Suu Kyi’s NLD to Join Parliament on Wednesday

 

Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party will take their parliamentary seats on Wednesday. (Photo: Reuters)

By THE IRRAWADDY| April 30, 2012 | Hits: 8

Burma’s main opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) has ended the dispute over the parliamentary admission oath and agrees to take its seats in the national legislature, party chairwomen Aung San Suu Kyi told a press conference at her Rangoon home on Monday morning.

Suu Kyi said NLD members decided to join Parliament on Wednesday in response to their supporters and MPs from ethnic groups who were keen to see the party take up the 43 seats they won in the landmark April 1 by-elections.

“There are two reasons why we decided to join Parliament,” said the 66-year-old. “One is we deeply respect the people’s desire who helped us win a majority at the election. These people want to see us in Parliament.

“Another reason is to show respect to members of ethnic political parties that are already MPs and who have asked us to join Parliament.”

MPs from ethnic political parties as well as independents and members of the National Unity Party all wrote letters in which they offered to cooperate with the NLD to change the Constitution within Parliament, according to Suu Kyi.

“Our party quickly made the decision to join Parliament because we have many matters with which to work together with these ethnic political parties,” said the Nobel Laureate.

She added that there are many undemocratic articles to change within the widely-condemned 2008 Constitution. “This is just a problem regarding the Constitution and is not a political conflict,” said Suu Kyi. “We do not create any political conflicts. Therefore, we agreed to join Parliament because we do not want to have any political tension.”

The NLD wanted to replace the phrase “safeguard” with “respect” the Constitution in the oath sworn by new MPs.

The party campaigned on a platform of amending undemocratic articles within the document—such as the 25 percent of parliamentary seats reserved for military appointees—but face a struggle as any change requires 75 percent of the legislature’s approval.

But Suu Kyi denied that she was backing down over the issue. “Politics is an issue of give and take,” she said. “We are not giving up, we are just yielding to the aspirations of the people.”

Nyan Win, a spokesperson for the NLD, told The Irrawaddy that his party’s members will join the Parliament on Wednesday. Most MP-elects will travel to Naypyidaw on Tuesday, but Suu Kyi has said that she will go to the capital early on Wednesday before swearing-in.

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delivered a historic speech within the Burmese Parliament on Monday. He called for international trade sanctions against Burma to be further reduced and is due to meet with Suu Kyi on Tuesday.

Political prisoners still in Burmese jails

 

 

Monday, 30 April 2012 15:03 Mizzima News 

 

 (Mizzima) – Burma Campaign UK (BCUK) has urged the British government to do more to persuade the military-backed government in Burma to release all remaining political prisoners.

Prisoners walk out of Insein Prison in Rangoon after a presidential amnesty. Photo: Mizzima

There have been a series of positive changes in Burma, including the release of high profile political prisoners, and Aung San Suu Kyi being elected as a member of parliament, BCUK said in a statement. However, hundreds of political prisoners remain behind bars in appalling conditions in jail, it said.

“The unconditional release of all political prisoners is an essential step towards genuine democracy and freedom in Burma regardless of the changes in Burma, all the repressive laws which enabled the jailing of political prisoners still remain in place,” it said.

To remember those who still remain in jail, Burma Campaign UK said it will highlight the case of a different political prisoner every month. This month, April, is Thant Zaw (aka) Than Zaw.

Thant Zaw was sentenced to 30 years in 1989 and still remains in jail. He was accused without any evidence and charged with two different counts including High Treason within the Union of Burma Act, said BCUK.

He is a 43-year-old activist and he was an active member of the National League for Democracy Youth (NLD Youth). He was sentenced to death with 30 years in jail in September 1989, but the sentence was later reduced to 30 years in prison. Due to the brutal tortures he went through, Thant Zaw’s health has deteriorated in prison but he has not received any medical attention. His mother, Sein Sein, 70 years old, told Democratic Voice of Burma of her worries about not being able to see her son’s release before she dies.

“Jeremy Browne and the international community must remember the remaining political prisoners such as Thant Zaw”, said Wai Hnin, Campaigns Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “No one should be left behind in this process of change in Burma. There cannot be peace and a democratic system in Burma as long as one political prisoner still remains in jail.”

Burma Campaign UK supporters are being asked to write a letter to Foreign Minister Jeremy Browne asking him to take action to secure the release of Thant Zaw and for the release of all of Burma’s remaining political prisoners. Solidarity letters can also be written and sent to Thayet prison where Thant Zaw is being held.

၈၈ ေက်ာင္းသား ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြရဲ႕ ရွမ္းျပည္ေတာင္ပိုင္း ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးခရီး စတင္

ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးနဲ႔ ပြင့္လင္းလူ႕အဖဲြ႕အစည္း ေပၚထြန္းေရး ဦးတည္လႈပ္ရွားမႈအျဖစ္ ၈၈ မ်ဳိးဆက္ ေက်ာင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြဟာ ရွမ္းျပည္ေတာင္ပိုင္း ခရီးစဥ္ စတင္ဖို႔ ဒီကေန႔ မနက္ပိုင္းမွာ မႏၱေလးၿမိဳ႕ကို ေရာက္ရွိလာပါတယ္။

RFA

၂၀၁၂ခုႏွစ္ ဧျပီလ ၁၇ ရက္က ၈၈ မ်ဳိးဆက္ ေက်ာင္းသားမ်ားအဖြဲ႕ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသား လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈျပဳလုပ္ေနစဥ္။

ခရီးစဥ္အတြင္း တိုင္းရင္းသား လူထုအေျချပဳ အဖဲြ႕အစည္းေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုဖို႔ရွိၿပီး ေဒသခံျပည္သူေတြ ရင္ဆိုင္ေနရတဲ့ အေျခအေနေတြကို ေလ့လာမွာျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ခရီးစဥ္မွာ အတူလိုက္ပါသြားတဲ့ ၈၈ မ်ဳိးဆက္ေက်ာင္းသား ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ကိုဂ်င္မီက အာအက္ဖ္ေအကို ေျပာပါတယ္။
ရွမ္းျပည္ေတာင္ပိုင္း ခရီးစဥ္ဟာ ရက္သီတင္းပတ္ တပတ္ေလာက္ ၾကာျမင့္မွာျဖစ္ၿပီး ေတာင္ႀကီး၊ ေအာင္ပန္း၊ ပင္းတယ၊ ရပ္ေစာက္၊ ဟိုပုန္းၿမိဳ႕ေတြကို သြားေရာက္မယ္လို႔လည္း ကိုဂ်င္မီက ေျပာပါတယ္။
၈၈ မ်ဳိးဆက္ေက်ာင္းသားအဖဲြ႕အေနနဲ႔ လူထုအေျချပဳ အဖဲြ႕အစည္းေတြ အားေကာင္းလာေစဖို႔အတြက္ လႈပ္ရွားေနသူေတြကို အေထာက္အကူျပဳ သင္တန္းေတြ တက္ႏိုင္ေအာင္ ကူညီစီစဥ္ေပးဖို႔ ရွိတယ္လို႔လည္း သိရပါတယ္။

Rights groups call on U.N. chief to press Burma on reforms 

   

Monday, 30 April 2012 12:56 Ron Corben

Human rights groups are calling on United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to further press Burma’s military-backed civilian government to stay the course with reforms.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the tomb of former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant in Rangoon to pay respect. He exchanges greetings with U Thant’s grandson on Sunday, April 29, 2012. Photo: Mizzima / Ye Min

 U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said  upon his arrival that Burma has entered a critical moment against the backdrop of a series of political and economic reforms undertaken over the past year.

Ban, who is to meet with Burma’s President Thein Sein on Monday in the administrative capital Naypyidaw, had earlier acknowledged reform in Burma - also known as Myanmar - remained fragile with challenges ahead.

“Myanmar (Burma) is only at the beginning of its transition. Many challenges lie ahead. Many concerns have yet to be addressed," Ban said. "Yet I am convinced that we have an unprecedented opportunity to help the country advance toward a better future.”

Ban is also to meet with opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Tuesday. Her National League for Democracy (NLD) Party won a landslide victory in recent by-elections but boycotted the first sitting of parliament last week over wording of the swearing-in oath. Ban says he is hopeful the problem will be quickly resolved.

Ban’s visit comes as European Union policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is also on an official visit to Burma. 

Ashton says international business is still looking for further reform before making major investments in Burma.

The EU suspended economic sanctions in place over Burma’s past human rights record. Several countries have eased sanctions, including Canada, Australia and Japan. But the U.S. says key sanctions will remain as a leverage to press the government on reforms.

Debbie Stothard, spokesperson for rights group Alternative Asean Network, says substantive reforms are still required in areas such as legislation, as well as institutional and policy changes.

Stothard says Ban needs to press Burma’s government to move ahead with reform.

“It’s very important that Mr. Ban Ki-moon is not swept up in the euphoria and he should actually be looking at the situation with a lot of logic and stone-cold sober look at whether there is indeed reform in the country and what needs to be done; that Ban tells the Burmese authorities that this is a good start but much more needs to be done and much more quickly,” said Stothard.

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma (AAPPB) joint secretary Bo Kyi says the U.N chief should call for the release of all political prisoners and an end to army operations in ethnic border areas.

“His visit is very important. Maybe the need to discuss with the solving the problem of Burma, especially to stop the war on the Kachin state and the release of political prisoners and other human rights situations; those three issues are really important in the solving those problems Burma will not get peace,” said Bo.

The government has so far released 659 political prisoners but as many as 900 remain detained.

Ban is also set to travel to northern Shan state, a key opium growing region where a U.N. poppy eradication program has been under way. Aid agencies also expect further international aid and donor funds to flow into the country following Ban’s visit.

US maintains select sanctions

 

 

By AFP
Published: 26 April 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi meets US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell (R) and US embassy charge d’affaires Larry Dinger in Rangon on 10 May 2010. (Reuters)

The US yesterday ruled out an immediate end to its main sanctions on Burma, saying it wanted to preserve leverage to push the regime on ending ethnic violence and other key issues.
The EU and Canada this week suspended most sanctions and Japan waived Burma’s debt as rewards after a dramatic year of reforms in which President Thein Sein freed political prisoners and reached out to opponents.

President Barack Obama’s administration has taken a lead in negotiating with Burma and has eased some restrictions, including ending a ban on financial transactions by US non-governmental organisations.
But Kurt Campbell, a key architect of the US outreach to Burma, told cautious lawmakers that the administration had no “gauzy gaze and rose-coloured glasses” and would only ease sanctions in “certain prescribed areas.”

“I would simply say that there is no intention to ‘lift’ sanctions,” Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“We recognise very clearly that there have to be provisions and capabilities to be able to respond if there is a reversal or a stalling out (of reforms), that leverage is an essential component of our strategy,” he said.
Campbell hailed actions taken by Thein Sein, including the decision to allow 1 April elections that gave Aung San Suu Kyi a seat in parliament.

But Campbell said reforms have mostly impacted urban and Burman-majority areas and have not been felt by ethnic minorities in the country, which has some of the world’s longest-running separatist conflicts.
“We need to ensure that that process extends into the country as a whole and we are troubled by very clear – and we believe reliable – reports of continuing attacks and atrocities that are completely antithetical to the overall effort that we’re seeking to achieve,” he said.

Human rights groups have voiced particular concern about allegations of rape, forced labour and other abuses in Kachin state, where troops appeared to ignore Thein Sein’s orders in December to halt violence.
The US maintains strict sanctions against exports from Burma, including on gems, lumber and other lucrative products seen as sources of funding for the long-dominant military.

Rights groups question easing of U.S. sanctions on Burma 

 

Wednesday, 25 April 2012 16:19 Mizzima News

A group of influential human rights organizations says the U.S. may be moving too quickly in relaxing sanctions against Burma.

The group, which includes Human Rights Watch and seven other U.S.-based organizations, sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Tuesday, questioning his administration's decision to ease several long-standing sanctions against Burma earlier this month.

The U.S. eased an investment ban, some travel restrictions, and other sanctions in early April after Burma held by-elections in which pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political party won 43 of the 44 seats it contested.

The letter says any further easing of the sanctions should come only after additional political reforms, including the release of more political prisoners, and end to conflicts with ethnic rebel groups and amendments to Burma's military-drafted constitution.

Other groups that signed the letter include Physicians for Human Rights, Open Society Foundations and the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of American labor unions.

While the American groups remain leery about any easing of sanctions, Burma's neighbors are welcoming the moves, which promise to provide a much-needed boost to Burma's economy.

In a formal statement Wednesday, the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) hails Europe's decision to suspend most sanctions for a year as “the right thing to do at the right time.”

The E.U. said Monday that it will suspend almost all sanctions with the exception of an arms embargo.

Burma's current military-backed civilian government has undertaken a series of dramatic political reforms since taking power last March, including the release of hundreds of political prisoners, the holding of peace talks with ethnic rebels and the allowance of greater press freedoms.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will travel to Burma later this week to observe the country's transition from military dictatorship.

Ban Ki-moon to Visit Burma to Observe ‘Transition’

 

By LALIT K JHA / THE IRRAWADDY| April 24, 2012

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, greets Burmese President Thein Sein during the East Asia Summit in Bali in November. (Photo: Reuters)

 

 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, greets Burmese President Thein Sein during the East Asia Summit in Bali in November. (Photo: Reuters)

WASHINGTON D.C.—Stressing that Burma is just at the beginning of a transition, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced on Monday that he will visit the Southeast Asian country later this week.
This will be his third trip to the military-dominated nation in his role as head of the United Nations.
“Myanmar is only at the beginning of its transition,” he said. “Many challenges lie ahead. Many concerns have yet to be addressed. Yet I am convinced that we have an unprecedented opportunity to help the country advance toward a better future.”
“That is why, today, I am announcing that I have accepted an invitation from President Thein Sein to visit Myanmar. I will depart at the end of this week,” Ban told reporters after a meeting with the Friends of the Secretary-General on Burma.
The 14-member group has been a source of consistent support for the bloc’s efforts in engagement with Burma, he added. Observing that this is a critical moment in Burma’s transition, the UN Secretary-General said now is the time for the international community to stand together at its side.
“We have seen encouraging political and economic reforms over the past year-and-a-half. The recent elections were a landmark. We have seen important steps toward reform and reconciliation. We see Myanmar re-opening to the world. Yet we also recognize this fresh start is still fragile,” Ban said.
Responding to questions, Ban hoped that the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, and the government would be able to find a mutually beneficial, harmonious way to make parliamentary proceedings progress smoothly.
The NLD refused to take up the 43 seats it won in the April 1 by-elections as they must currently pledge to “protect” the undemocratic 2008 Constitution. The party has campaigned on a platform of amending the widely-condemned document and wants the wording changed to “respect” instead.
“They have gone through very historic by-elections recently that was reflected by the will of the Myanmar people,” Ban said. “I have taken note of what President Thein Sein said about this matter and I hope that they will be able to find a resolution on this issue harmoniously for the further democratization of their country.”

Ban expressed satisfaction over recent moves to reconcile with ethnic groups, particularly with the Karen National Union. He hoped the same progress will be emulated with the Kachin group. It is important that the Burmese authorities reach out and talk with all minorities for their smooth transition towards fuller participation in the democratization process, he said.

“I will have many opportunities of discussing this matter, starting with President Thein Sein, to Aung San Suu Kyi, to speakers of Parliament. I will have another opportunity of engaging with ministers and economic and social-related leaders there,” Ban said.

Meanwhile, the State Department urged the Burmese government and leaders to resolve the issue of the parliamentary swearing-in oath.

“Our understanding is that the NLD is in discussion with the government and with other parties with regard to this issue and we are calling on everybody to try to work this through in a manner that will allow the NLD to take its seats,” said State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland.

“We want to see the government and the opposition continue to work on their issues in a consensual manner through dialogue, and that is our understanding of what the NLD itself wants. So I think we need to watch this and hope that in coming days this can be settled,” she added.

But Nuland said the US will not wade into a domestic debate between the players involved. “The NLD has concerns about a number of things, including the name of the country, that were adopted at a time when they were not able to participate in the political process,” she said. “So they’re going to have to work through these things together as part of the general opening in the reform process.