KAOWAO NEWS NO. 117
Newsletter for social justice and freedom in
September 25 -
Readers' Front
Child soldier seeks safe
refuge
Sexual abuse to increase
with return of Colonel Myo Winn
Yangon-Mawlamyine bus terminal shifted to new site
Mon Community Gives
"Thumb's Up" to UNSC's Agenda
UNSC Agenda divided among
cease-fire groups
New
Three
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Readers' front
Dear readers,
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Regards,
Editor
Kaowao News
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_____________________________________
I understand the NMSP's situation under the pressure by the SPDC and it has
no choice but to send an observer team to the government sponsored so called
National Convention. I also appreciate the NMSP for bravely stance
against the SPDC to support the United Nation's Security Council to include
Anyatara in exile
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Child soldier seeks safe
refuge
(Kaowao:
Sangkhalaburi -- A child soldier who recently deserted the Burmese
Army arrived on the Thai Burma border town seeking safe refuge.
The 16-year-old had been suffering from severe malaria when he decided to flee
from the army. He was a soldier with the LIB (Light Infantry Battalion) No. 106
based in Mawkanin of northern Ye Township. After
being relocated right in the middle of a war-affected frontline for one month
in a military offensive against the KNU, he made a daring break and set off
trekking through the jungle without food for days. He was able to get help from
a local villager who guided him to the liberated area and is now in a Sangkla border village receiving medical care.
Like many youth at his age; Dawna and his friend, Min Chithu were on their way to watch a movie when the local police
snatched them up. The army didn't inform the boys families when they were
forcibly recruited, but were sent immediately to
"They threatened me
that if I didn't join I would wind up behind bars. No one wants to go to jail,
that's why my friend and I signed up." When asked about the fate of his
friend, he said, "We got separated after our training at the recruitment
center.
"There were about 200
trainees at the training school and half of us are child soldiers, the worst
thing was not getting any rest while feeling sick with nausea on the frontline.
I want to finish school then help my parents who are poor, I come from a family
of 8 people, I want to work," he said in an interview with a Kaowao reporter.
Dawna was 15 years old at the time of his recruitment and
was sent to the LIB No. 106 in
Mi Khmom
Htaw, the coordinator for the Women and Child Rights
Project at the border, took over responsibility for him; "He was very weak
with malaria and collapsed in the hospital when we brought him in. We hooked
him up to IV and had to give him two bottles of blood."
According to a Human Rights
Watch fact-finding team, the Burmese Army has doubled in strength since 1988,
and with an estimated 350,000 soldiers is now one of the largest armies in
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Sexual abuse to increase with return of Colonel Myo Winn
(Kaowao:
A State Peace and
Development Council colonel with a long history of sexually abusing women in Ye
Township has returned to take up his old post to tackle Mon insurgency, sources
say from the area. The Mon community fear young women will fall victim to his
sexual exploits, said women concerned about his return to Ye township.
According to a human right's
watchdog group from the area, "we fear that a 'fashion show,' a term
coined by locals to refer to a pattern of entrenched sexual abuse by Colonel Myo Winn, will reoccur. The Southeast Command based in the
state capital has returned due to an upsurge of activity by local Mon armed
groups."
The area has been under
increased surveillance after several people were detained with supposed links
to a Mon armed group shortly after his return one week ago, a source from New
Mon State Party said.
Colonel Win was the chief
offensive commander against a small Mon splinter group under the title of
"Aung Moe Gyoe Offensive No (3) from 2003 to
2005. Hundreds of local Mon women at that time were forced to perform sexual
acts with him late at night. The local community dubbed the spectacle 'the
Fashion Show.'
Women living in remote areas
are all the more vulnerable to the commander and his soldiers who seek out
young women from the local community. The women are forced to provide massage,
entertainment and sexual services.
According to women who fled
to
Mainly due to fear of being
raped, killed, or forced to porter, and other forms of abuse, hundreds of women
and men fled from the area to urban areas, to Mon Internally Displaced Person
Camps trapped along the border, or across to neighboring Thailand.
This sexual abuse shows that
the government can do whatever it wants to those who they suspect of
sympathizing with local insurgents, and to do so with impunity. The locals
point out that Colonel Myo Winn has recently extorted
money from the local people to stock up on Black Label whisky for his luxury
bedroom suite, a source from Ye said, that suggests he is planning to hold
all-night parties soon. He is not only famous as women rights perpetrator but
is often cruel and barbaric to the local people.
According to the coordinator
of the Women and Child Rights Project (southern
The NMSP said that the
situation in the area is getting worst after the return of Colonel Myo Winn who is in charge of four Battalions to crackdown
on Mon insurgency.
In an environment of
lawlessness and abuse, very young Mon women without any other skills, are
joining the ranks of a Mon armed group that has been reformed and upgraded with
the support of local people. Sources from Ye say that there are over five women
among the 25 member armed group. Even though they are small, they can survive
due to support from local people, mainly in the form of food, the source
explained.
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Commentary
Giving Terrorist training
to Terrorists
(By Lita
Davidson)
I strongly disagree with Mr.
Greg Sheridan's opinion piece on
The Burmese migrants have
had a positive impact on the Thai economy for many years and rarely openly
attack, threaten, or kill Thai people or threaten Thai society. It's the other
way around. There are many reported cases of murder and abuse by the Thai
people against the Burmese migrant workers. Perhaps he's referring to
problems brought on by the Burmese demanding justice from Thai employers?
Burmese migrant workers have demonstrated how democratic and revolutionary a
society can be in a positive way. Recently, Burmese migrant workers on the
border demanded justice and fair wages from their rich employers in Mae Sot.
Protesting and social unrest during
This type of analysis
released in the media about Burmese migrant workers, or any migrant workers,
brings only more harm and more discrimination against thousands of innocent
women and men, many thousands of which are children. Children and women make up
a good portion of the Burmese workforce in
Furthermore, to broaden the
phenomenon of Burmese migration and quite contrary to increased terrorist
activity and conflict in
While it is true that
criminals do cross the border from
Fortunately, the Thai
government has taken on a more practical and caring solution to Burmese
migrants by offering schooling and medical care to Burmese migrants living in
Finally, the assumption that
(Submitted to The Australian on
*****************************************************************
The Australian:
(By Greg Sheridan,
Co-operating with the junta on counter-terrorism strategies poses difficult
moral questions, writes foreign editor Greg Sheridan
The dilemma is as exquisite
as it is simple. The Burmese Government is, by a vast distance, the worst
regime in
Several Southeast Asian
countries are not democracies, but
As a result of all this, the
Most of the nations of
Every day hundreds of
Burmese illegal immigrants, many of them HIV-positive, cross the border, often
carrying drugs, or with an intention to participate in crime in Thailand, or
just seeking a better life, but inevitably bringing with them vast problems for
the Thai state.
The war on terror adds an
acute new dimension to the dilemma. If terrorists use Burma as a base to
conduct an operation in, say, Bangkok, which kills hundreds of Australians,
there will be nobody saying to the Australian Government, well at least you
kept the purity of your policy intact. Instead, they will damn
But, sensibly,
Burmese law enforcement
officers have been involved in Australian courses on major investigation
management, post-blast incident management, and the international management of
serious crime. AUSTRACK has provided training on tracking international
terrorist finances. And perhaps most significant of all, Burmese law
enforcement officers have attended courses at the Jakarta Centre for Law
Enforcement Co-operation in
All this training has so far
been carried out in an ASEAN context. It has not been bilateral Australia-to-Burma-only
assistance.
However, it is still
Australian assistance to
It's pretty hard to see how
the skills involved in managing a bomb site could be used to suppress
dissidents. On the other hand, if you can track terrorist finances perhaps you
can track dissident finances a bit better as well; if you can track terrorists
more effectively you can probably track the movements of political refugees
more effectively.
In the real world there is
no getting away from these moral dilemmas. As one official puts it, one
question has to be whether providing such training is likely to help protect
Australian lives. The answer is undoubtedly yes.
There are many reasons why
Terrorists flow effortlessly
across borders and if the Malaysians didn't speak to the Thais, for example, or
the Filipinos didn't speak to the Indonesians, this would be disastrous for
effective counter-terrorism.
A further reason, and one
that needs to be expressed with a certain delicacy, is that providing such
training provides Australian agencies with invaluable knowledge and contacts.
These are useful always, but they are critical if an incident happens that
involves Australians.
The Burmese state, apart
from being brutal, is also ramshackle. We don't want it to persecute its
citizens but we do want it to stop its territory, or its citizens, being used
for terrorist purposes. It would be extremely foolish just to ignore
The broad balance of the
counter-terrorist story in the region is quite positive. The southern
In the southern
Under The Philippines
constitution the Americans cannot take combat action themselves on
This underlines the
importance of the story, first broken in The Australian last year and confirmed
in The Washington Post's Bob Woodward's book, State of Denial, this week, that
Australia now has unprecedented access to US intelligence, including an
exemption from the no-foreign-eyes rule for US intelligence concerning the war
on terror. Although
Now the Burmese would like
more assistance in their counter-terrorist efforts. Frankly, we'd be
ill-advised to decline.
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(AP:
YANGON, Myanmar -
Myanmar's military junta said Sunday that the U.N. Security Council's decision
to put the country on its agenda will have no impact on the government's plan
to reopen a long stalled convention later this week for drafting a constitution.
The National Convention is due to begin Tuesday, after an eight-month hiatus.
The country's military rulers have reacted angrily to U.S.-led efforts to put
But officials said at a briefing Sunday ahead of the convention's opening that
the two issues were not related.
"
Critics consider the proceedings a sham because the delegates were hand-picked
by the military, and detained opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party are not taking part.
The 1,000-plus delegate convention, billed by the ruling military junta as the
first step in a seven-stage "road map" toward democracy, is supposed
to lead to free elections, though no timetable has been set to complete the
task.
Kyaw Hsan, when asked about the timetable, said they
hoped to finish as "as quickly as possible."
"Instead of focusing on a timeframe, we put our emphasis on the emergence
of a ... stable constitution," he said.
Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election but the
military refused to hand over power, claiming it had to first write a new
constitution.
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Yangon-Mawlamyine bus
terminal shifted to new site
(Kaowao:
The shifting of the Yangon-Mawlamyine bus terminal in the capital city of
The SPDC authorities have
moved the old bus terminal located in Zay Gyo to a new site in Myeni Gone
Railway Station. And the Vehicle Association has had to buy a new office for
selling tickets, according to local sources.
"The authorities have
ordered the shifting of only the Yangon-Mawlamyine
bus terminal but others will remain in Zay Gyo. It is very inconvenient for passengers who have
to continue the journey further because we have to travel one and-a-half kilometers
to the old terminal to catch a bus," said a traveler from Ye.
Nai Hla Tin, a businessman from
In 2003, over 1,400 houses
including a Buddhist monastery and a mosque in Myene
Gone and Hlaing Wards had been demolished for the Yangon Mawlamyine
Railroad. The railway passes through six city wards in
Mawlamyine, formerly known as
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Mon Community Gives "Thumb's Up" to UNSC's Agenda
(Kaowao:
The Mon political community
in Monland gave a thumb's up when it heard the news
broadcast from exile radio announcing that
"Top leaders of the
party (Mon National Democratic Front) thumbed up their hand as success when
heard news of September 15 (the day
Not only do Mon politicians
support the agenda, but also the Mon community, including monks, since hearing
the news broadcast from BBC's Burmese section twice a day.
A young Mon politician who
recently arrived in the border area for political reasons said that Mon
politicians in
Two reports written by the
Human Rights Foundation of Monland, No Land to
Farm and Catwalk to the Barracks, proved that the SPDC are to be
blamed for the latest condition of the Mon people through the practice of
discrimination, the Mon monk community said.
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UNSC Agenda divided among cease-fire groups
(Kaowao:
The Ad-hoc meeting of New
Mon State Party welcomes United Nations Security Council's decision to include
Meanwhile, Democratic Karen
Buddhist Army or DKBA has denounced the UNSC's
decision to include
The source from the
"The SPDC is now
reacting seriously. International pressure, somehow, works and they are
forcing its member organizations USDA and cease-fire groups to against
it," said a Mon politician who asked not to be named.
The NMSP meeting, comprised
of 27 Central Committee members, was held at the Party's General Headquarters
and debated whether the NMSP should attend the government sponsored National
Convention. The agenda also included the Party's stance on the international
pressure towards
The NMSP decided to attend
the National Convention (NC) next month. The NMSP delegation will be
headed by its Central Committee member Nai Tin Hla.
The SPDC announced that the
government would reopen the convention to draft the country's new constitution
on October 10. Delegates to the National Convention have to be at the
meeting site at Nyaunghnapin by October 7.
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New
(Kaowao:
The New Mon State Party
(NMSP) will attend the SPDC-sponsored National Convention (NC) next month as in
previous years, said party spokesman Nai Aye Mon.
After a four-day meeting at its headquarters over the weekend, the NMSP Central
Committee decided it will attend the event with observer status.
A source close to the party
said that the meeting is highly controversial; not only do some members want to
stop attending the NC, but withdraw from the ceasefire agreement reached in
1995 as well.
After the NMSP sent
delegates as observers to the NC last year, it received a lot of criticism from
the SPDC regarding its downgraded approach politically.
Party members have divided
into two groups, pro-NC and anti-NC, also known as pro-ceasefire and
anti-ceasefire.
Some Central Committee
members say that the ceasefire will not benefit the Mon people, pointing out
that senior Buddhist monks strongly oppose it. "Thousands of acres of land
have been confiscated in Ye township and NMSP can do nothing preventing this
process," a member of the Central Committee quoted a senior Mon Buddhist
monk as saying.
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Three
(Kaowao:
The
"It is nice that we
(local civilians) can cross the border starting this morning and businessmen
are back to their daily activities," said Nai Soe, a town resident.
In
The border closure had
affected trade between the two countries and both authorities occasionally
close the border.
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