Pegu official’s office bombed

Khaing Suu New Delhi (Mizzima) – A bomb was detonated last night in a ward peace and development council office in the capital of Pegu Division, residents said. No injuries were reported. The blast went off at about 9:40 p.m. behind a cupboard in the Pegu Myothit Ward Peace and Development Council chairman’s office, destroying the wall and furniture, a resident said. “We heard a loud bang at around 9:40 p.m. yesterday. We thought that it was a tyre blowout. But this morning, we learned that it was a bomb blast,” the resident who lives...

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Arakanese abbot handed eight years in jail on sex charges

Khaing Suu New Delhi (Mizzima) – Arakanese abbot and historian Ashin Pyinnya Sara yesterday received eight years and three months in prison and a 10,000 kyat fine from Sittwe District Court in Arakan State, his lawyer said. He had been accused of having sexual relations with a woman. Deputy Chief Justice Wah Wah Tun sentenced the 57-year-old abbot under the Burmese Penal Code’s section 292 (handling obscene materials) to three months in prison; under section 295 (insulting religion) to two years; under section 406 (criminal breach of trust)...

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Student unions condemn 'unlawful' arrest of activists urging poll boycott

Mizzima News New Delhi (Mizzima) – The All Burma Federation of Student Unions yesterday condemned the unlawful arrest of six student activists who urged the public to boycott the junta’s election on November 7, according to statement from the umbrella group. Six university students from North Okkalapa Township, aged between 19 and 24, distributed the leaflets calling for a boycott of the vote were arrested this month. The All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABSFU) said that the students’ activity was lawful and in accordance with basic human...

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Junta crony uses influence to cut voters’ power bills

Salai Han Thar San New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burmese junta crony businessman Htay Myint has reached a price-cutting deal with local electricity suppliers for his constituents in Myeik District, Tenasserim Division, as a part of his electoral campaign. The Yuzana chairman and candidate for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in southern Burma negotiated an agreement with the firms to reduce electricity charges for the people of his hometown. Htay Myint is one of Burma’s richest businessmen. His Yuzana Company runs many interests in...

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General and Than Shwe confidant to head military-run conglomerate

Wednesday, 29 September 2010 01:37 Ko Wild Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Former Coastal Region Command chief Khin Zaw Oo, who is on Britain’s financial sanctions list, has been appointed to head one of the top two military-controlled conglomerates. Major General Khin Zaw Oo, promoted to the post of adjutant general in a major military reshuffle last month, also took up the position of chairman of Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL), the state-run newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported on Sunday. The group’s former chairman, Lieutenant...

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Lithuania joins chorus seeking UN inquiry on Burma abuses

Thea Forbes Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Lithuania has joined the growing list of countries supporting calls for a UN commission of inquiry into the Burmese junta’s documented cases of human rights abuses, after France and Ireland in the past week. The call came in a statement the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent to Mizzima. “Lithuania is deeply concerned by the situation in Burma/Myanmar, especially by the situation of human rights and by the detention of political prisoners, pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi among them … [The]...

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Group of Friends reiterates standard theoretical appeal

Mizzima News Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s Group of Friends on Myanmar once again failed to identify any shared concrete measures to be implemented over the continuing political stand-off in Burma, as they convened late on Monday in New York. In America’s largest city for the 65th meeting of the UN General Assembly, the leaders from the group’s 14 member countries departed the meeting echoing the same language that had been a feature of the divergent grouping since its inauguration in December 2007. The group comprises...

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Thai PM urges ‘inclusive process’ after Burmese polls

Thea Forbes Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has called for the Burmese junta to initiate a more “inclusive process” after the nation’s first general elections in 20 years on November 7, according to a report in The Washington Post. Abhisit was talking to the Post a day before attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday. He characterised the Burmese elections as the first step in a continuing process and flagged widely held scepticism over the extent of change possible from the military...

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New Mon State Party issues troops shoot-on-sight orders

Monday, 27 September 2010 13:53 Ko Wild Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The New Mon State Party has ordered its soldiers to shoot at junta troops if they intrude into areas under its control, Mon military adviser Colonel Kaung Yuk (retired) said. The shoot-on-sight order was issued after a three-day NMSP central committee meeting, he said. “We have issued orders to our troops to shoot at anyone intruding without prior notice into our five-mile (8-kilometre) radius base areas,” Kaung Yuk said. “We told them [our troops] they didn’t have to seek orders...

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KSPP dissolves over denied registration, junta harassment

Phanida Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Kachin State Progressive Party was to announce on Saturday its formal dissolution, after the junta’s electoral watchdog rejected its registration and in the face of military intelligence harassment, the party’s secretary has said. The party, formed with 39 central committee members including Dr. Manam Tu Ja, was prevented from standing in Burma’s first elections in 20 years by the Union Election Commission (UEC). Around 4,000 party members will be informed about the dissolution, according to a decision reached...

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Ireland weighs in on UN inquiry into Burma abuses

Saturday, 25 September 2010 13:05 Thomas Maung Shwe Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen’s Irish government has joined a growing list of Eurpoean Union and other countries voicing support for a UN inquiry into crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Burma’s ruling junta. The Irish government led by Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen (pictured above, during a trip to China in October 2008) has joined a growing list of nations voicing support for a UN commission of inquiry into human rights abuses and...

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Five youth organisations form poll-boycott alliance

Saturday, 25 September 2010 00:08 Salai Han Thar San New Delhi (Mizzima) – Five youth organisations including the 2007-Generation All Burma Federation of Student Unions formed an alliance to stimulate activities towards a boycott of the first Burmese elections in 20 years. The youth groups, which also include New Generation, Saffron Generation, Midland Students and Pro-democracy Student and Youth Activists from Rangoon Division; formed the alliance on August 8, on the 22nd anniversary of the “8888” pro-democracy uprising in Burma. “Our aim...

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Thai police charge men over arms theft, sale to Wa rebels

Friday, 24 September 2010 21:29 Thomas Maung Shwe Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Thai authorities accused an artillery sergeant, two civilian military contractors and two other civilians of being members of a weapons-theft ring, which stole arms from an army ordnance depot in Lop Buri province and sold some to ethnic Wa rebels from Burma, a Bangkok newspaper reported today. The sergeant and three civilians were arrested recently and police were still looking for the fifth civilian suspect, The Nation English-language daily report said. Police told...

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Second white elephant caught this year in western Burma

Friday, 24 September 2010 04:14 Khaing Suu New Delhi (Mizzima) – For the second time this year, in what officials will see as a fortuitous omen ahead of general elections scheduled for November, a rare white elephant has been captured in Burma. Western Command troops led by Brigadier General Soe Thein along with other military and civilian authorities worked together to catch the female elephant yesterday north of the border township of Maungdaw in Arakan State. The white elephant was a member of a five-head herd spotted on September 20, about...

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Poet and altruist Moe Hein succumbs to ‘angel of death’

Friday, 24 September 2010 01:08 Ko Wild Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese poet, writer and altruist Moe Hein died of throat cancer in Rangoon yesterday morning at the age of 68. The youngest son of journalist and Journal Kyaw editor Chit Maung and prolific writer Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay, died at 9 a.m. in Shwegondaing Specialist Hospital. He had written about the impact of his diagnosis in the article: “An Open Letter to the Angel of Death”, which said “the arrow shot by infirmity, right-hand man of the angel of death, hit me in the throat in...

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Candidate to use payout for land-policy revamp

Friday, 24 September 2010 04:48 Myo Thein Rangoon (Mizzima) – Retired middle-school teacher Tin Aye is preparing to contest November’s general election with the 4.6 million kyat (US$4,600) he received as compensation for the seizure of his farmland when Naypyidaw was built. Standing for election as an independent candidate for the Pyithu Hluttaw (lower house), Lewei constituency, Tin Aye, 67, likens the financing of his campaign with funds awarded as compensation for seized land as “frying a fish in its own fat”. Mizzima’s Myo Thein spoke to...

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Kachin teacher, land activist to stand in Phakant for NDF

Friday, 24 September 2010 02:38 Mizzima News New Delhi (Mizzima) – Bawk Jar, who organised farmers to sue controversial junta crony company Yuzana over its land grabs, will stand for Phakant constituency in Kachin State for People’s Assembly in the forthcoming election as a candidate of the National Democratic Force party. Yuzana is one of Burma’s largest businesses and is chaired by Htay Myint, a real estate tycoon on US and EU sanctions list who is also standing in Burma’s elections on November 7. It has been involved in a land struggle in...

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US-Asean summit ‘a chance for unity in policy on Burma’

Friday, 24 September 2010 07:33 Mizzima News Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Today’s summit between US President Barack Obama and leaders from Southeast Asia is being heralded as a potentially defining moment in relations between Washington and Southeast Asian governments, offering an opportunity “to align divergent policies ahead of elections” in Burma. Human Rights Watch, based in New York, in a statement released yesterday, urged Obama and his Southeast Asian counterparts to unite in pressuring the Burmese junta to release political prisoners and...

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Party canvassing on state media heavily censored

Friday, 24 September 2010 23:40 Myint Maung New Delhi (Mizzima) – The Burmese junta’s electoral watchdog has refused permits for at least three political parties seeking to canvass on state-run radio and television, claiming the transcripts contained messages that could harm the state. The Union Election Commission (UEC) has rejected transcripts of the Democratic Party (Myanmar), the Union of Myanmar Federation of National Politics and 88 Generation Student Youths (Union of Myanmar), to canvass on television, and told the parties they must...

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Rights abuses surge ahead of November polls

Thursday, 23 September 2010 12:14 Mizzima News (Mizzima) – A periodic review of human rights transgressions in Burma reveals a spike in election related violations as the date for the country’s first general election in twenty years draws ever nearer. The survey, compiled by the Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma), identified 60 cases of election related rights violations in the first seven months of this year. The most prevalent instance of abuse, accounting for 27 percent of all cases, concerned intimidation and coercion,...

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Elections ‘a cynical process of fake regime change’

Thursday, 23 September 2010 01:57 Mizzima News New Delhi (Mizzima) – Human Rights Watch Asia section senior researcher David Scott Mathieson on Tuesday described Burmese elections in November as an “elaborate scheme to ensure future power for the military”. His comments came after a panel discussion on Burma and Tibet hosted by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia in the Indian capital of New Delhi last night, during a tour in which he will meet Indian UNHCR and Human Rights Watch representatives. According to the Australian National...

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Northern tensions rise as Kachin troops fire at junta helicopter

Thursday, 23 September 2010 22:06 Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - Kachin troops fired shots today at a Burmese Army helicopter flying low over one of their strongholds in the north of Kachin State, amid building tensions between the ethnic group and the military junta, an officer said. The Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) troops were showing the army that they refused to be intimidated, whether the flight was sent to watch or cajole them, an officer of the group’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), told Mizzima on condition of anonymity....

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France joins calls for UN inquiry into Burma abuses

Thursday, 23 September 2010 03:42 Thomas Maung Shwe Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – French representative Jean-Baptiste Mattei expressed at a UN Human Rights Council meeting last Friday his government’s support to “establish an international commission of inquiry” on human rights abuses in Burma. His comments were revealed in a summary of the meeting held last Friday, posted recently on the website of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. France is now the eighth nation to come out in support of the UN launching a commission of...

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Obama pressed to confront Asean leaders on UN inquiry

Thursday, 23 September 2010 02:56 Ko Wild Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - A leader from Burma’s pro-democracy opposition is calling on US President Barack Obama to raise the issue of a United Nations commission of inquiry into crimes against humanity committed by Burma’s military junta with regional representatives thus far unsupportive of the measure. Win Tin, a central executive committee member of the National League for Democracy (NLD), has urged the US president to take the initiative during an upcoming meeting with Southeast Asian leaders in New...

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People must shun yes-men in polls, independent says

Wednesday, 22 September 2010 00:38 Mizzima News Rangoon (Mizzima) - Burmese people should not vote for candidates who are “yes-men” in the forthcoming election, independent candidate Yan Kyaw said today, in stinging but indirect remarks against his opponents in breach of junta electoral rules banning open criticism. The candidate who will contest in the Pazundaung Township constituency for the People’s Assembly was taking part as one of 14 independents at a press conference at Traders’ Hotel in Rangoon at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, held to explain...

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Burmese migrant lifestyle choice: a Thai town dump

Tuesday, 21 September 2010 11:04 Albert Guzman Mae Sot (Mizzima) – The air is harsh, hot and humid, with an oppressive odour that initially assaults the senses. Mounds of refuse, decaying waste and cast-offs – evidence of the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot’s lunge at prosperity – glisten in the occasional sunlight. However, it does not invite closer inspection. A narrow dirt road parallels a long, high mound, while on the other side a large, dank pond is covered with some form of algae. A boatman on a rickety raft floats in the pond looking...

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Activists name day after teen girl shot dead in 1988 protests

Tuesday, 21 September 2010 00:07 Mizzima News New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burmese pro-democracy activists in the Indian capital have named September 19 as Win Maw Oo Day or Burma’s National Heroes Day after the high-school student shot dead on that day by Burmese soldiers during a bloody crackdown on nationwide pro-democracy protests in 1988. The demonstration organised by Burmese activists in India on Sunday protested against the ruling junta, its upcoming elections and to commemorate the death of Win Maw Oo. The photo of the 16-year-old girl’s bloodied,...

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