Suu Kyi and others unlikely to attend Myanmar parliament next week

[postlink] https://burmacampaignjapanteam.blogspot.com/2012/04/suu-kyi-and-others-unlikely-to-attend.html [/postlink] April 20, 2012 -- Updated 1114 GMT (1914 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Suu Kyi's party has requested that the wording of lawmakers' oath be altered
• The authorities have not responded to the demand directly
• Suu Kyi and others probably won't attend parliament next week, a party official says
• The party won dozens of seats in by-elections earlier this month

Aung San Suu Kyi's party has asked that the wording of an oath that lawmakers have to take be altered.

(CNN) -- The Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her party are unlikely to attend the first session of parliament since their election amid a dispute over the wording of the oath that lawmakers have to take, a party spokesman said Friday.

Suu Kyi and 42 other candidates from her party, the National League for Democracy, won seats in by-elections on April 1, a result welcomed by countries like the United States and Britain as a sign of progress toward democracy in Myanmar after decades of repressive military rule.

Following the elections, Suu Kyi and other newly elected opposition members were invited to attend the session of parliament next week in the capital of Naypidaw.

But they have requested that the wording of an oath that lawmakers have to take be changed. The NLD asked the authorities to adjust the wording of the oath to say that parliamentarians will "abide by the law" rather than "protect the constitution."

In a letter to the NLD, the government didn't respond directly to the request, it said only that the parliament session next week would be a continuing session, so there would be no oath taking ceremony, said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the NLD.

That response failed to satisfy opposition officials and there is now a 90% chance that Suu Kyi and the other newly elected NLD members will not go to parliament on Monday, Nyan Win said.

The tension over the oath is the first sign of contention between the opposition and the reformist government of President Thein Sein. The situation is complicated by Thein Sein's being out of the country at the moment: he is visiting Japan until early next week.

Myanmar's authoritarian military rulers have begun loosening their grip on power after decades in which dissent was stifled and freedoms severely limited.

In the past 12 months, the government has pardoned hundreds of political prisoners, secured a cease-fire with Karen rebels and agreed to negotiate with other ethnic rebel groups.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described this month's by-elections as "an important step in Burma's democratic transformation."

Western governments have applauded the elections and the other recent reforms by the government of President Thein Sein. The U.S. and Australian governments eased some sanctions on Myanmar this week.

Clinton visited Myanmar in December, a historic trip marking the first time a secretary of state had been to the country in more than 50 years.

While control of parliament will not change despite the opposition's strong performance in the by-elections, the result nonetheless gives the National League for Democracy a notable presence.

Myanmar's legislature has 664 seats, more than 80% of which are still held by lawmakers aligned with the military-backed ruling party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Suu Kyi led her party to a landslide victory the previous time Myanmar held multiparty elections, in 1990. But the junta ignored the results and kept her under house arrest.

Released in November 2010, Suu Kyi was allowed to crisscross the country to rally support for her party in the elections.

This week, it was announced that she would make her first overseas trip since her detention.

Suu Kyi will travel to Norway in June to deliver the speech she was unable to give when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

CNN's Jethro Mullen contributed to this report.

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Burma leader Thein Sein in Japan to talk investment

[postlink] https://burmacampaignjapanteam.blogspot.com/2012/04/burma-leader-thein-sein-in-japan-to.html [/postlink] 20 April 2012 Last updated at 13:41 GMT

 

President Thein Sein became Burma's leader after elections in November 2010

Burmese President Thein Sein is in Japan for a five-day visit expected to focus on financial aid and debt relief.

His visit, the first to Japan by a Burmese leader in 28 years, comes as EU nations prepare to ease sanctions. Japan may also resume loans to Burma.

Mr Sein has introduced reforms since coming to power in November 2010, ending decades of military rule.

Opposition MPs are to take their seats in parliament on Monday, but a row over the oath they swear could delay this.

Earlier this month, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won 43 out of the 45 seats it contested in by-elections, with Ms Suu Kyi herself winning a seat.

But it now says it may boycott parliament because of the wording of the oath.

The military-backed nominally civilian government has freed political prisoners and made concessions that have brought the NLD back into the political process.
'Bold leap'
During his visit, Thein Sein will hold talks with Japanese leader Yoshihiko Noda. Officials say they will discuss a solution to Burma's debt to Japan, its biggest creditor.

This, reports the BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo, would open the way for Japan to resume financing much-needed infrastructure. Japanese companies are also keen to invest in Burma, which is rich in resources.

On Thursday diplomats in Brussels told the BBC they expected a "big chunk" of current EU sanctions against Burma to be suspended when foreign ministers met in Luxemburg on Monday.

According to the sources, the travel ban and asset freeze for many government officials would end. Only the arms embargo would stay in place, they said.

Aid and development money would be allowed into the country, as would investment into key parts of the economy.

The US and Australia have already eased some sanctions on Burma following the political reforms. On Thursday US Senator Jim Webb said the US should go further to reward Thein Sein's "bold leap" on reform.

"In all of these situations there's a moment in time you have to take advantage of," the senator told the Associated Press news agency. "We should have some protections in there, but we should move forward on trade."

Parliament is due to reconvene in Burma on Monday. Despite the recent poll victory of Ms Suu Kyi's party, it remains heavily dominated by the military-backed ruling party. A quarter of the seats are also reserved for the military.

The row over the oath threatens to overshadow moves on sanctions.

The NLD wants one word in the parliamentary oath changed. Rather than promising to "safeguard" the constitution, the NLD prefers simply to "respect" it.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok says it is a fundamental point of principle - the party has long maintained that the constitution, drawn up by the old military government, is undemocratic and should be changed.

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Burma's NLD May Boycott Parliament over Oath of Office Dispute

[postlink] https://burmacampaignjapanteam.blogspot.com/2012/04/burma-nld-may-boycott-parliament-over.html [/postlink] Posted Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 6:30 am

The opposition party of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi says it may boycott parliament over a dispute regarding the constitutional oath of office, just weeks after winning a landslide victory in the country's by-elections.
Officials with the National League for Democracy say its newly elected members are unlikely to attend the opening session of parliament on Monday.
The announcement comes after the Burmese government reportedly rejected the NLD's request to change the phrasing of the oath of office from “safeguarding” the country's constitution to “respecting” it.
The Nobel laureate, who won her first ever seat in parliament during the April 1 polls, has long promised to amend the 2008 constitution, which was drawn up by Burma's former military leaders.
Party officials say the issue is unlikely to be resolved in time for Monday's swearing-in ceremony, during which members were set to formally become the main opposition force in a parliament that is dominated by military-backed parties.
The NLD boycotted the 2010 elections that ended decades of military rule in Burma.
Since taking office a year ago, President Thein Sein has enacted a series of democratic reforms, including greater press freedom and the release of many political prisoners.
President Thein Sein travelled Friday to Japan, becoming the first Burmese head of state to visit the country in nearly three decades.

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Still in the grip of Burma's tyrants

[postlink] https://burmacampaignjapanteam.blogspot.com/2012/04/still-in-grip-of-burma-tyrants.html [/postlink]

Burma's reforms and by-elections have moved attention away from the country's political prisoners

Rangoon,Thursday 05 April 2012

They say they are the forgotten people, that while the world has moved on, beguiled by Burma's flurry of reforms and its by-elections, their own pain endures, unnoticed. The son of U Thaung Sein and Daw San Myint was jailed 14 years ago for his role in Burma's long-suppressed democracy movement. They had hoped he may have been released with other political prisoners in an amnesty last year, or a more recent one in January. But he remains behind bars.

"Nobody has told us why he has not been released," said the father, a storekeeper who lives in the east of Rangoon, as he served glasses of lemonade in the front-room of his cement-floored home. "We have been told nothing."
The couple are not alone. Activists estimate that while the Burmese authorities claim to have set free all political prisoners, anywhere between 300 to 800 individuals remain in jail. They say that after Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest 18 months ago and the remaining high-profile prisoners such as Min Ko Naing and Ashin Gambira released earlier this year, securing attention for their plight has been increasingly difficult.
"The main political prisoners have been released so the rest of the world has forgotten," added Thaung Sein, as his wife wiped her eyes. Their son, Ko Aye Aung, was arrested in 1998 aged 22. Convicted along with dozens of others of various crimes related to his democracy activities, he was sentenced to a total of 59 years and dispatched to Kalay prison in north-west Burma.
The tortuous journey to the jail from their Rangoon home, where a 1995 photograph of their son receiving an essay prize from Ms Suu Kyi hangs on the wall, involves taxis, buses and vans and takes two days. For many years, his parents, both aged 66, could only afford to visit twice a year for a 20-minute meeting. With assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross, they now make the journey every two months. On March 16, Ko Aye Aung's mother was, for the first time in 14 years, permitted to hug her son.
"On January 13 this year, there was an early amnesty. I was hoping that on that day he would be released. The reality is that he is now the only political prisoner in that jail," she said. "We are trying not to despair. It's very difficult for us. We try to control ourselves not to cry when we see the walls of that prison. We are the parents of the only political prisoner left inside."
When he was not released, some of their neighbours accepted the government's claim that he must have been a "common criminal". They had to try and persuade them otherwise.
Among those arrested with their son was Sam Zaw Htwe, who served a 12-year sentence before being released from Taunggyi prison in the amnesty this January. He remained in contact with Ko Aye Aung by letter while both were in jail. Now he feels awkward talking about his own release while his friend remains behind bars. "It depends how many connections you have. For the political prisoners, if they have international media [attention] they are treated better," he said. "But if the prisoner has no connection with the outside world, then they are forgotten."
The family of U Myint Aye is also trying not to give up hope. The long-term political activist, now aged 61, has been arrested on eight occasions, most recently in 2008 in the aftermath of the devastating Cyclone Nargis when he tried to organise sorely-need health care for women and children. He was accused of involvement in a bomb plot, a claim his family reject. His wife, Daw Hle Hle Win, said they too had hoped he would be among those released on 13 January, but he was not. "We are hoping that he will be released in the near future," she said.
There is no agreed figure as to how many political prisoners remain in jail. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners puts the figure at more than 800 while other lists suggest the figure is closer to 300.
U Win Tin, a member of Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party and a former political prisoner himself who served more than 19 years in jail, said: "There are still a lot of political prisoners. The government said it had released them all. But this is not true."
One Western diplomat in Rangoon said embassies kept their own rough estimates based on a compilation of those produced by various organisations. He said Western countries had repeatedly stressed the need for political prisoners to be released before economic sanctions could be lifted.
Khin Zaw, a former political prisoner who heads a prisoner support organisation, said it estimates that between 345 and 619 people remain behind bars. "We have talked to a lot of people who have been released, but some people are too frightened to talk," he said.
Even the government's comments about political prisoners have been confusing. While some officials have insisted there are no more such prisoners, the day after the January amnesty, the Home Minister, Lieutenant General Ko Ko, said 128 prisoners previously identified as "political" were not being released because they "could have been involved in strictly criminal cases such as terrorist bombings". The Western diplomat said there was concern that a number of these cases were not genuine.
The family of Phyo Wai Aung, an engineer with two young children, also believes the world has moved on. Most recently, attention has been on by-elections on Sunday that swept Ms Suu Kyi into parliament for the first time.
Though not a political prisoner in the strictest sense, groups are supporting Phyo Wai Aung because they see his detention and charge over a bombing incident in April 2010 that killed 10 people as evidence of the judiciary's corruption. His brother, Dr Hhet Wai Aung, said the authorities have produced no evidence against him but tortured him to obtain a confession and labelled him a terrorist. The case has been raised by the UN human rights rapporteur.
"They took him to a secret interrogation centre and beat a confession from him," said his brother. For 18 months, proceedings against the prisoner were held in a closed courtroom inside Rangoon's notorious Insein jail. The case is continuing. Activists say that although Phyo Wai Aung was not a political activist himself he had connections with exile groups and had formerly worked with some campaigners.
"For one and half years the family was not allowed to see him," added his brother. "All the human rights violations are happening because of an unfair judicial system." The prisoner's wife, Mahtay Htay, said they had initially not told the children about what was happening. But their daughter is now aged eight and asks about her father. "Now we tell them their father has been arrested by the bad police," she says.

BRIAN REX

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Azerbaijani journalist hospitalised in attack

[postlink] https://burmacampaignjapanteam.blogspot.com/2012/04/azerbaijani-journalist-hospitalised-in.html [/postlink] Published on 19/04/2012

Idrak Abbasov in hospital following the attack. Image grab from YouTube.

Security personnel from Azerbaijan's state energy company on April 18 attacked an award-winning investigative journalist, leaving him hospitalised and unable to speak, his family said.

Idrak Abbasov was beaten up while filming a confrontation that erupted while employees of state company SOCAR were demolishing houses in the village of Sulutapa on the outskirts of the capital Baku, his brother told AFP.

"When SOCAR security service people noticed that Idrak was filming, they assaulted him. They seized his camera, knocked him down and started beating him up," his brother Roman Abbasov said.

The journalist is now in hospital and unable to speak, said the brother, adding: "His condition is serious."

A photograph taken at the scene of the alleged attack showed the journalist lying apparently unconscious on the ground with blood on his face, wearing a fluorescent jacket identifying him as a reporter.

He writes for the Zerkalo newspaper and is one of the founding members of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety in the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic, which has often been accused of stifling media rights.

Abbasov has regularly reported on the demolition of houses that the authorities say were built illegally on land that SOCAR wants to use in his family's home village of Sulutapa.

Last month he was awarded an international prize for his reporting by campaign group Index on Censorship.

"In Azerbaijan, where I have come from, telling the truth can cost a journalist their life," he said after receiving the award.

Index on Censorship urged the Azerbaijani authorities to launch a proper investigation.

"Idrak Abbasov was awarded the Index on Censorship free expression award for his brave reporting and for standing up to state intimidation in Azerbaijan. This attack against him ... is truly horrific," the campaign group said in a statement.

Members of Abbasov's family were also injured last year when a group of unidentified black-clad men burst into their house in Sulutapa and partially demolished it with a bulldozer.

The Azerbaijani authorities have consistently rejected accusations that free speech is seriously limited by restrictive legislation, official censorship, punitive prosecutions and assaults on journalists.

The European security body OSCE slammed the attack as "shocking".

"Today's shocking incident is yet more evidence of the climate of violence in which members of the Azerbaijani media community have to perform their professional duties," Dunja Mijatovic, media freedom representative for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said in a statement.

"The authorities must identify and duly prosecute those responsible for this and other attacks on journalists."

Source: AFP

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EU to Suspend Most Burma Sanctions for a Year

[postlink] https://burmacampaignjapanteam.blogspot.com/2012/04/eu-to-suspend-most-burma-sanctions-for.html [/postlink] Posted Thursday, April 19th, 2012 at 8:25 am

The European Union has reached a preliminary decision to lift most sanctions against Burma for one year in response to the country's recent democratic reforms.
Several EU diplomats said Thursday almost all sanctions against Burma are expected to be suspended, with the exception of an arms embargo.
The move is expected to be approved on Monday during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
Officials say the 12-month suspension is meant to encourage additional reforms by Burma's nominally civilian government, which took power last year after decades of military rule.
Elsewhere, a leading Japanese newspaper says Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is set to waive Burma's $3.7 billion debt and resume suspended assistance to the Southeast Asian nation.

The Asahi Shimbun says Mr. Noda is set to announce the two-phase waiver during a meeting later this week with Burmese President Thein Sein.
Thein Sein opens a four-day visit to Japan Friday. He will be the first Burmese head of state to visit the country in nearly three decades.
The Burmese leader's Tokyo visit is the latest in a flurry of international initiatives spawned by the new, nominally civilian government, which began crafting a series of democratic reforms after taking power last year. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton travels to Burma next week.
Ashton, speaking earlier this week said the EU is ready to enter an “active collaboration” with Burma to “assist the reform process and to contribute to economic, political and social development.”
Several Western nations, including the United States and Britain, have rewarded those reforms by lifting some of the many long-standing sanctions against Burma.
But many foreign governments are waiting to see if Burma will release additional political prisoners and end decades-long conflicts with rebel groups before they lift the remaining sanctions.

Tags: Burma, Sanctions, St, Upd
Posted in East Asia Pacific

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Exclusive: Suu Kyi to visit Norway, Britain after 24 yrs in Myanmar: party

[postlink] https://burmacampaignjapanteam.blogspot.com/2012/04/exclusive-suu-kyi-to-visit-norway.html [/postlink] YANGON | Wed Apr 18, 2012 7:31am EDT

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi smiles at supporters as she celebrates Thingyan, Myanmar's new year water festival, in front of her home in Yangon April 16, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun

(Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize laureate and newly elected lawmaker Aung San Suu Kyi will travel outside Myanmar for the first time in 24 years after accepting invitations to visit Norway and Britain in June, her party said on Wednesday.

Her travel caps months of dramatic change in Myanmar, including a historic by-election on April 1 that won her a seat in a year-old parliament that replaced nearly five decades of oppressive military rule.

Her trip will include a visit to the British city Oxford, where she attended university in the 1970s, said National League for Democracy (NLD) party spokesman Nyan Win.

"But I don't know the exact date yet," Nyan Win said, adding he did not know which country she would visit first. She has previously indicated that it would be Norway.

Suu Kyi, 66, was first detained in 1989, and spent 15 of the next 21 years in detention until her release from house arrest in November 2010. She refused to leave the country during the brief periods when she was not held by authorities, for fear of not being allowed to return.

She won one of her party's 43 seats in this month's by-election following a series of reforms under President Thein Sein, a former general, including the release of political prisoners, more media freedom, dialogue with ethnic militias and an exchange rate unification seen crucial to fixing the economy.

By Aung Hla Tun

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