues to be a challenge. Because many reservoirs were salinated due to the storm surge, they were not able to collect sufficient rainwater during the last rainy season. As a result, many organizations are considering trucking water into communities to ensure adequate supply. Agencies are working furiously to ensure that as many reservoirs as possible are cleaned before the upcoming rainy season begins in May. Second, many families are now living in temporary shelters that are only expected to be habitable through this year's rainy season. Again, agencies are rushing to complete as much permanent housing as possible before the rainy season halts construction. Finally, restoring productive livelihoods to delta residents is the key to the sustainability of recovery operations.

One of the largest challenges to livelihood work in the delta is the impact of the global financial crisis on local markets. Since recovery work began, the markets for rice, pulses, and fishery products have dropped 30% - 40%, making it more difficult for delta residents to earn the income needed to re-establish their lives. Access to credit has shrunk, especially as farmers and fishermen who took loans for last season's crops in anticipation of pre-slump prices cannot repay those loans based on current prices for their products. With savings – whether in cash, livestock, or goods – wiped out during the cyclone, many delta families cannot access credit for the upcoming year. Continued livelihoods assistance from the international community will be needed to ensure that delta residents can fully recover from the effects of Cyclone Nargis.

Funding for international operations in the delta is further complicating the ability of organizations to adequately respond to needs in the region. Much of the funding for the emergency phase of delta relief is winding up as the one-year anniversary of the storm approaches. Many agencies are now in a process of consolidating their work to the townships and villages in most need and shutting down offices in less affected areas as a response to the constrained funding environment. While many agencies are looking to the newly established Livelihoods and Food Security (LIFT) Trust Fund – a pooled fund being established by the European Community, Britain, and Australia – to continue funding livelihood programs in the delta, these funds may not begin to flow until June or July, leaving a gap in funding. Donors should examine the need for bridge funding to ensure that agencies are not left without funding between the time their emergency relief grants run out and the LIFT funds are available.

Finally, many delta residents and implementing agencies at the field level report a concern over the psychological impacts of Cyclone Nargis on delta residents as the rainy season approaches. While long-term plans for work in the delta incorporate disaster risk reduction into their work – such as building storm-resistant shelters, elevating roads, and reinforcing bridges – much of this work has yet to be completed. As a result, there is a fear that without adequate communications in the delta to inform people about impending storms the approach of even a small storm with strong winds could send delta residents fleeing to the few regional towns in search of safety. Refugees International could not identify any contingency plans for temporary shelter, feeding, and schooling in the event of this type of migration. Similarly, plans to prepare the government for such a possibility or to manage orderly returns to villages do not seem to be in place. Operational agencies and the UN should prepare contingency plans immediately for the possibility of substantial migrations this rainy season and in the future until risk reduction programs are completed.

Access Needed Outside the Delta

Though Cyclone Nargis forced many international NGOs to temporarily relocate staff and resources from other parts of Burma to the delta in order to mount an effective disaster response, most agencies have quickly refocused on serving needs throughout the country. In addition to returning to other areas with crises brewing, new NGOs are looking strategically at how to expand their presence outside the delta, a potential gain from the access granted to them in cyclone areas.

Northern Rakhine State, home of the Rohingya Muslim minority (see Rohingya: Burma's Forgotten Minority [1], December 18, 2008), continues to be the area of greatest concern. Deteriorating living standards, news of increased forced relocations, continued restrictions on all aspects of normal life, and the expulsion of Rohingya refugees from asylum countries in the region have focused the attention of the international aid community there.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has recently announced that $3 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund will be made available for operations in Northern Rakhine State, and the UN Country Team is also coordinating a donor mission to the region, planned for this spring. Despite the growing attention, there is a need for strong, consistent engagement with the Government of Burma on increasing access to this region and relaxing government restrictions on the Rohingya population. Given the recent attention to Rohingya boat people throughout Southeast Asia, ASEAN should look at ways to facilitate this conversation, possibly using the success of the Tripartite Core Group as a model.

In addition to the needs in Northern Rakhine State, NGO actors cite a number of other areas in need of immediate attention. An ongoing food crisis due to bamboo die-offs in Chin State, particularly in the southern part, continues to require an expanded international response. Similarly, drought in the country's central dry zone – running through Magwe, Mandalay, and Bago Divisions – requires additional resources. In the southeast, areas with high levels of internal displacement due to conflict continue to be off-limits to agencies based in the country. Other areas of increased attention include the Wa and Kokant regions of Shan State, where agencies are attempting to increase resources for alternative agriculture projects for former opium poppy farmers. These initiatives, along with innovative projects in other regions, should be supported by the international community.

While funding for delta operations could face challenges in the upcoming months, humanitarian work throughout the rest of Burma is seeing a growth in funding sources. Britain, the European Commission, and Australia lead the donor community in Burma, and all continue to increase their budgets significantly. Additionally, newer donors such as Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are helping to support operations throughout the country. The establishment of the LIFT fund is an additional boost to funding for countrywide projects, and is currently drawing the attention of additional non-traditional donors. Plans to set up a new Education Trust Fund will further expand the pool of resources available for humanitarian work throughout the country.

The one glaring exception to the growing consensus on the need for increases in humanitarian aid to Burma, especially given its prominent role in funding cyclone relief operations, is the United States. Though a $15 million contribution is currently in process for 2009 delta operations, U.S. funding for countrywide programs is still an insignificant part of international funding.

Despite the renewed focus and increased funding for countrywide operations, international NGOs are keenly aware that the upcoming year could pose potential complications given proposed national elections in March 2010. Agencies have not reported any restrictions on their work in anticipation of the elections, but all indicated that this could change. Special attention was placed on areas where ceasefire groups or ethnic minority groups may boycott elections, such as Mon State and the Wa region of Shan State. However, agencies indicated that operating constraints in these areas could be expected not only from the government, but from ethnic-based boycott groups looking to exert greater control over their territory. Donor governments and the UN need to ensure that planning is developed to maintain clear boundaries that minimize the impact of political concerns on humanitarian operations.

The UN should take the primary lead in resisting government restrictions on aid agencies' operations in the run up to the 2010 elections. Indeed, it is already playing an important role in drawing attention to humanitarian needs outside the delta and discussing the expansion of aid activities nationwide with the government. The UN Country Team is increasingly composed of new leaders, however, and collectively they are still learning how to operate effectively within the complex political dynamics of Burma.

It is surprising, therefore, that senior UN officials in New York have backed away from plans to maintain high-level in-country support for strategic guidance and back-up on humanitarian matters. As a result, the UN as a whole has weakened its ability to face the challenges of the upcoming year. The Secretary-General and the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs should revive plans to provide a Senior Humanitarian Advisor to the Yangon-based Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator, and they should re-evaluate staffing at the Bangkok and New York levels to ensure that the Burma Country Team receives robust support.

Recognizing ASEAN's Leadership Role

Adhering to the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, respect for and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms…and to place the well-being, livelihood and welfare of the peoples at the centre of the ASEAN community building process.

- Preamble to the charter of the Association of South East Asian Nations

In the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, ASEAN was thrust into a new leadership role, serving as a broker between the Burmese government and the international community. Its response has exceeded expectations, and the subsequent development and implementation of the Tri-Partite Core Group (TCG), the mechanism established to work on logistics and develop policies governing the humanitarian response program in the Irrawaddy delta, have been an unquestionable success. The TCG continues to play a vital role in ensuring access to cyclone affected areas, obtaining visas for international staff, and resolving disputes or obstacles that emerge. This model should be replicated as a way towards resolving other challenges inside Burma.

The original mandate of the TCG was for one year, and was set to expire in May 2009. In a positive sign, it was recently renewed for an additional year at the February 2009 ASEAN summit in Thailand. The extension of the TCG for the delta will allow ASEAN to maintain high-level contact with the Burmese government, and provide it with the opportunity to deepen its capacity for international diplomacy through the Secretariat.

Though the renewal of the TCG is a positive development, the inability of the international community to leverage access outside of the delta is a setback. ASEAN should evaluate how best to propose such an extension to the Burmese government during a year that will be fraught with political sensitivities. In the meantime, it should evaluate its experience with the TCG to determine the best form for a proposed expansion. More broadly, the international community should recognize the unique role that Burma's neighbors have in negotiating greater humanitarian access, and should support ASEAN's increasing efforts to convince the Burmese government to allow desperately needed humanitarian activities to take place throughout the country.

ASEAN's new charter includes a multitude of human rights provisions and responsibilities. With its inclusion of Burma, ASEAN will be challenged to find creative ways to ensure that Burma lives up to its commitments under the charter. This should happen through the internal dialogue mechanisms of the regional alliance, as well as through bilateral engagement on the part of Burma's neighbors and regional partners. Indonesia, as the largest country in the region, as well as Thailand and Malaysia, as Burma's immediate neighbors, have a responsibility to engage with the Burmese government to encourage greater adherence to the ASEAN charter.

While ASEAN is learning to adapt to the new mandates in its charter, it has been thrust into the spotlight recently with the coverage of the Rohingya boat crisis. This scandal has demonstrated that humanitarian emergencies inside Burma are fundamentally regional issues. ASEAN members can no longer disregard the internal affairs of Burma, as they have severe and identifiable ramifications for all ASEAN countries, specifically in terms of arrival of refugees.

ASEAN must look to develop and implement a comprehensive regional response to the Rohingya crisis. This response must look simultaneously at conditions inside Northern Rakhine State, as well as protection and assistance conditions in host countries, so that the policies implemented are in accordance with international humanitarian law and do not result in undesirable pull factors. Much like the formation of the TCG, the management of the Rohingya issue will set a precedent for how the Association plans to engage its most difficult member.

Moving Forward

The past year has demonstrated the ability of the humanitarian community to work effectively in the constrained Burmese operating environment. They have responded effectively to the Cyclone Nargis disaster, retooled their programs to meet the most pressing needs, successfully trained thousands of new Burmese staff in humanitarian operations, and negotiated with the Burmese government for increased opportunities to operate freely. These accomplishments have been supported by a renewed commitment to fund these activities by the international community.

International NGOs are now poised to begin the difficult work of translating their experience in the delta into improved operations throughout the country. Despite the challenges of upcoming elections, these agencies have shown that they are up to the task, and donor nations have demonstrated their commitment to supporting that vision.

Burma is still a country in a state of slow-motion collapse. The global financial crisis has only served to underline the dysfunction of the country's economic system, and the laundry list of impending regional crises highlights the vulnerability of the Burmese people. Though Burma continues to present serious challenges to the independence and integrity of humanitarian agencies, the need is clearer than ever, and the ability to operate accountably and transparently has been adequately demonstrated. If donor governments, ASEAN, and international agencies can present a united front on the imperative of meeting humanitarian need, they may allow actors inside the country to capitalize on the gains of the past year.

Congressional Advocate Jake Kurtzer assessed the humanitarian situation inside Burma in February 2009.

www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-18 21:08:33

YANGON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's foreign investment rose sharply by 93.06 percent in 2008, reaching 974.996 million U.S. dollars compared with 2007, according to the latest figures released by the Central Statistical Organization.

The organization attributed the sharp increase of the foreign investment to that added in the mining sector which registered 860.996 million dollars. Of it, over 855.996 million dollars were injected by China, while the remaining 5 million dollars by Singapore.

Of the 114 million dollars' foreign investment in oil and gas during the year, Russia accounted for 94 million dollars, while Vietnam represented 20 million dollars.

According to local report, total foreign contracted investment in Myanmar has hit 15 billion U.S. dollars in 422 projects up to end of 2008 since Myanmar opened up to such investment in late 1988.

Of the 29 countries and regions investing in Myanmar, Thailand stood first with over 7 billion U.S. dollars, followed by Britain and Singapore with over 1 billion U.S. dollars each, the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry was quoted as saying.

Electric power sector dominated with 6 billion U.S. dollars, followed by oil and gas (over 3 billion U.S. dollars).

Such sectors as manufacturing, mining, real estate development, hotel and tourism were injected with over 1 billion U.S. dollars each, while fisheries and livestock breeding, and transport and communication took 300 million U.S. dollars each, industry estate 100 million U.S. dollars, construction and agriculture 30 million U.S. dollars each.

Myanmar also received 136.5 billion Kyats' (113.7 million U.S. dollars) investment from domestic companies in 11 sectors namely -manufacturing, real estate development, transportation, construction, fisheries and livestock breeding, mining, hotel and tourism, electric power, industries and agriculture, local news reports said.

Of these sectors, manufacturing topped the investment with 40 billion Kyats (33 million U.S. dollars), followed by real estate development (25 million U.S. dollars) and transportation (16.6 million U.S. dollars).