31 October, 2007

ယာဇ္ပူေဇာ္ပြဲ

(၁)

ႏွင္းစက္ေတြနဲ႔ မျပယ့္တျပယ္လမ္းကေလး
အေ၀းမွာ ၀ိုးတ၀ါး ကြယ္လုကြယ္ခင္….

ေႏြဦးညေနခင္း တြယ္ရာမဲ့မိုးတိမ္
ပင္လယ္တို႔ရဲ႔စီးဆင္းရာမဲ့ခရီး
ရီရယ္လစ္စတစ္ျဖစ္တဲ့ ကိုယ္တိုင္ေရး အတၱဳပတၱိ တစ္ပုဒ္
အိပ္ေမြ႔ခ် ဒ႑ာရီ တစ္ေစာင္….

ယူတိုပီယန္ ဆန္လြန္းတဲ့ မ်က္၀န္းမ်ား
ဂႏၶာရီ အရိပ္ေတြနဲ႔
ကိုယ္ယစ္မူးစြာ ရင္ခုန္ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္…

အေ၀းမွာ
ႀကိဳးၾကာငွက္တို႔ရဲ႔ ရင္ခုန္သံ
ျမက္ဖ်ားႏွင္း တို႔ရဲ႔ ညီညြတ္မူ
အအိပ္မဲ့ လမ္းမတို႔ရဲ႔ ငံ့လင့္ခ်ိန္….

ခ်စ္သူတို႔ က်န္ရစ္သူတို႔ ေၾကကြဲေနၾကသူ တို႔ေရ
က်ိဳးပဲ့ေၾကမြ ဘ၀မ်ားစြာအတြက္
ရွင္ကြဲ ေသကြဲ ခ်စ္လွ်က္နဲ႔ ခြဲခြာၾကရ သူေတြအတြက္
ကမၱာေျမရဲ႔ ခ်ီးေျမာက္မူနဲ႔အတူ
မိစာအာဏာရူး စစ္ဘီလူးေတြကို
ယာဇ္ပူေဇာ္မဲ့ေန႔ဟာ
ေရာက္လို႔လာခဲ့ၿပီ….

(၂)

ကာလေတြနဲ႔ ရင္းႏွီးတည္ေဆာက္
ေသြးနဲ႔ေဖာက္ ေခၽြးနဲ႔ေဖာက္
သစၥာတရားနဲ႔ေဖာက္…

ေသခ်ာတဲ့ခရီး လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရး ဆိုတဲ့လမ္း
မေ၀းေတာ့တဲ့ အခ်ိန္တစ္ခုဆီ….

ရင္ခုန္ယံုၾကည္ခ်က္တိုင္း
လူထုအတြက္
လြတ္ေျမာက္မူအတြက္
စိမ္းလန္းလွပ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးရမဲ့ ဘ၀မ်ားစြာ အတြက္….

ငါယံုၾကည္တဲ့ လမ္းကေလး
ငါကိုယ္တိုင္ရဲ႔ ေျခလွမ္းေတြနဲ႔ သြားခဲ့….

ခ်စ္ခဲ့ ၾကင္ခဲ့ ျမတ္ႏိုးခဲ့ ရိုက်ိဳးခဲ့
ရိုးသားစြာ ယံုၾကည္ခဲ့….

(၃)

အမာရြတ္ဗရပြ ကႏၱာရဆူးေတာ
ဗြက္ေတာ၊ ညြံေတာ၊ မစင္ေတာ
ေတာအထပ္ထပ္၊ ေတာင္အထပ္ထပ္
ရိုင္းၾကမ္းလြင္ျပင္ ဆူးခင္းခရီး….

ေရႊျပည္ႀကီးနီးၿပီလား
ယံုၾကည္ရင္းေရွ႔ဆက္….ေရွ႔ဆက္ရင္း ယံုၾကည္….

အေ၀းမွာ
သားေပ်ာက္ရွာ အမယ္အိုရဲ႔ ယူႀကံဳးမရ ပူေဆြးသံ
ဖခင္ေပ်ာက္သားငယ္ရဲ႔ ငိုေႁကြးသံ
စားစရာမဲ့ ျပည္သူေတြရဲ႔ ေတာက္ေခါက္သံ…..

အို
က်ိဳးပဲ့ေၾကမြ ဘ၀မ်ားစြာအတြက္
ေတာင္ေပၚမွာ
ေျမျပန္႔မွာ….

ျပည္သူတို႔ေရ
ခင္ဗ်ားတို႔ရဲ႔ ငိုေၾကြးသံေတြကို
တိုက္ပြဲေခၚသံ အျဖစ္ ေျပာင္းလဲ….

ခင္ဗ်ားတို႔ရဲ႔ ငတ္မြတ္မူကို
ရဲရင့္ျခင္း အသြင္ ေျပာင္းလဲ…

အားလံုးလက္တြဲၿပီး….

လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးကို ခ်စ္တဲ့
ဒီမိုကေရစီ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္သစ္ဆီ
အေရာက္လွမ္းၾက ႏိုင္ဖို႔
ေဟာဟိုမွာ
ေႏြဦးရဲ႔ ေခါင္းေလာင္းသံ ခ်ိဳခ်ိဳက င့ံလင့္
ႏွင္းဆီျဖဴ တပြင့္က င့ံလင့္
အေဖာ္မဲ့ ငွက္ငယ္ တစ္ေကာင္က ငံ့လင့္….

ကဲ
ရဲေဘာ္တို႔ေရ
ႀကိဳးတင္းေနတဲ့ ဆယ္စုႏွစ္ေတြ အတြက္
က်ေနာ္တို႔ ဘ၀ေတြကို
ႏွင္းဆီျဖဴ တစ္ပြင့္လို
လွလွပပ ထုပ္ပိုး သိမ္းဆည္း ႏိုင္ဖို႔အတြက္
ျပည္သူ႔ အေရးေတာ္ပံု တုိက္ပြဲဆီ
ခ်ီတက္ၾက…
အေရာက္လွမ္းၾက…
အရယူၾက…။


ေအာင္ရင္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္း

“၉၉၉၉” အထိမ္းအမွတ္အတြက္ ၁၉၉၉ ခုႏွစ္ ဂ်ဴလိုင္လမွာ ထုတ္ခဲ့တဲ့ “ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ကိုရင္ႏွင့္ဖတ္ျခင္း” ကဗ်ာစာအုပ္ပါကဗ်ာ။ စာအုပ္ျဖစ္ေျမာက္ေရးအတြက္ က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ ကိုအိမ္ေဒါင္းနီနဲ႔ စီစဥ္ခဲ့။

Read More...

Report: Myanmar recruiting child soldiers

Report: Myanmar recruiting child soldiers.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/30/myanmar.childsoldiers.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Myanmar's military government, already under criticism for abuses, is recruiting children as young as 10 into its armed forces, a U.S. rights group charged in a report released Wednesday.

The ethnic Karen's guerrilla army was cited in the report for improving its record on child recruits.

Government recruiters target children because of "continued army expansion, high desertion rates and a lack of willing volunteers," the 135-page report by New York-based Human Rights Watch said.

"Military recruiters and civilian brokers receive cash payments and other incentives for each new recruit, even if the recruit clearly violates minimum age or health standards," it said.
Ye Htut, deputy director general of Myanmar's Information Ministry, said the charges were "another example of biased reporting by this organization, which based its report on the baseless accusations and exaggerated lies of insurgent groups on the border."

Allegations against both the government and the ethnic groups for using child soldiers are long-standing, and have been acknowledged by both sides in recent years as the United Nations has highlighted the issue.

The newest accusations come as at least 70 Buddhist monks marched in northern Myanmar for nearly an hour Wednesday, chanting prayers for the first time since a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, two monks confirmed.

They marched without incident, two monks said in telephone interviews, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Myanmar's ruling junta faces international criticism for its violent crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations last month. Thousands were arrested, and the government acknowledges 10 deaths among the protesters, though critics say the real number might be closer to 200.

The junta has long been accused of other abuses, including brutal treatment of ethnic minority villagers caught up in counterinsurgency campaigns, and the use of forced labor in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

The report "Sold to Be Soldiers: The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma" also charged that ethnic guerrilla groups in Myanmar use child soldiers, though on a much smaller scale than the government. Ethnic minorities along the country's borders have been fighting for autonomy for decades.

Human Rights Watch said recruiters routinely falsify enlistment records to list children as 18, the minimum legal age for service. It cited the case of a boy who said he was forcibly recruited at age 11, though he was only 4 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed less than 70 pounds. According to the report, child soldiers are typically given 18 weeks of military training and some are then sent to combat zones.

"Child soldiers are sometimes forced to participate in human rights abuses, such as burning villages and using civilians for forced labor," said Human Rights Watch. "Those who attempt to escape or desert are beaten, forcibly re-recruited, or imprisoned."

Myanmar's armed forces have had regulations in place since 1973 forbidding the recruitment of minors as well as others forced to enlist against their will, said the Information Ministry's Ye Htut, responding to a summary of the new report.

Enforcement of the regulations was strengthened in 2004 with the establishment of a Committee for the Prevention of Recruiting Underaged Children from Military Recruitment, he wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

"If the authorities find out that a recruit was recruited against his will or he is under 18 years, the responsible personnel will be tried according to the military law," he said.
Between 2004 and August 2007, some 141 minors were dismissed from the military and returned to their parents, and disciplinary action was taken against nearly 30 military personnel for violating recruitment rules, Ye Htut added.

Human Rights Watch said the government committee has failed to effectively address the problem, and devoted most of its efforts to denouncing outside reports of child recruitment.

The report agreed with U.N. assessments that ethnic guerrilla armies, both allied with and against the government, also use child soldiers, though several have taken measures to curb the practice. The Karen National Union, whose military arm, the Karen National Liberation Army, was cited by Human Rights Watch for improving its record, said it punishes officers who use child soldiers.


Burma forces children into combat as adults desert army.

By Peter Popham , Published: 31 October 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3112830.ece

The Burmese junta is making more and more use of child soldiers, some as young as 10, according to a Human Rights Watch report published today. Finding it increasingly hard to recruit adult soldiers, and trying to cope with high desertion rates and a constantly expanding demand for fighters, army recruiters pick on children at bus and train stations and force them to join up.

The brutal military regime has long been accused of using children to fight the insurgencies and liberation movements challenging the regime on Burma's borders. Last month it drew the condemnation of practically the whole world after its vicious suppression of peaceful protests by tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens. Soldiers were forced to beat and abuse Burma's highly revered monks and at least one senior officer deserted, fleeing to Thailand because he refused to carry out those orders.

Although the junta set up a high-level committee in 2004, ostensibly to prevent the recruitment of children into the military, Human Rights Watch says it has failed in its aims. "In practice the committee has failed to effectively address the issue," the new report states. Instead it has "devoted most of its efforts to denouncing outside reports of child recruitment". As recently as September, the state-run media announced that the government was working to reveal that accusations of child soldier use were "totally untrue".

But in an investigation conducted in Thailand and China as well as inside Burma, Human Rights Watch not only found that children were routinely inducted into the army, with details of age falsified on the forms, but that children had become an item of trade between recruiters and the battalions, especially newly formed ones crying out for cannon fodder.

The report, Sold to be Soldiers: the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma, found that military recruiters and civilian brokers received cash payments and other incentives for each new recruit, even if he was clearly too young, too light or unwell. One boy told the investigators that he was forcibly recruited at the age of 11, despite being only 4ft 3in and weighing less than 5 stone.

A former soldier called Maung Zaw Ooo described the second time he was forced into the army. "They filled in the forms and asked my age, and when I said 16, I was slapped and the man said, 'You are 18'. He asked me again and I said, 'But that's my true age'. The sergeant asked, 'Then why did you enlist in the army?' I said, 'Against my will. I was captured'. He said, 'OK, keep your mouth shut then', and he filled in the form. I just wanted to go back home and I told them, but they refused. I said, 'Then please just let me make one phone call', but they refused me that, too."

Jo Becker, children's rights advocate for Human Rights Watch, said: "Recruiters target children at train and bus stations, markets and other public places, and often threaten them with arrest if they refuse to join the army. Some children are beaten until they agree to 'volunteer'."
The children typically receive 18 weeks' military training and some are sent into combat within days of being deployed. One former child recruit said he was "about 13" when he first went into combat. "We walked into a Karenni ambush, and four of our soldiers died. I was afraid because I was very young so I tried to run back, but [the] captain shouted, 'Don't run back! If you run back I will shoot you myself!'"

The report says that the majority of Burma's 30 or more non-state armed groups also recruit and deploy child soldiers, "though in far smaller numbers".

Read More...

Pakokku Monks March on the Streets Again [Breaking News]

Pakokku Monks March on the Streets Again [Breaking News]

October 31, 2007—More than 100 monks in Pakokku Township in Magwe Division marched in a peaceful demonstration, starting about 8 am on Wednesday. The monks marched through the town's streets chanting the “Metta Sutta” (the Buddha’s words on loving kindness). Many residents bowed before the protesting monks and the march ended peacefully about one hour later, sources said. Military authorities are now investigating which monasteries were involved in the march, said local residents. Pakokku was the site of the first violent crackdown on monks engaged in peaceful demonstrations in early September, which escalated into a nationwide anti-junta uprising in Rangoon and other cities. [The Irrawaddy]

More than 100 monks march in Myanmar

AP:
YANGON, Myanmar: More than 100 Buddhist monks marched and chanted in northern Myanmar for nearly an hour Wednesday, in the first public demonstration since the government's deadly crackdown last month on pro-democracy protesters, several monks said.

The monks in Pakokku shouted no slogans, but one monk told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norway-based short-wave radio station and Web site run by dissident journalists, that it was a continuation of the protests last month.
The march clearly was in defiance of the government.

"We walked around the town and chanted. ... We are continuing our protest from last month as we have not yet achieved any of the demands we asked for," the monk told the radio station.
"Our demands are for lower commodity prices, national reconciliation and immediate release of (pro-democracy leader) Aung San Suu Kyi and all the political prisoners," said the monk, who was not identified by name.
He said they had little time to organize the march so it was small, but "there will be more organized and bigger protests soon."

Up to 100,000 people took part in demonstrations in Yangon last month that were crushed when troops fired on protesters Sept. 26-27 in a crackdown that left at least 10 people dead by the government's count, drawing international condemnation. Opposition groups say as many as 200 people may have been killed.

Pakokku, a center for Buddhist learning with more than 80 monasteries about 630 kilometers (390 miles) northwest of Yangon, was the site of the first march last month by monks as they joined — and then spearheaded — the biggest anti-government protests in nearly two decades.

The first protests started Aug. 19, when ordinary citizens took to the streets to vent anger after the government hiked fuel prices as much as 500 percent. The rallies gained momentum when the Buddhist monks in Pakokku joined the protests in early September.

Reports that troops had beaten protesting monks in Pakokku on Sept. 6 rallied monks around the country to join the burgeoning marches. On Wednesday, the monks started out at Pakokku's Shwegu Pagoda, marching for nearly an hour and chanting Buddhist prayers without incident, and then returned to their respective monasteries, two monks said in telephone interviews.

The march followed a pro-junta rally in town. Opposition groups in exile say such rallies are stage-managed by the government. Historically, monks in Myanmar have been at the forefront of protests, first against British colonialism and later military dictatorship, and played a prominent part in a failed 1988 pro-democracy rebellion that sought an end to military rule, imposed since 1962.

The junta held general elections in 1990, but refused to honor the results when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won. Suu Kyi has been detained under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years.
Also Wednesday, the NLD said the military government had freed seven of its members who had been held for more than a month following the junta's crackdown on the anti-government protests.

The releases Tuesday night came ahead of a visit by U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to seek reconciliation between the junta and democratic forces. The seven had been detained at infamous Insein Prison in Yangon, said Nyan Win, an NLD spokesman. They included party spokesman Myint Thein and six others, Han Zaw, Lei Lei, Ko Bala, Cin Shin Htan, Htaung Ko Htan and Win Naing, the spokesman said.

"All these people had been arrested unnecessarily and we demand the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained arbitrarily," another NLD spokesman, Han Tha, told The Associated Press. He said at least 150 party members out of nearly 300 who had been arrested since September remain in detention.

Han Tha said many have been denied proper medical treatment and are living in harsh conditions. The government earlier said it had detained about 3,000 people in connection with the protests but had released most of them. Many reports have emerged of brutal treatment in custody.

Read More...

Resuming of Saffron Revolution in Burma

ေခတၱငုတ္လွ်ိဴးသြားေသာ စက္တင္ဘာေရႊ၀ါေရာင္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရး ျပန္လည္ အသက္၀င္လာေတာ့မည္

ယေန႔မနက္ ေဒသစံေတာ္ခ်ိန္ (၉) နာရီခန္႔တြင္ ဗမာျပည္အထက္ပိုင္း မေကြးတိုင္း ပခုကၠဴၿမိဳ႔တြင္ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီး အပါး (၂၀၀) ခန္႔ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ဆႏၵျပပြဲ လုပ္ခဲ့ပါသည္။ ပခုကၠဴရွိ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီး ေက်ာင္းမ်ားမွ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီး အပါး (၂၀၀) ခန္႔သည္ သာသနာ့အလံ (၃) လက္ကို ကိုင္ေဆာင္၍…ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္လမ္း..သီတာလမ္း တစ္ေလ်ာက္ သံုးပါးစီ စီတန္း၍ “လူအခ်င္းခ်င္းႏွိပ္စက္ျခင္းကင္းရွင္းၾကပါေစ….” “တို႔ေမတၱာစြမ္း ကမၻာလႊမ္း ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းၾကပါေစ…” ဟူေသာ ရြတ္ဖတ္သံမ်ားျဖင့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ ဆႏၵျပခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။

ယေန႔မနက္တြင္ စစ္အစိုးရမွလည္း ပခုကၠဴၿမိဳ႔တြင္ အတင္းအၾကပ္ လူထုေထာက္ခံပြဲ တစ္ခုကို လုပ္ခဲ့သည္။ ေဒသခံျပည္သူမ်ားကို “ေထာက္ခံပြဲ တက္ေရာက္လွ်င္ က်ပ္ ၁၅၀၀ ေပးမယ္… မတက္ေရာက္ရင္ က်ပ္ ၃၀၀၀ ဒဏ္ေဆာင္ရမယ္” ဟုေျပာဆိုခဲ့ေၾကာင္း ေဒသခံျပည္သူမ်ားက ေျပာဆိုသည္။ အမ်ိဳးသားညီလာခံ ေထာက္ခံ ပြဲကိုလက္ခံၿပီး၊ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ား ဆႏၵျပမူကို ဆန္႔က်င္ခဲ့ေသာ အာဏာပိုင္မ်ား၏ လုပ္ရပ္ကို ဆန္႔က်င္ ကန္႔ကြက္ ေသာအေနျဖင့္ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားက စီတန္းလမ္းေလွ်ာက္ခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္ဟုဆိုသည္။ အာဏာပိုင္မ်ားအေနျဖင့္ ညီလာခံေထာက္ခံပြဲကို လက္ခံလွ်င္ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ား၏ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေသာ လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ ဆႏၵျပပြဲကိုလည္း လက္ခံ ရမည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားမွ ပခုကၠဴအာဏာပိုင္မ်ားထံ အေၾကာင္းၾကားခဲ့သည္။

ပခုကၠဴၿမိဳ႔သည္ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးမ်ား ဦးေဆာင္ေသာ စက္တင္ဘာ ေရႊ၀ါေရာင္ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးစတင္ခဲ့ရာ ၿမိဳ႔လည္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္ စက္တင္ဘာလ (၅) ရက္ေန႔က ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာဆႏၵျပေသာ ရဟန္းသံဃာမ်ားကို စစ္အစိုးရ မွ အၾကမ္းဖက္ ႏွိမ္နင္းျခင္း၊ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးမ်ားကို လမ္းေဘးဓါတ္တိုင္မ်ားတြင္ ႀကိဳးတုတ္ထားျခင္း တို႔ေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတ၀န္းလံုးရွိ ရဟန္းသံဃာမ်ား စစ္အစိုးရအား ေဒါသထြက္ခဲ့အၿပီး၊ သပိတ္ေမွာက္ ကံေဆာင္ပြဲမ်ား ျဖစ္ေပၚခဲ့သည္။

ဦးေဆာင္သံဃာေတာ္ တစ္ပါးမွ ဆႏၵျပပြဲ အၿပီးတြင္ ဒီဗီြဘီႏွင့္အင္တာဗ်ဴး ျပဳလုပ္ရာတြင္ ျပည္သူလူထုကို မေၾကာက္ဖို႔….ေနာင္လာသားသမီးမ်ား အတြက္စဥ္းစားဖို႔ မိန္႔ၾကားသြားခဲ့ပါသည္။ ျမန္မာတစ္ႏိုင္ငံလံုးမွာရွိတဲ့ ရဟန္းသံဃာေတာ္မ်ားႏွင့္ ျပည္သူမ်ား မိမိတို႔လိုအင္ဆႏၵမ်ား အတြက္ ရဲရဲ၀ံ့၀့ံေဖာ္ထုတ္ ၾကရန္လည္း တိုက္တြန္း သြားခဲ့သည္။

ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္မ်ားမွာ စက္တင္ဘာလအတြင္းက ေတာင္းဆိုခဲ့သည့္အတိုင္း

၁။ ကုန္ေစ်းႏူန္းမ်ားခ်ေပးရန္
၂။ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ အပါအ၀င္ ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားမ်ားကို အျမန္ဆံုး ျပန္လႊတ္ေပးရန္
၃။ အမ်ိဳးသားျပန္လည္သင့္ျမတ္ေရး အတြက္ ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးပြဲမ်ားအျမန္ျပဳလုပ္ရန္

Read More...

30 October, 2007

For Burmese Tha Tin Guyt Full Mon Day

အေမွာင္ကင္းလြတ္ေသာ သီတင္းကၽြတ္ျဖစ္ပါေစခင္ဗ်ာ…



သီတင္းကၽြတ္ သြားခဲ့ပါၿပီ…။ သီတင္းကၽြတ္ လျပည့္ေန႔ ညက ဂ်ီေတာ့မွာ ေတြ႔တဲ့ မိတ္ေဆြ တခ်ိဳ႔က “ဒီေန႔ ဘယ္ ကို သြားျဖစ္လဲ” လို႔ေမးလာပါတယ္။ ဘာျဖစ္လို႔လဲလို႔ ျပန္ေမးေတာ့…“ဒီေန႔သီတင္း ကၽြတ္လ ျပၫ့္ေန႔ ေလ” ဆိုမွ သီတင္းကၽြတ္ သြားခဲ့ၿပီဆိုတာ သတိယမိ ပါေတာ့တယ္။ တကယ္ေတာ့ သီတင္းကၽြတ္ လျပည့္ေန႔နဲ႔ ၀ါလကင္း လြတ္ သီတင္းကၽြတ္ ရက္ေတြဆိုတာ ဗုဒၶ ဘာသာ ျမန္မာလူမ်ိဳးေတြ အတြက္ သဘာ၀တရားႀကီး ကေနေပး ထား တဲ့ “အမြန္ျမတ္ဆံုး လက္ေဆာင္” ေတြသာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္..။ ခ်စ္သူေတြလည္း နီးစပ္ႏိုင္မဲ့ရက္ကို ရင္ခုန္ၾကည္ႏူးေနႏိုင္ တာေပါ့ခင္ဗ်ာ...။
ငယ္ငယ္ကဆိုရင္ သီတင္းကၽြတ္၊ တန္ေဆာင္မုန္း လေတြဟာ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ကေလးေတြ အတြက္ေပ်ာ္စရာ အလြန္ ေကာင္းပါတယ္။ ေကာင္းကင္ႀကီးက ၾကည္စင္ၿပီး၊ ပတ္၀န္းက်င္ တစ္ခုလံုးလည္း လင္လက္၀င္းပ ေနပါေတာ့ တယ္။ သီတင္းကၽြတ္ ေက်ာင္းပိတ္ရက္ လသာသာညအခါေတြမွာ ကေလးေတြစုၿပီး ရြာရိုးတစ္ ေလၽွာက္ ေျပးလႊား ေဆာ့ကစား ခဲ့ၾကတယ္..။ တစ္အိမ္နဲ႔တစ္အိမ္ ျမန္မာ့ရိုးရာ မုန္႔မ်ိဳးစံု အၿပိဳင္အဆိုင္ လုပ္ၾက တယ္။ ရြာဦးဘုန္းႀကီး ေက်ာင္းမွာ မုန္႔ေတြအၿပိဳင္ လူဒါန္းၾကတယ္..။ တစ္အိမ္၀င္ တစ္အိမ္ထြက္ မုန္႔ေတြလိုက္ စားၾကတယ္..။
ငယ္ငယ္ တံုးကေပ်ာ္စရာ ေန႔ရက္ေတြပါ..။ အရြယ္ေရာက္လာတဲ့ အခါမွာေတာ့ ပတ္၀န္းက်င္ကို စူးစမ္းဆင္ျခင္ လာမိ တယ္။ ကိုယ္ေရာက္ေနတဲ့ေနရာ…ကိုယ္ေနထုိင္တဲ့ ေခတ္ႀကီးကို ေလ့လာမိတယ္…။ ေလ့လာေတာ့ သိလာတယ္။ အဲဒီကတည္းက အေပ်ာ္ဆိုတာေတြ ဆိတ္သုဥ္းသြားခဲ့တယ္။ တကယ္ေတာ့ အေပ်ာ္ဆိုတာ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသားေတြ ဆီကေန ႏူတ္ယူသြားခံခဲ့ရတာ ဆယ္စုႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ၾကာျမင့္ခဲ့ပါၿပီ…။ ဒီကေန႔မွာေတာ့ ျမန္မာလူထု အမ်ားစုဟာ သီတင္းကၽြတ္လမွာ ရိုးရာမုန္႔ေတြ မလုပ္ႏိုင္ေတာ့ပါဘူး..။ စားစရာေတာင္ နပ္မမွန္ ေတာ့ပါဘူး..။ ၀မ္းဗလာနဲ႔ စိတ္ဒါဏ္ရာေတြကို ႀကိတ္မွိတ္ခံစား ေနခဲ့ၾကရပါၿပီ..။
အေမွာင္ဖံုးေနတဲ့ ေခတ္ႀကီးထဲမွာ ၾကည္စင္ေနတဲ့ သီတင္းကၽြတ္လညေတြကလည္း က်ေနာ္တို႔ ႏိုင္ငံ ေကာင္း ကင္ယံေပၚကို အလင္းေရာင္ေတြ ေဆာင္က်ဥ္းမလာ ႏိုင္ေတာ့ပါဘူး။ ၀မ္းနည္းစရာ ေကာင္းေပစြ…။ သို႔ေသာ္…။ အမွန္တရားဆိုတာ “ယံုၾကည္မူ” တစ္ခုမဟုတ္ပါဘူး..။ “ေသခ်ာမူ” တစ္ခုပဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္…။ အဲဒီေသခ်ာတဲ့ အမွန္ တရားဟာ ေဟာဒီေလာကထဲမွာ အမွန္တကယ္ကို တည္ရွိေနပါတယ္…။ “အမွန္တရား” အလင္းေရာင္ေတြ ျမန္မာျပည္မွာ အျမန္ဆံုး ထြန္းၫွိႏိုင္ဖို႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ျပည္သူလူထုႀကီး အေနနဲ႔ လြတ္ေျမာက္ ေရးခရီး လမ္းကို ဆက္လက္ခ်ီတက္ရမွာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းပါ။
၀န္ခံခ်က္။ ။ ညီမေလးလိုခင္ရတဲ့ “အလြမ္းအိမ္” ရဲ႔ဘေလာ့ကို အလည္သြားေရာက္အၿပီး၊ သူမေရးထား တဲ့ “ေပ်ာ္စရာသီတင္းကၽြတ္ျဖစ္ပါေစ” ဆိုတဲ့ ပိုစ့္ေလးကိုဖတ္အၿပီး၊ ၿပီးေတာ့သူမရဲ႔ လွပတဲ့သီတင္းကၽြတ္ မီးပံုး ပံုေလးေတြကို ၾကၫ့္အၿပီးမွာ၊ တစ္ခုခုေရးခ်င္စိတ္ ေပါက္လာလို႔ ဒီပိုစ့္ကို ေရးလိုက္တာပါ..။ ပံုေလးေတြကလည္း သူ႔ဆီကပဲ ယူလာပါတယ္။
ခ်စ္သူေတြ အျမန္ဆံုး နီးႏိုင္ၾကပါေစ....။ အက်ဥ္းက်ေနသူေတြ အျမန္ဆံုး လြတ္ေျမာက္ လာပါေစ။ ျမန္မာျပည္ အျမန္ဆံုး လြတ္ေျမာက္ပါေစ...။

Read More...

Zarganar Questioned and Freed with Warning

ျပည္သူ႔ေရွ႔ ကရဲရဲရင့္ရင့္ရပ္တည္တိုက္ပြဲ၀င္တဲ့ အႏုပညာရွင္ ကိုဇာဂနာ အဖမ္းခံရၿပီးေနာက္ျပန္လြတ္လာ

photo: comediansclub.blogspot.com
မေန႔က ညေနက ကိုဇာဂနာကို စစ္အစိုးရမွ ေနအိမ္ကေန လာေရာက္ဖမ္းဆီးသြားခဲ့ၿပီး သတိေပး တားျမစ္ ခ်က္မ်ားလုပ္အၿပီး၊ အဂၤါေန႔မနက္မွာေတာ့ ကိုဇာဂနာကို ျပန္လႊတ္ေပးလိုက္ ပါတယ္။

ကိုဇာဂနာဟာ အျခားအႏုပညာရွင္ေတြနဲ႔အတူ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာဆႏၵျပတဲ့ ဘုန္းေတာ္ႀကီးေတြကို စက္တင္ဘာလအ တြင္းက ဆူးေလဘုရားေရွ႔မွာ ဆြမ္းေလာင္း လူခဲ့ပါတယ္။ စက္တင္ဘာ (၂၅) ရက္ေန႔မွာ အဖမ္းခံခဲ့ရၿပီး၊ ေအာက္တိုဘာ (၁၇) ရက္ေန႔မွာ လြတ္ေျမာက္ လာခဲ့ပါတယ္။
အဲဒီေနာက္ သူဟာ ကိုယ္ပိုင္ဘေလာ့ တစ္ခု ဖြင့္ ၿပီး၊ “စစ္ေခြးအေတြး” ဆိုေသာဟာသအပါအ၀င္ ေထာင္အတြင္း (စစ္ေခြးတိုက္အတြင္း) ေတြ႔ႀကံဳခဲ့ရတဲ့ အျဖစ္ အ ပ်က္ ေတြကို ဟာသေႏွာၿပီး ေရးသား ခဲ့ပါတယ္။

ဒီဗြီဘီ အပါအ၀င္ အျခားသတင္းဌာန ေတြနဲ႔လည္း ရဲရဲေတာက္ အင္တာဗ်ဴးေတြကို ဟာသေႏွာၿပီး လုပ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ သူ႔အင္တာဗ်ဴးေတြ၊ သူ႔ဘေလာ့မွာ တင္ထားတဲ့ ေရးသား ခ်က္ ေတြဟာ ဟာသေတြေႏွာထားေပမဲ့ စစ္အစိုးရကို ေျပာင္ေလွာင္ စိန္ေခၚထားတာေတြပဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ေထာင္ထဲမွာ သူေတြ႔ႀကံဳခဲ့ရတဲ့ အျခားႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္း သားေတြရဲ႔ အခက္အခဲ၊ ဒုကၡအေပါင္းကို အျပည့္အစံု ျပန္လည္ေဖာက္သည္ ခ်ခဲ့ပါေသးတယ္။ “ဗုဒၶံ သရဏံ ဂန္းစာမိ” “ဦးေႏွာက္မရွိပဲနဲ႔ တိုင္းျပည္ကို ႏွစ္ ၄၀ ၾကာ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ႏိုင္ေသာ စစ္ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မ်ား” စတဲ့ ပ်က္လံုးေတြဟာ ကိုဇာဂနာရဲ႔ ထင္ရွားတဲ့ ေနာက္ဆံုးေပၚ ျပက္လံုးေတြ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ကိုဇာဂနာဟာ သူ႔ရဲ႔ႏိုင္ငံေရး လူပ္ရွားမူေတြေၾကာင့္ ယခင္က လည္းေထာင္က်ခဲ့ ဖူးပါတယ္။ ၁၉၉၈ ခုႏွစ္မွာ တစ္ႀကိမ္၊ ၁၉၉၀ ခုႏွစ္မွာ တစ္ႀကိမ္ အဖမ္းခံ ခဲ့ရပါတယ္။ ၁၉၉၄ မွာေတာ့လြတ္ေျမာက္ လာခဲ့ပါတယ္။ စစ္အစိုး ရ ကေန ၂၀၀၇ ခုႏွစ္အေစာပိုင္းမွာ ကိုဇာဂနာရဲ႔ အႏုပညာ လူပ္ရွားမူေတြကို ပိတ္ပင္ထားတာ ယေန႔တိုင္ပါ။

Read More...

Former Dug Warlord Khun Sa dies in Rangoon

[AP] - Former Dug Warlord Khun Sa dies in Rangoon [Breaking News]


One-time drug warlord Khun Sa, variously described as among the world's most wanted men and a great liberation fighter, has died in Rangoon at the age of 74, an associate and a Burmese official said on Tuesday.
Khuensai Jaiyen, a former secretary of Khun Sa who works with ethnic Shan minority guerrilla groups, said that his former boss died in Rangoon on October 26, according to his relatives. The cause of death was not immediately known, but Khun Sa had long suffered from diabetes, partial paralysis and high blood pressure.

A Burmese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the death, but said it occurred on Sunday, October 28.

At the height of his notoriety, Khun Sa presided over a veritable narcotics kingdom, carved out of the jungle and complete with satellite television, schools and surface-to-air missiles in the Golden Triangle region where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet.

Read More...

The culprit who arrested Ko Htay Kywe and 88 students

“ကိုေဌးႁကြယ္တို႔အားဖမ္းဆီးခဲ့ေသာ လူထုရန္သူဘယ္သူလဲ”


ပဲခူးတိုင္း အင္းတေကာ္ရွိ ကိုေအာင္ႀကီး၏ ရာဘာၿခံထဲတြင္ ကိုေဌးႁကြယ္ႏွင့္ အဖြဲ႔ကို ဖမ္းဆီးခဲ့ေသာ အဓိက ေခါင္း ေဆာင္မွာ ပဲခူးတိုင္းအရံ ရဲအုပ္ လွမိုးေအာင္ ႏွင့္ ေနာက္ပါရဲအဖြဲ႔ ျဖစ္သည္ဟုဆိုသည္။ ကိုေဌးႁကြယ္၊ ကိုေအာင္သူ၊ မမီးမီးႏွင့္ ကိုကို တို႔အား ေအာက္တိုဘာလ (၁၃) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ အဖမ္းခံခဲ့ရ ျခင္းျဖစ္သည္။ ရာဘာ ၿခံပိုင္ရွင္ ကိုေအာင္ႀကီးႏွင့္ ရာဘာၿခံ အလုပ္သမားမ်ား ကိုလည္းဖမ္းဆီးခဲ့သည္။ လွမိုးေအာင္သည္ ယခု အခါ တြင္ အေစာင့္အေရွာက္မရွိေသာ ရာဘာၿခံရွိ ပစၥည္းမ်ားကို ခုိုးယူေရာင္းခ်လွ်က္ ရွိသည္ဟု ၿခံနီးျခင္း မ်ားမွေျပာ ၾကားသည္။ ကိုေဌးႁကြယ္ႏွင့္ အဖြဲ႔ကို ဖမ္းယူေပးႏိုင္ခဲ့သၫ့္အတြက္ ရဲခ်ဳပ္ခင္ရီမွ လွမိုးေအာင္အား က်ပ္ (၂၅) သိန္းဆုခ်ခဲ့သည္ဟု ဆိုပါသည္။

Read More...

Statement of Burmese monks who study in Sri Lanka

Read More...

Situation of human rights in Myanmar: Report of the Secretary-General

United Nations A/62/498
General Assembly
Distr.: General
22 October 2007
Original: English
07-55746 (E) 251007
*0755746*
Sixty-second session
Agenda item 70 (c)
Promotion and protection of human rights: human
rights situations and reports of special rapporteurs and representatives
Situation of human rights in Myanmar
Report of the Secretary-General*

Summary

The present report is submitted pursuant to paragraph 5 of General Assembly resolution 61/232. During the reporting period, two visits to Myanmar were undertaken in the context of the Secretary-General’s good offices mandate. Following his first visit in May 2006, the Under-Secretary-General for Political
Affairs undertook a second visit from 9 to 12 November 2006 at the invitation of the Government. On 22 May 2007, the Secretary-General designated his Special Adviser on the International Compact with Iraq and Other Political Issues and former Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, to continue to pursue the good offices on his behalf. From June to August 2007, the Special Adviser engaged in extensive consultations with key interested countries, with a view to returning to Myanmar as soon as possible. In response to the demonstrations and crisis that broke out in the country on 19 August, which attracted unprecedented world attention and generated serious concerns within the international community, the Secretary-General on 26 September dispatched his Special Adviser to Myanmar, with the support of Myanmar’s neighbours, the States members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Security Council. The Special Adviser visited Myanmar from 29 September to 2 October. Each visit to Myanmar included meetings with both the Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, Senior General Than Shwe, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

* The present report is being submitted on 22 October 2007 so as to include as much up-to-date information as possible.


A/62/498
07-2 55746

In the course of these visits, five key areas of concern to the United Nations and the international community were identified on which the Government of Myanmar is expected to deliver concrete results: (a) the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, or at least an improvement in her detention conditions, and a security review leading to the release of all political prisoners; (b) the need for a genuinely inclusive, participatory and transparent political process through which all the people of Myanmar can contribute to shaping their country’s future; (c) the need for better cooperation with the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies with a view to ensuring free and unhindered humanitarian access, including the possibility of a technical assessment mission to border areas; (d) a cessation of hostilities in conflict areas, including Kayin State; and (e) the need for continued cooperation with the International Labour Organization on the establishment of a joint mechanism to evaluate forced labour complaints. Furthermore, the following guiding principles for the implementation of the good offices were welcomed by all key interested Member States: (a) the good offices is not an event but a process that will require sustained engagement through regular visits and consultations with all concerned; (b) Myanmar presents a complex situation that cannot be reduced to a single issue — however important that may be — but rather requires engagement on a broad range of political, human rights, humanitarian and socio-economic topics; (c) engagement cannot be an end in itself, but rather must yield concrete results; and (d) the international community needs to work together in order to encourage Myanmar to move in the right direction. Key interested countries also expressed concern to varying degrees about the situation in Myanmar, support for
the Secretary-General’s good offices and appreciation for the Special Adviser’s efforts based on the above principles. Against a few modest but encouraging steps taken by the Government over the past year, the tragic events of recent weeks constituted a serious setback for Myanmar. The main objectives of the Special Adviser’s visit to Myanmar during the recent crisis were threefold: (a) to assess the situation on the ground in the wake of recent demonstrations; (b) to deliver clear messages from the Secretary-General to the Myanmar authorities at the highest level in response to the situation; and (c) to try to promote dialogue between the Government and the opposition as the best path to ending the crisis and achieving national reconciliation. While the Secretary-General took note of the initial steps taken by the Government to
de-escalate the crisis following the Special Adviser’s visit, he remains concerned about continuing reports of human rights violations, particularly the excessive use of force and arbitrary detentions, and calls upon the authorities to put an immediate end to any abuses. The Secretary-General welcomes the announcement by the Government of a possible meeting between Senior General Than Shwe and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the subsequent announcement of the appointment of a liaison officer to establish a channel of communication with her, as suggested by the Special Adviser. The Secretary-General urges both parties to display maximum flexibility in order to meet as soon as possible and stands ready to continue to use his good offices to help facilitate any efforts at dialogue. The Secretary-General further encourages the Government of Myanmar to seriously consider the recommendations made by his Special Adviser to address the underlying political and economic factors to the recent unrest, including the need to release all political prisoners, and the possibility of establishing a broad-based constitutional review commission and a broad-based poverty alleviation commission.


A/62/498
07-55746 3

While the Secretary-General recognizes that the responsibility for the future of Myanmar rests ultimately with the Government and people of Myanmar, he believes that a return to the status quo that existed prior to the crisis would be unacceptable and unsustainable. The Secretary-General is thus committed to making every effort, including through the intensification of his good offices, so that the United Nations can continue to work in partnership with Myanmar and support its efforts towards national reconciliation, the transition to democracy and full respect for human rights as the necessary foundations for long-term stability and prosperity. This will require the sustained engagement of the United Nations, with the active support of the international community, including especially the countries in the region. In this connection, the Secretary-General welcomes the constructive role played by Myanmar’s neighbours and the members of ASEAN, and encourages such efforts to continue. The Secretary-General also welcomes the Presidential statement adopted by the Security Council on 11 October 2007 (S/PRST/2007/37) in support of his good offices mandate, as well as Human Rights Council resolution S-5/1 on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. The more united the international community is, the better the prospects for arriving at the shared goals of peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of Myanmar.


A/62/498
07-4 55746

I. Introduction

1. The present report is submitted pursuant to paragraph 5 of General Assembly resolution 61/232, in which the Assembly requested the Secretary-General, inter alia, to continue to provide his good offices and to pursue his discussions on the situation of human rights and the restoration of democracy with the Government and the people of Myanmar, including all relevant parties to the national reconciliation process in Myanmar, to offer technical assistance to the Government in this regard, and to report to the Assembly at its sixty-second session on the progress made in the implementation of the resolution. The report focuses on the good offices dimension of the resolution covering the period since the previous report of the Secretary- General to the General Assembly, of 9 October 2006 (A/61/504). A separate report by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has been circulated under the symbol A/62/223.

2. Since the previous report of the Secretary-General, further efforts have been made to engage the Myanmar authorities through the good offices mandate entrusted to the Secretary-General by the General Assembly. These efforts were intensified in response to the crisis that broke out in Myanmar on 19 August 2007.

3. In the follow-up to his first visit to Myanmar, from 18 to 20 May 2006, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs was invited by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Nyan Win, to visit Myanmar again from 9 to 12 November 2006. The main objectives of the Under-Secretary-General’s second mission were: (a) to
meet with the same key interlocutors as during his first visit in order to deepen and broaden the process of dialogue and engagement between Myanmar and the United Nations; (b) to directly convey the clear message at all levels of the need for concrete results in key areas of concern to the United Nations and the international community; and (c) to continue to exercise the Secretary-General’s good offices as an avenue for building further confidence between Myanmar and the United Nations and encouraging Myanmar to demonstrate progress towards national reconciliation, the restoration of democracy and full respect for human rights.

4. As was the case during his first visit, the Under-Secretary-General met again with the Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, Senior General Than Shwe, the Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council, Vice- Senior General Maung Aye, and Secretary-1 of the State Peace and Development Council Lieutenant-General Thein Sein, as well as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Ministers of Labour and Planning. He was also able to meet again with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and, separately on United Nations premises, with members of the Executive Committee of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). On the sidelines of the Government-sponsored National Convention, he also met with delegates from 17 ceasefire ethnic groups, political parties and members of
parliament. The Under-Secretary-General also received through the United Nations country team in Yangon messages from other relevant interlocutors, including a petition from representatives of the “88 Generation Students”. On 27 November 2006, the Under-Secretary-General briefed the Security Council, at its request, on the outcome of his second mission.

5. On 12 January 2007, the Security Council considered a draft resolution (S/2007/14) on the situation in Myanmar, which was not adopted due to the negative vote of two permanent members of the Council.


A/62/498
07-55746 5

6. On 22 May 2007, the Secretary-General designated his Special Adviser on the International Compact with Iraq and Other Political Issues and former Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, to continue to pursue the good offices mandate on his behalf with the Government of Myanmar and all relevant parties to the national reconciliation process. Immediately following his designation, from June to August 2007, the Special Adviser engaged in a series of extensive consultations with key interested Member States — including China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America, as well as the European Union — in order to ascertain their respective positions and promote support for the Secretary-General’s good offices mission, with a view to returning to Myanmar as soon as possible. The Special Adviser also consulted with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights (OHCHR), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Myanmar subsequently invited the Special Adviser to return to Myanmar in the second week of November 2007.

7. Meanwhile, the Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs, Margareta Wahlström, visited Myanmar from 3 to 6 April at the invitation of the Government for the purpose of discussing the humanitarian situation with Government counterparts and humanitarian partners; articulating the relationship of the Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs with the newly appointed United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Yangon; and examining key issues related to access to vulnerable populations. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, also visited Myanmar from 25 to 29 June at the invitation of the Government to review the implementation of the Secretary-General’s mandate pursuant to Security Council resolution 1612 (2005). The authorities have continued to deny the requests for a visit by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, to the country.

II. Content and outcome of discussions

8. In the course of his second mission, in November 2006, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs emphasized in all his discussions that while his first visit six months earlier had re-established dialogue between Myanmar and the United Nations after almost three years without high-level contacts, too little progress had been made since then on issues which had been discussed with the senior leadership and Government. He made it clear that expectations were high for Myanmar to demonstrate concrete progress in five key areas of concern to the United Nations and the international community: (a) the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, or at least an improvement in her detention conditions, and a security review leading to the release of all political prisoners; (b) the need for a genuinely inclusive, participatory and transparent political process through which all the people of Myanmar can contribute to shaping their country’s future; (c) the need for better cooperation with the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies with a view to ensuring free and unhindered humanitarian access, including the possibility of a technical assessment mission to border areas; (d) a cessation of hostilities in conflict areas, including Kayin State; and (e) the need for continued cooperation wth the International Labour Organization (ILO) on the establishment of a joint mechanism to evaluate forced labour complaints. Specific recommendations relating to humanitarian action, which were followed up on by the Assistant Secretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs during her visit in April 2007, included the opening of dialogue with the Government on the operational environment inside the country for humanitarian actors, an interministerial meeting with the United Nations country team, the appointment of a liaison officer at the political level to address humanitarian issues, and a United Nations inter-agency humanitarian assessment mission to Kayin State.

9. Although the Government did not reject any of the above recommendations, it consistently emphasized the complexity of Myanmar’s political and economic challenges and the Government’s efforts to address such challenges, including through its seven-step political roadmap to democracy, starting with the completion of the National Convention. At the same time, the Government repeatedly reaffirmed that cooperation with the United Nations is a cornerstone of Myanmar’s foreign policy. In terms of results, Myanmar’s response has been mixed.

10. Among the positive developments, the Secretary-General welcomed the agreement reached between the Government of Myanmar and ILO on 26 February 2007 on the establishment of a mechanism to address forced labour complaints as a good example of what can be achieved through mutual cooperation. The agreement is being implemented to the mutual satisfaction of ILO and the Government, and the ILO liaison capacity in Yangon has also been strengthened. Another example of cooperation between Myanmar and the international community is the implementation of the Three Diseases Fund to combat malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in Myanmar. The Fund, which is supported by six donors so far (Australia, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) with pooled funds of US$ 100 million over five years, is managed by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). Drug reduction is another area where Myanmar has steadily been making significant progress over the past few years, although the 2007 increase in poppy cultivation calls for continued vigilance and sustained cooperation between the Government and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). On the whole, the Government has demonstrated greater openness to United Nations actors across a range of activities that are essential for the well-being of the people of Myanmar. Both the Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict were encouraged by their findings during their visits and are planning follow-up visits with a view to working with the Government to implement specific recommendations pertaining to their respective mandates.

11. On the political front, the resumption of the National Convention for its final session on 18 July 2007 raised expectations that the Government would seize the opportunity to engage in an inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue with all relevant parties to the national reconciliation process on the country’s future constitutional framework, as encouraged by the Secretary-General. While noting the
completion of the Convention on 3 September 2007 as the first step in the Government’s seven-step political roadmap, serious concerns remain about the exclusive nature of the process to date and about provisions reportedly adopted at the Convention that would seemingly run counter to the objectives of national reconciliation and democratization.


A/62/498
07-55746 7

12. During his consultations with key interested Member States from June to August 2007, the Special Adviser underscored four principles guiding the good offices efforts: (a) good offices is not an event but a process that will require sustained engagement through regular visits and consultations with all concerned; (b) Myanmar presents a complex situation that cannot be reduced to a single issue — however important that may be — but rather requires engagement on a broad range of political, human rights, humanitarian and socio-economic topics; (c) engagement cannot be an end in itself, but rather must yield concrete results; and (d) the international community needs to work together in order to encourage Myanmar to move in the right direction. In response, key interested Member States conveyed two basic messages to the Special Adviser: concern to varying degrees about the situation in Myanmar; and support for the Secretary-General’s good offices and appreciation for the Special Adviser’s efforts based on the above principles. Beyond expressions of support, the Special Adviser also found a readiness to proactively consider ways of
working with one another and with Myanmar to find solutions for moving forward.

III. Recent developments

13. The sudden announcement by the Government on 19 August 2007 of a sharp increase in fuel prices was followed by peaceful demonstrations against the Government’s economic policies and overall political and socio-economic conditions in the country. The demonstrations, which also coincided with the completion of the National Convention on 3 September, spread from Yangon to other cities and quickly grew in size when monks started marching in protest against the Government’s initial response to the demonstrators, which included the arrest of several 88 Generation Students leaders, activists and members of the opposition. According to some reports, between 50,000 and 100,000 people were peacefully demonstrating in the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other cities, including several thousand monks and nuns. As demonstrations continued to grow, the authorities moved to suppress the peaceful protests, including by deploying security units throughout Yangon and other cities and by declaring a ban on public assembly as
well as a curfew. Although the authorities initially showed restraint in their handling of the situation, by 24 September media reports indicated increasing numbers of casualties among demonstrators. While the authorities appear to have used non-lethal force in some instances to disband the peaceful protestors, the reported number of casualties among demonstrators raise concern about the excessive use of force and ill treatment by the security forces.

14. In response to the crisis, the Secretary-General issued statements expressing his concern at the escalation of tensions on the ground, making clear that the Government’s response to the demonstrations ran counter to the spirit of Myanmar’s cooperation with his good offices, and calling for maximum restraint and dialogue. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar also joined in calling for
the release of all those arrested during the demonstrations, including monks, 88 Generation Students leaders and members of the opposition and calling for an end to the use of force against peaceful demonstrators.
15. On 26 September 2007, the Secretary-General dispatched his Special Adviser to the region in anticipation of an invitation from the Government of Myanmar for him to visit the country. The Special Adviser visited Myanmar from 29 September to 2 October. Within the context of the Secretary-General’s good offices mandate, the objectives of the Special Adviser’s mission were three-fold: (a) to assess the situation on the ground in the wake of recent demonstrations; (b) to deliver clear messages from the Secretary-General to the Myanmar authorities at the highest level in response to the situation; and (c) to try to promote dialogue between the Government and the opposition as the best path to ending the crisis and achieving national reconciliation.

16. As was the case during each of his previous visits to Myanmar in his capacity as Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, the Special Adviser was able to meet with Senior General Than Shwe and twice with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He also met with Vice-Senior General Maung Aye, General Thura Shwe Mann and Acting Prime Minister Lieutenant-General Thein Sein, as well as the Ministers of Information and Culture and the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs. Although hewas not able to meet with other relevant interlocutors — despite repeated requests — he did receive messages from many groups and individuals, including from representatives of monks and the 88 Generation Students. He also consulted with the United Nations country team and the ICRC delegation in Yangon. The Special Adviser and his delegation were also taken to a mass rally in Lashio (northeastern Shan State) organized in support of the Government’s National Convention and the seven-step political roadmap. On 5 October, the Special Adviser briefed both the President of the General Assembly and the Security Council, at its request, on the outcome of his mission. The Secretary-General also addressed the Security Council on that occasion.

17. By the time the Special Adviser’s mission started, the protests on the streets of Yangon had been largely put down. By the Government’s own account, up to a dozen people were killed (including a Japanese journalist), several dozen wounded and over two thousand arrested. Unconfirmed reports, however, put the number of casualties higher. Of great concern to the United Nations and the international
community are continuing reports of abuses being committed by security and non-uniformed elements, particularly at night during curfew, including raids on private homes, beatings, arbitrary arrests and disappearances. There have also been reports of mass relocation outside Yangon of monks arrested in the course of the demonstrations and of monasteries that remain blockaded. The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Yangon reported that three national United Nations staff and one dependant were arrested and detained. This was brought to the attention of the authorities at the highest level, and the individuals concerned were subsequently released. The United Nations office in Yangon has also received requests from people asking for a safe place to hide.

18. On 2 October 2007, the Human Rights Council held a special session to consider the unfolding human rights situation in Myanmar. At that session, the Council unanimously adopted resolution S-5/1, in which, inter alia, it deplored the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations and urged the Government of Myanmar to release detainees and other longer-term political prisoners, lift restrictions on fundamental freedoms and engage in dialogue with all parties to achieve genuine national reconciliation, democratization and the establishment of the rule of law. The Council encouraged the Government of Myanmar and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to engage in a dialogue with a view to ensuring full respect for human rights, and requested the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar to assess the current situation and to monitor implementation of the resolution, including by seeking an urgent visit to Myanmar. The Secretary-General urges the Government of Myanmar to extend its full cooperation to the Special Rapporteur and to invite him to visit the country at the first opportunity.

19. Amid ongoing demonstrations and acts of repression by the authorities, the Special Adviser was able to deliver clear and strong messages on behalf of the Secretary-General directly to the authorities at the highest level. He emphasized the changing domestic, regional and international context within which his mission was taking place with the clear and strong support of Myanmar’s neighbours, ASEAN countries and the Security Council. Secondly, the Special Adviser expressed in the strongest possible terms the Secretary-General’s and the international community’s deep concern about the events and made specific recommendations for immediate steps to de-escalate tensions. These include putting an end to night raids and arrests during curfew; lifting the curfew as soon as possible; releasing all those arrested during the demonstrations; allowing access to clinics for those wounded during demonstrations; withdrawing military forces from the street; ensuring respect for human rights and the rule of law in the exercise of law enforcement, in accordance with international standards; allowing ICRC to have access to persons detained and to assist in tracing missing people; and putting an immediate end to raids on monasteries.

20. In his discussions with the Government, the Special Adviser was told that theincrease in fuel prices could not in itself have triggered the demonstrations unless they were instigated by a small minority of elements opposed to the Government and supported by external forces. The Special Adviser was also told by the Government that the demonstrations were limited to Yangon and Mandalay, while the rest of the country had remained calm; that the authorities had shown the utmost restraint in handling the situation; and that most of those arrested could be expected to be released shortly after investigation and interrogation. By the end of the Special Adviser’s mission, the Myanmar authorities announced a relaxation of the curfew in Yangon and Mandalay, and reports indicate that visible military presence in the streets has been reduced. The Government also reported that, as of 5 October, a total of 2,095 persons arrested in the course of demonstrations had been released, including 728 monks, and that more releases would follow, as a direct result of the Special Adviser’s request to the authorities on behalf of the Secretary-General. The situation in the wake of the demonstrations remains of serious concern, however, in the light of continuing reports of human rights violations being committed by security and non-uniformed personnel, particularly at night, including raids on private homes, intimidation, beatings, arbitrary arrests and disappearances.

21. With regard to the promotion of dialogue, the Special Adviser emphasized the need for the Government to address without delay the political and socio-economic factors underlying the demonstrations through specific mid- and long-term measures, predicated on all-inclusive dialogue among all stakeholders and with
reference to the five key areas of concern to the United Nations and the international community identified during his visit in November 2006. His specific recommendations in this regard included an all-inclusive national reconciliation process; the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners; a
signal of the Government’s willingness to engage in dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; the appointment of a liaison officer to establish a channel of communication with her; the establishment of a broad-based constitutional review
mechanism; and the establishment of a broad-based poverty alleviation commission.

22. The visit allowed the Special Adviser to resume the role he had started to play during his previous visit in his capacity as Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, by conveying messages between the senior leadership and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Special Adviser was allowed to meet with her a second time after meeting with Senior General Than Shwe, and was able to have messages reported back from her to the senior leadership. On 4 October 2007, the Government announced that Senior General Than Shwe was prepared to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, although with certain conditions. On 8 October, the Government announced the appointment of the Deputy Minister of Labour, Aung Kyi, as a liaison officer with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, as suggested by the Special Adviser during his visit on behalf of the Secretary-General.

IV. Observations

23. Against the few modest but encouraging steps taken by the Government over the past year, the tragic events of recent weeks clearly constituted a serious setback for Myanmar. In his statement to the Security Council on 5 October 2007, the Secretary-General reiterated that the use of force against peaceful demonstrators was abhorrent and unacceptable. He remained deeply concerned about reports of continued huan rights violations, particularly the excessive use of force and arbitrary detentions in the wake of the demonstrations, and the unknown predicament of the large number of individuals who were arrested without due process. The Secretary-General called upon the Government of Myanmar to heed the concerns and requests of the international community, as expressed by the Security Council, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council, such as the call to ensure immediate access to ICRC and other humanitarian personnel to all detainees, to conduct an independent and thorough investigation into the killings and enforced disappearances and to effectively engage in a constructive dialogue with the Human Rights Council and its special procedures, especially the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights of Myanmar. In this connection, it is a continuing source of regret that the
Special Rapporteur has been denied access to the country for almost four years. The Secretary-General hopes that the Special Rapporteur will be able to fulfil his mandate and visit the country in the near future as part of Myanmar’s cooperation with the United Nations.

24. Most regrettably, the Government’s repressive response to the demonstrations comes at a time when Myanmar is striving to move forward towards national reconciliation and the restoration of democracy. In this regard, the marches by monks across the country over recent weeks appear to have provided a catalyst for the demonstrations to become explicitly political in nature. This should be understood in the context of the Government’s systematic denial of the people’s democratic aspirations since 1988, in the name of stability and security. Although the Government succeeded after 14 years in completing the Convention and insists that its roadmap enjoys broad support, the exclusion of key stakeholders and the failure to meet the expectations of key participants tend to undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the process. Of particular concern are reports that the Convention was concluded without accommodating some of the basic demands raised by ethnic ceasefire groups, which would defeat the Government’s efforts over the past 15 years to work with them through the National Convention process.

25. Unless the Government decides to open up and broaden the process that is to define Myanmar’s future, the demands for greater inclusiveness, participation and transparency in order to accelerate the transition to democracy and civilian rule are likely to continue. In this context, the Secretary-General believes strongly that there should be opportunities in the period ahead to improve the outcome of the National Convention in ways that are more inclusive, participatory and transparent. A necessary first step for genuine national dialogue is the release of all political detainees. The future of Myanmar belongs to all the people of Myanmar, and it is therefore in the interest of the nation that all those who have a contribution to make should have the opportunity to do so. The specific recommendation to consider the establishment of a broad-based constitutional review mechanism is aimed at encouraging the Government to engage in a post-National Convention process of consultations that would enhance the credibility and legitimacy of the draft
constitution to be submitted to referendum. The United Nations has experience in facilitating such a constitutional review process.

26. Now more than ever before, the Secretary-General believes that the Government of Myanmar should seize the opportunity to take bold actions towards democratization and respect for human rights. In addition to accelerating and broadening the national reconciliation process, a serious and comprehensive political dialogue between the Government and the political opposition is indispensable. One important outcome of the Special Adviser’s mission in this regard is the announcement by the Government of a possible meeting between Senior General Than Shwe and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the subsequent announcement of the appointment of a liaison officer to establish a channel of communication with her. The Secretary-General welcomes this potentially positive development and urges both parties to display maximum flexibility in order to meet as soon as possible and engage in meaningful dialogue. The Secretary-General stands ready to continue to use his good offices to help facilitate any efforts at dialogue.

27. In addition to the imperatives of the political dispensation, the Secretary- General urges the Government to be more responsive to the extremely fragile humanitarian and socio-economic context within which the recent demonstrations and crisis broke out. Whatever the rationale for the Government’s decision to suddenly increase fuel prices, the demonstrations that this decision apparently triggered reflect both the extreme economic vulnerability of the Myanmar people and the Government’s apparent lack of consultations with the majority of the population that is affected by the reality of living conditions in Myanmar. It is clear that the demonstrations are the expression of deep and widespread discontent about
prevailing socio-economic conditions in the country. This is particularly worrying at a time when Myanmar is experiencing a trend of accelerating impoverishment and deteriorating health standards, which are compounded by the growing inability of the social service structures to address the basic needs of the general population. Long-term stability anywhere depends in part on good governance, sound fiscal policies and wide consultations with the people on the decisions affecting their lives. The recent events also underline the need for Myanmar to improve its basic economic management capacity, particularly as the country strives to join in the broader region’s economic development.

28. In this regard, the recommendation put to the Government to consider establishing a broad-based poverty alleviation commission to identify and address socio-economic needs would be a useful vehicle for promoting national dialogue on ways to improve the overall “health” of the country. The work of United Nations agencies in-country has been recognized as useful by the authorities, and every effort needs to be made to continue to find areas of mutual interest where progress can be made, including in the areas of health, education and drug reduction. While the humanitarian and political actions need to remain coordinated, it is essential not to let humanitarian actions become hostage to political conditions, and vice versa. Within the humanitarian sphere, the objective is to increase humanitarian access, while at the same time enhancing the understanding of humanitarian principles. This will require not less but more engagement from the humanitarian community. The Secretary-General believes that any serious steps on the political front should be acknowledged by the international community through the provision of incentives in the socio-economic area.

29. Ultimately, the responsibility for the future of Myanmar rests with the Government and people of Myanmar. The world, however, is watching closely to see how that responsibility will be exercised in the interest of all the people of Myanmar. No country today can afford to act in isolation from the standards by
which all members of the international community are held, and what happens inside Myanmar can have serious international repercussions. A return to the status quo that existed prior to the crisis would therefore be unacceptable and unsustainable. The world needs a peaceful and prosperous Myanmar that can contribute to the development of the region and play a useful role in the international community. The Secretary-General is thus committed to making every effort, including through the intensification of his good offices, so that the United Nations can continue to work in partnership with Myanmar and support its efforts towards national reconciliation, the transition to democracy and full respect for human rights as the necessary foundations for long-term stability and prosperity. 30. Any sustained engagement by the United Nations will require the active support of the international community, including especially the countries in the region. The Secretary-General therefore welcomes the constructive role played by Myanmar’s neighbours and by the members of ASEAN, and encourages such efforts to continue. The Secretary-General also welcomes the adoption of resolution S-5/1 on the situation of human rights in Myanmar by the Human Rights Council and of the Presidential statement by the Security Council on 11 October in support of his good offices mandate. The more united the international community is, the better the prospects for arriving at the shared goals of peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of Myanmar.

Read More...

29 October, 2007

The Formation of International Burmese Monks Organization

Burmese Buddhist leaders declare leadership-in-exile


Overseas Buddhist monks are very concerned about the future of their religion in Burma

Two senior Burmese monks have announced they are setting up a new Buddhist leadership overseas to defend their religion from the military government.They argued that the killing and detention of monks by the security forces meant it was no longer safe for Buddhist monks to conduct their religious affairs in Burma itself.

They said their decision was in response to appeals from inside Burma.One of the leaders of the new Supreme Sangha Body is the Los Angeles-based monk U Kawida, who led a boycott of military leaders in 1990 following the suppression of pro-democracy protests at that time.The other is U Pannawamsa, who founded monasteries in Malaysia and Singapore.

Read More...

Press release of artists and journalists on movements of Burmese monks abroad

ျပည္ပရွိ သာသနာျပဳဆရာေတာ္မ်ား၏ လႈပ္ရွားမႈ ႏွင့္ပတ္သက္ျပီး
ျပည္ပေရာက္ သက္ၾကီး၀ါၾကီး စာေရးဆရာ၊ သတင္းစာဆရာ၊ အႏုပညာရွင္မ်ား ႏွင့္
သပိတ္ေမွာက္ လူငယ္ စာနယ္ဇင္း သမား၊ အႏုပညာရွင္မ်ား၏ သေဘာထားေၾကညာခ်က္
၃ / ၂၀၀၇
ေန႔စြဲ - ေအာက္တိုဘာ ၂၈၊ ၂၀၀၇


ယခုခ်ိန္တြင္ အေမရိကန္ျပည္သုိ႔ေရာက္ရွိေနၾကသည့္ သက္ၾကီး၀ါၾကီး ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးမ်ားျဖစ္ၾကသည့္ မစိုးရိမ္ ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီး ႏွင့္ ပီနန္ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီး တို႔ကဦးေဆာင္ျပီး ႏိုင္ငံတကာမွ ၾကြေရာက္လာေသာ သာသနာျပဳ ဆရာေတာ္မ်ားႏွင့္အတူ ျမန္မာျပည္ သာသနာ ဆက္လက္ထြန္းကားေရးအတြက္ ေတြ႔ဆုံေဆြးေႏြးလ်က္ ရွိ္ၾကပါ သည္။
ေမတၱာသုတ္ရြတ္ဖတ္ျပီး ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းစြာ ခ်ီတက္ဆႏၵျပၾကသည့္ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ား၊ ျပည္သူမ်ားကို စစ္အစိုးရသည္ ေသနတ္ျဖင့္ ပစ္ခတ္ျခင္း၊ ဘုန္းၾကီးေက်ာင္းမ်ားအတြင္း ၀င္ေရာက္စီးနင္းျပီး သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားကို ဖမ္းဆီးရုံ သာမက သံဃာပိုင္၀တၳဳေငြမ်ား၊ သံဃိကပစၥည္းမ်ားကို ခိုးယူျခင္း၊ ဖ်က္ဆီးျခင္း၊ သံဃာ့ဂုဏ္ေတာ္မ်ား ညိွဳးႏြမ္း ေအာင္ လုပ္ၾကံျခင္း၊ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားကို ဖမ္းဆီး ေထာင္ခ် ႏွိပ္စက္ျခင္း၊ အဓမၼ သကၤန္းခၽြတ္ျခင္း စသည့္ သာသနာဖ်က္လုပ္ရပ္မ်ားကို က်ဴးလြန္္သည္မွာ ထင္ရွားသျဖင့္၊ စစ္အာဏာရွင္မ်ားအား သာသနာဖ်က္၊ ဓမၼာႏၱရာယ္၊ မိစၦာဒိ႒ိမ်ား အျဖစ္ ျပည္ပေရာက္ မစိုးရိမ္ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးႏွင့္ သပိတ္ေမွာက္ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားက သတ္မွတ္လိုက္ျပီ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

စစ္ရာဇ၀တ္ေကာင္၊ မိစၦာဒိ႒ိ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္အၾကမ္းဖက္သမားမ်ား အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေနသမွ် ဗုဒၶ သာသနာ အထြန္းကားဆုံး ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္အျဖစ္ လုံး၀ျပန္ျဖစ္ႏိုင္ေတာ့မည္ မဟုတ္ဟုလည္း ယုံၾကည္ေတာ္မူၾကသည္္။

ထို႔အျပင္ သာသနာျပဳ ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးမ်ားက ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေသာနည္းႏွင့္ စစ္မွန္သည့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီအသြင္ေျပာင္းေရး၊ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားကို အတုအေယာင္မ်ားအျဖစ္ စြပ္စြဲဖမ္းဆီး ရိုက္ႏွက္ေထာင္ခ်ေနသည္တို႔ အျမန္ရပ္စဲေရး၊ အတိဒုကၡေရာက္ေနၾကသည့္ သံဃာေတာ္မ်ားကို ကူညီေစာင့္ေရွာက္ အားေပးေရး စသည့္ ရည္ရြယ္ ခ်က္မ်ား ျဖင့္၊ ျပည္ပေရာက္ သံဃာ့အဖြဲ႔အစည္းၾကီးတရပ္ ဖြဲ႔စည္း ေဆာင္ရြက္ရန္ စည္းေ၀းခဲ့ၾကျပီး၊ အသံမစဲ ပ႒ာန္း ရြတ္ဆိုျခင္း၊ ပရိတ္ရြတ္ ဆုေတာင္း အမွ်ေ၀ျခင္းတို႔ကို တညီတညြတ္တည္း ေဆာင္ရြက္ေတာ္မူလ်က္ ရွိပါသည္။

ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ ျပည္ပေရာက္ သာသနာျပဳ ဆရာေတာ္ၾကီးမ်ား၏ ေဆာင္ရြက္မႈကိစၥ အ၀၀ကို စာေရးဆရာမ်ားႏွင့္ အႏုပညာရွင္မ်ားက အျပည့္အ၀ လိႈက္လွဲစြာ ၾကိဳဆိုေထာက္ခံေၾကာင္း၊ ကိုယ္၊ႏႈတ္၊ ႏွလုံး သုံးပါးလုံးျဖင့္ ၀ိုင္း၀န္း ျပီး ဆရာေတာ္မ်ား ဦးေဆာင္သည့္အတိုင္း လိုက္နာေဆာင္ရြက္ၾကမည္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ကတိေပး ေၾကညာလိုက္ ပါသည္။

ေလးစားစြာျဖင့္

ေၾကးမုံဦးေသာင္း (ေအာင္ဗလ)

ေမာင္စြမ္းရည္

၀င္းေဖ (ေဇာ္၀ိတ္၊ ေမာင္ညိဳ)

မာမာေအး

ႏွင့္ ျပည္ပေရာက္ သပိတ္ေမွာက္ လူငယ္ စာနယ္ဇင္းသမား၊ အႏုပညာရွင္မ်ား

(လက္မွတ္ထိုး စာရင္းသြင္းသူ စာနယ္ဇင္းသမားမ်ားကို သည္ေနရာမွာ သြားၾကည့္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။)

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?stopspdc

Read More...

APPPB Update

Source: APPPB
I. People’s Defiance:

Although small scale, a prayer session was scheduled to be held at a location in Rangoon tonight to commemorate the brutal crackdown on the monk-led peaceful protests on September 26 and to honor the heroic monks and civilians. This sends us a strong message of how people in Burma are still trying hard to continue with their struggle for freedom and justice.

Recently a number of citizens have come forward and started to talk to the media (VOA, BBC, DVB, RFA) about their dissent over the regime-organized mass rallies that have been held in a number of places in Mon State, Kachin State, Rangoon Division, and Irrawaddy Division.

Meanwhile, monks are unsure whether the junta would allow them to sit for the annual examination in the wake of the protests against the military regime, as if the exams are allowed there will be a huge drop in the number of monks appearing for it, an abbot in a monastery told IMNA news yesterday. Some monks are anxious and uncertain about what to do while others believe they should not sit for the exams, which usually take place in November-December after the Buddhist lent.

II. SPDC’s Response:

1) Meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi: While the regime has already agreed the visit of both the UN Special Envoy and HR Special Rapporteur to Burma in very near future, they also started meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Yesterday afternoon on October 25, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was brought to the junta’s guest house and met for about one hour with the newly appointed liaison minister Aung Kyi, a retired major general.

2) Releasing Detainees: Over the past few days the junta released about 70 people from detention while continuing manhunt searching for those in hiding. Some women who were just released from detention spoke to the media on the torture and ail treatment in the prisons, bad health condition of some women in detention and how they were interrogated. Khin Mar Lar, who was detained for nearly one month in Mandalay, told Irrawaddy that before her release, she was forced to sign a paper saying if she was involved in another demonstration she would be imprisoned and fined 500,000 kyat (US $377), and authorities would confiscate her household possessions.

3) Forced Recruitment of Child Soldiers: There has been active forced recruitment of child soldiers by the Burma army in many areas in Shan State, reported by Shan Herald Agency of News. About 100 boys aged between 14 and 20 were ordered to gather in a local town’s football field in central Shan State on October 17. Those recruited children belong to ethnic minority groups and many parents ask their sons to run away in order to avoid the recruitment. A local reported to SHAN that if anyone whose names were already on the list did not show up for the army would be fined 500,000 Kyat (five hundred thousand).

4) Dismissing UN Report: The SPDC Ambassador to the UN, U Thaung Tun, dismissed a UN report on the human rights situation in Burma, including the detention of political prisoners, sexual violence and recruitment of child soldiers during the General Assembly in New York on Oct 24, saying it was not objective and reproduced the “unfounded” allegations of insurgent and expatriate groups which were “outrageous” allegations. He then claimed normalcy has been restored in Burma. Conceding that Burma had become an emotive issue in recent months, he said: “The international community must be able to rise above the fray and discern the situation. It must see the large perspective and not miss the forest for the trees,” and repeated charges that western embassies had colluded with the opposition in disseminating “malicious news.”
5) Lies during the UNSCR 1325 Open Debate: On Oct 23 during the Security Council Open Debate on Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the SPDC delegation said the junta makes national effort to promote gender equality and promotes policies to ensure that the needs and priorities of women and girls are addressed by working hand in hand with Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation and the Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association, etc.

6) Changes in SPDC: Acting Prime Minister Lt-Gen Thein Sein was appointed premier on Oct 24 by Burma's ruling generals, following the death of Premier Gen Soe Win, who died on October 12, The New Light of Myanmar reported. Thein Sein is known as a loyal supporter of Snr-Gen Than Shwe. Lt-Gen Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo was promoted to secretary-1, and Aung Kyi was promoted to minister for labor and liaison minister to talk with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Other reshuffles: Maj-Gen Thein Htay - minister of defense; Maj-Gen Kyaw Swa - minister of industry- 2; and Maj-Gen Thein Tun – minister of communication, postal and telegraphs.

III. International Responses:
A. UN and Governments:

1) UN: The Special Envoy, after Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India, wrapped up his consultations in China yesterday (Oct 25), as he continues his six-nation tour of regional capitals ahead of a planned return to Burma in early November. Mr. Gambari is now in Tokyo where he is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura. His upcoming trip to Burma is set to be followed by a visit from the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on human rights Prof. Pinheiro, before the middle of next month.

Mr. Pinheiro said on October 24 that he would use the visit to try to inquire the situation of abuses during the recent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, determine the numbers and whereabouts of those detained or killed, and collect testimony about what happened. He also said that unless the Burmese junta cooperates fully with him when he visits in November he will immediately leave the country.

2) Effectiveness of Targeted Sanctions: We’ve begun to see the effectiveness of the targeted sanctions against this brutal and its associates. The US imposed additional sanctions against the Burmese military regime on October 19, including freezing the bank accounts of an additional 25 military officials and 12 businessmen or business entities closely associated with the military regime. And this includes 3 companies in Singapore run by Burmese tycoon Tay Za, a close associate of SPDC’s No.1 Gen. Than Shwe, including Air Bagan. On Oct 24, Air Bagan Ltd. announced it will suspend flights to Singapore, as of November 4, citing the effects of economic sanctions. “Sanctions have been imposed on our airline and also our parent company in Singapore. This has indeed caused us a lot of pain and anguish, as with these sanctions we now have no access to aircraft spare parts," said the letter to the partners signed by the airline's sales and marketing manager. Burmese nationals in Singapore were launching a boycott campaign against Air Bagan since the junta began arresting and using violent attacks against the activists in August protests.

3) India, China and Russia Oppose Sanctions: India said at a joint press conference in China on October 24 after the end of the third standalone meeting of Foreign Ministers of India, China and Russia held in China that it opposed imposing sanctions on Burma and called for encouraging all stakeholders to advance political reforms and national reconciliation. India was jointly supported by China and Russia.

4) China: In his meeting with the UN Special Envoy Mr. Gambari yesterday on October 25, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister said China will play a "constructive role'' in trying to end the unrest in Burma and continue to support the UN in its efforts to find "a peaceful resolution.”

5) Singapore: Foreign Minister George Yeo is visiting China and Japan from October 25 to 27 for informal on Burma’s crisis to exchange views with his counterparts on how regional countries how to support a genuine process of peaceful reconciliation in Burma and support the UN Special Envoy in his mission as mediator. Singapore said Burma will be an important item on the agenda during the East Asia Summit on November 21 in Singapore. Singapore currently chairs the Asean and 40th Asean Summit will be held in Singapore in November before the East Asia Summit.

6) Canada: Parliamentary Friends of Burma (PFOB) held a press conference on Burma yesterday on its 10-point action plan which will be passed on to the Foreign Minister for multilateral action by the International Community. Ten points include: 1) Evaluate the effectiveness of existing Canadian measures against Burmese regime; 2) Arms embargo against Burma (by all countries, particularly China, India, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine and Singapore); 3) Targeted economic sanctions of items that would damage the Military Junta in Burma, without hurting the common people; 4) Targeted investment sanctions of items that would damage the Military Junta in Burma including a ban on Canadian investment in Burma. PFOC was created in December of 2006 and consists of 34 Senators from all parties of the Canadian Parliament.

B. Solidarity Actions:

1) Australia-Pacific (Oct 27): Interfaith Day of Prayer for Burma has been organized in Melbourne tomorrow at 3 pm at Treasury Garden, Spring Street (near Parliament Bldg). This has been initiated by a member of the Asia-Pacific GPPAC (Global Partnership for Prevention of Armed Conflict), Initiatives of Change (IofC) Australia-Pacific, in partnership with the Victorian Council of Churches, Australia Burma Network, Ethnic Nationalities organization, World Conference of Religions for Peace, Interfaith Centre of Melbourne, Faith Communities Forum, Medical Association for Prevention of War for Burma

2) Philippines (Oct 26): To commemorate the crackdown on peaceful demonstration of monks happened in Burma a month ago, women workers from Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL-Women) under the Free Burma Coalition-Philippines held a protest action called “PANTY POWER” in Manila today by throwing panties in front of the SPDC Embassy. Disgusted with the failure of all diplomatic means in dealing with the generals in Burma, women workers now resorted to a kind of protest that for them, will surely insult the generals in Rangoon -- throwing panties in front of the SPDC Embassy, said the FBCP.

3) Thailand (Oct 25): Activists in Thailand urged PTT, the country's largest state-owned energy provider, to reconsider its business dealings in Burma which help to support the military regime. Peace for Burma Coalitions, a grouping of civil organizations in Thailand and Burma, submitted a letter to representatives of PTT Co. Ltd., Thailand’s biggest energy producer to revise its investment in Burma. The letter asked PTT to stop negotiations with the regime and to look for gas sources elsewhere. PTT has signed an exploratory agreement with the generals to look for gas in the M9 Block in the Gulf of Mataban.

4) “Panties for Peace” Campaign: Last October 19, Burma Embassies in the UK, Thailand, Australia and Singapore were targeted by the "Panties for Peace" campaign. One group already sent 140 pairs to the Burmese embassy in Geneva.

5) India: Burma Campaign India (BCI) has been holding at Janta Manta (India's Government permitted area) a sit-in strike everyday since 9th September for "Free Burma, Free Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners of Burma”.

6) Finland: Burma/Surma photo-video exhibition opened on October 23 in Helsinki. Surma means murder in Finnish. The exhibit will be closed on 4th November with the performance by London-based Burmese artist and a former political prisoner Htein Lin.

7) Malaysia (Oct 23): About 50 Burmese from All Burma Democratic Force held a demonstration outside the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday to demand that Singapore break its business ties with Burma under the watchful eyes of Malaysian police.

Read More...

SPDC uses prostitutes in forced public rallies

ျပည့္တန္ဆာအမ်ဳိးသမီးမ်ားအားေခၚ၍ နအဖ ေထာက္ခံပဲြျပဳလုပ္


ယေန႔မနက္ ၅ နာရီ ခြဲေလာက္က ၿမိဳ႔ထဲမွာ လူေတြစုေနၾကၿပီး မနက္ ၇ နာရီ (ယခု) အေနာ္ရထာလမ္းမေပၚမွာ နအဖ ေထာက္ခံတဲ့ ဆႏၵျပပဲြျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့တယ္လို႔ သိရွိရပါတယ္။ ထိုဆႏၵျပပဲြကို ေတြ႔ျမင္သူတဦးက "မိန္းခေလးေတြခ်ည္းပဲ အေယာက္ ၅၀ ေလာက္ ရိွတယ္။ ျပည့္တန္ဆာမေတြလို႔ သိတဲ႔သူတစ္ေယာက္က ေျပာျပတယ္။ ၅နာရီ ၅၅ မိနစ္ေလာက္မွာ သူတို႔စထြက္သြားတယ္။ ထံုးစံအတိုင္း ျပည္ေထာင္စုမၿပိဳကြဲေရး၊ တိုင္းရင္းသားစည္းလံုးညီညြတ္ေရး၊ အခ်ဳပ္အခ်ာအာဏာတည္တံ႔ခိုင္ၿမဲေရး၊ မူ၀ါဒလမ္းစဥ္ ၇ ရက္ ေအာင္ရမည္ဆိုၿပီး ေအာ္ေနၾကပါတယ္။ ၅ ေယာက္ တစ္တန္း လမ္းေလွ်ာက္ၿပီး။

မိခင္ နဲ႔ ကေလး၀တ္စံု တစ္ဖြဲ႔။ ေက်ာင္းစိမ္း၀တ္စံုနဲ႔ ေက်ာင္းသူေက်ာင္းသားေလးေတြလည္းပါပါတယ္။ အထူးသျဖင္႔မိန္းမေတြ ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားပါတယ္။ ရပ္ကြက္က ျပည္သူ႔ခ်ဥ္ဖတ္ စြမ္းအားရွင္ၾကံ႕ဖြတ္ေတြလည္းပါပါတယ္ town ace ကားတစ္စီးနဲ႔ ကင္မရာ ကိုင္ၿပီး ရိုက္ေနတုန္းမွာ ေကၽြးေၾကာ္သံကို က်ယ္ေလာင္စြာေအာ္ေနၾကပါတယ္။" မ်က္ျမင္တဦးမွ ေျပာဆိုသည္။

ထိုဆႏၵျပသူမ်ားကို ကားတစီးမွ ေလာ္နဲ႔တိုင္ေပးၿပီး ေနာက္ကေန ဒို႔အေရးေအာ္ခိုင္းေၾကာင္း၊ ဆိုင္းဘုတ္ မ်ားကိုလည္း ကိုင္ေဆာင္ထားၿပီး ေက်ာင္း၀တ္စံုနဲ႔ ရိုးရိုးအ၀တ္အစား၀တ္ ကေလးမ်ားလည္း ပါ၀င္ေၾကာင္းသိရွိရသည္။

Read More...

Daw Suu’s Newest Looks Gloomy and Harmful



Daw Suu Appeared very stressed and sad

In the photos coming out of Burma, of the talk between Junta liaison and Daw Suu, she appeared very stressed, and even looked sad. It seemed that she was put under immense pressure to surrender to junta demands.

Junta summoned Daw Suu for Talks for about an hour.

Junta TVs in Burma reported that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was taken to government guest house to talk with the Minister for Relations (the Liaison Minister, U Aung Kyi).

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was taken to Government Guest House, at around 2:00pm, for talks for a few minutes with Liaison Minister U Aung Kyi (a retired Major Gen., a close confidante of Sen. Gen Than Shwe, also the Minister of Labour, and chief negotiator with ILO on forced labour issues) who is acting as liaison between Junta and Daw Suu, and UN. It was believed to be to ask her again to compromise and give in to junta’s demands, such as not opposing them any longer, and to disregard 1990 election results, and to call to international community on their behalf to stop sanctions. Daw Suu completed 12 years of her detention under house arrest on 24th Oct, 2007.

Source: Burmadigest

Read More...

28 October, 2007

Zoya Phan at the Conservative Party Conference 2007

Read More...

27 October, 2007

The Best Choice Cartoon No. 02 - Oct 2007

Step in dear - this won't take long

Source: Irrawaddy

Read More...

Te Za's Son's Letter

Source: Ms. Chan
Te Za's son, naughty kid's, 19-year-old, letter

Friends,

US bans us? lol We're still fucking cool in singapore. See my photos? We're sitting on the whole burmese GDP. We've got timber, gems, gas to be sold out other countries like singapore, china, india and russia. Last month, people took out to the streets for protest against little fuel price hike, you know what, that's silly stuff to me. I used to fly back once a week, and my bro is rocking on his red brand new Lamborghini Gallardo with hot sexy western chicks. Come on, fly with Bagan. It's cheaper than others, right? 1S$ makes a lot differences in burmese currency. And I need another Ferrari to rock on :P

best wishes,

Htet Tayza


Read More...