International Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma

FBR: FBR: Mae La Bible School Burns to the Ground

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:13:02 PDT

FBR REPORT: Mae La Bible School Burns to the Ground

Karen State, Burma

20 May, 2012

Clouds hover over the wreckage that once was Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible College - a theological school in Mae La Refugee Camp that has provided education for thousands of refugees from Burma, and inspiration for many more people around the world. A steady rain bounces off the piles of ash that only days ago were hundreds of textbooks and photos of smiling students on their graduation day. Charred posts now tower over a snarl of steel and tin that once served as a shelter for students, staff and guests since the school's opening in June of 1990.

Remains of the ground level of the Bible school

Bible school students sing at graduation

During the afternoon heat on April 28, 2012, a fire started in the school's kitchen, with the flames quickly consuming the entire structure and several of the closest buildings. Two different fire trucks eventually came to help fight the fire, but not in time to save the school. Though the school could not be saved, the fire was contained and did not spread anywhere else in the camp. There were no injuries.

Rev. Simon, who serves as principal of the Bible college, was not present during the fire, but told us about his initial reaction to receiving the news that the school was aflame. "Immediately, I prayed to God that the fire would be contained, and not destroy any more buildings than the school. Later, when I arrived at Mae La, people told me that shortly after the fire started, the wind unexpectedly changed direction, blowing the flames away from most all of the homes surrounding the school."

Despite the loss of the 22 years of work contained in the school and his home, Rev. Simon remains positive. "We have lost everything. But, we have everything - because we still have God."

The remains of the school's library

Burned hymnbooks, Bibles and other books lie scattered in the ashes

Dr, Simon leading last gradutation before the fire

Fueled by faith, Rev. Simon continues to lead his teachers and students forward, with every intention of keeping the school going. With an extensive network of friends, churches and organizations supporting the school, and the presence of a good God, Dr. Simon is not concerned about whether he will be able to rebuild. His dilemma right now is to decide whether it is time to return the school to beloved Kawthoolei (Karen State), or keep the school at its present location in Mae La. Right now, he is, like so many other citizens of Burma, uncertain of whether the political changes taking place in the country are truly sustainable enough for people to safely dwell in Karen State. Despite ceasefires being signed with many different ethnic groups, many states, including Karen State, still experience attacks from the Burma Army.

Putting his knowledge of construction and electricity to good use, Rev. Simon and his students have already begun the rebuilding process for new living quarters. While we chatted with him under the shelter of his temporary home, nearby students sanded down a new wooden door, which was upright in its doorframe by the time our glasses of water were empty.

Building a new door

Thanks to help from many of you, we were able to support the Bible school with mosquito nets, tarps and financially as they consider their next steps. We prayed with them and ask you also to pray for them as they seek to discern God's plan for their future. We are grateful for our longstanding friendship with Rev. Simon and the Bible school. When we have returned from relief missions and come in through Mae La camp, the Bible school has always been a place of refuge for us. To sleep in a peaceful, clean place with the sound of people singing hymns all around made us feel like we were in heaven. I remember as I walked out of the school one night and looked up at the stars shining above the mountains and cliffs that surround the camp, I felt free and my mind at peace. I was at one of God's special places. Now the school has burned down and Rev. Simon is asking for prayer as to how and where to rebuild. Please join us as you feel led to pray for and help him in that.

May God bless you,

Dave Eubank and the Free Burma Rangers

KIds and Dogwood Cross perform at Mae La Bible School

The Free Burma Rangers’ (FBR) mission is to provide hope, help and love to internally displaced people inside Burma, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Using a network of indigenous field teams, FBR reports on human rights abuses, casualties and the humanitarian needs of people who are under the oppression of the Burma Army. FBR provides medical, spiritual and educational resources for IDP communities as they struggle to survive Burmese military attacks.

For more information, please visit www.freeburmarangers.org

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FBR: FBR: Reflections from a Relief Team Leader's Wife -- January 2012

Thu, 17 May 2012 17:12:32 PDT

FBR REPORT: Reflections from a Relief Team Leader's Wife -- January 2012

Karen State, Burma

9 May, 2012

Below is a series of reflections I wrote while on a Good Life Club school tour and relief mission in Karen State, Burma. While we traveled through changing physical landscapes we were constantly aware of the changing political landscape as well. The four months of this year's tour saw remarkable changes in potential for freedom for the people of Burma, and yet, as we walked through areas visibly oppressed by years of Burma Army presence, it was clear that 'potential' was a long way from reality. And so this year's mission was especially fraught, as hope widened the view to show us not only the potential for gain but also the potential for loss. I feel I have been given a gift of 'presence,' being able to be in these areas with many ethnic friends during this significant time in Burma's history. I also want to make a picture of what I saw and felt, for friends and family who pray and care deeply but who have not been able to walk the same trails.

There are six different reflections, titled according to what were my strongest impressions at the time. They are not organized as a chronological narrative, and some are different tellings of the same event. They are here arranged simply in the order in which I originally experienced and wrote them down.

FEAR

Our last GLC program was as close as we could get to villages in the plains region occupied byBurma Army camps, at a military outpost about two hours walk from the plains. Most of these villages are relocation sites and the people living there were forced to move there from their mountain homes. The group was atypical for a children's program as it was made up of a handful of adults due to the travel time and security issues. I've known that security was a serious issue for these villagers but I didn't appreciate the pervasive fear until our time together. I suppose new political developments and the fact that a small FBR team was able to make a second visit this year (albeit with heavy security) made me think that the oppression was gradually lifting, but I was struck to hear how fear and the lack of freedom still permeated so much of their lives.

When we asked about the possibility of bringing our GLC program to their areas they responded "No" quite seriously. "We would not survive the repercussions of your visit. We have no freedom to travel whenever or wherever we want, or to associate with whoever we want." In addition to 'normal' travel restrictions in their area, they have very recently been threatened with severe punishment if they are in any communication with the Karen National Union, the same government of the Karen people that the Thein Sein government has legitimized enough to invite to cease-fire negotiations. They had been told, "There is change now in Burma and you cannot communicate with the KNU."

Lastly, as our program ended mid-day and I asked if some would be traveling home that afternoon, I was told that all who came had to stay until after our group left the next morning. This was so that any evidence of our time together would be gone after they arrived home, and to prevent word from slipping out during our time together that might lead to an attack in response to our presence. Apparently the Burma Army was also afraid, and ready to react at the slightest provocation.

So much fear...everywhere...still.

Yet, church leaders who met with Dave asked him to pass along the message that, especially now, these village leaders would like to be more in contact with their KNU leadership and asked if he could help facilitate this despite the threats and risks. One story Dave told of their visit to the plains was of walking at night across miles of open rice fields, crossing a Burma Army controlled highway and arriving at the banks of the Sittang River in the plains, past the relocation sites and on the western edge of the Karen State. The boldness of the Karen to push through Burma Army controlled territory just to show us their river was one of the many ways we saw courage here. They haven't given up and their resolution seems immovable. But fear here can also be crippling, as the boldness to seize new things is crushed; the very immovableness that stands strong can also prevent moving forward. And so one opposite of fear isn't just standing up in the face of attack -- it is freedom to seize abundant life. It takes discernment to know when to move from standing strong to moving forward.

These are some of the fears of our brothers and sisters in the plains Karen villages. My fears are different -- for family, friends, work ... What is my response to fear? What can the FBR response be? What does God say? I was thankful for what I read in Psalm 73: "Nevertheless I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever...But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Your works." (Ps. 73:23-26, 28).

TRUST

These last two months have been a time of surprisingly quick change in Burma. For over 60 years, conflict between the central government and ethnic peoples has been constant and lack of trust runs deeply and almost permanently through their relationship. Yet since the recent elections the government has begun to use words new to the dialogue and out of character, declaring a loosening of their tightly-held, malicious grip on power and making overtures toward democratic change. In response, the Shan, the Karen, and leaders from many other ethnic groups have traveled into longstanding enemy territory to discuss ceasefire agreements. We haven't heard the specific terms of what was decided, nor do we know what has been gained or lost in the conditions. As we asked villagers their opinions we received various responses - mostly of suspicion but one that applauded it as a step towards democracy. We then heard, a few days later, that Karen soldiers had received official orders not to fire at Burma Army patrols in their area. The next day we received two messages from FBR teams on the front lines that the Burma Army had again launched attacks into Karen areas. It seemed the new words were only words. The Burma Army, the leaders of Burma, were proving that their words couldn't be trusted, even as their actions ran true to form.

Trust has so many facets and yet is so simple -- simple but not easy or quick, for it is the product of many small decisions, or actions, done consistently and with integrity over time. Trust is dearly won and easily lost. I think about the villagers and soldiers I am staying with tonight. Who have they trusted and who is violating their trust? The enemy? Their own leaders? Who is working for their best interest...at what level....and with what ability to make those decisions....with what motivations of heart? Do one's own actions lead towards being more trusting or less? Trust relies on transparent truth -- where there is no truth there will be no trust.

We are always trusting people in our lives for love that will manifest itself in different ways. Others are trusting us for the same thing. What is our response to trust or the lack of it? What is FBR's response? What is God's response? "Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You in the presence of the sons of men!" Psalm 31:19 This verse was in the devotions I read this morning. It led me to read all of Psalm 31 which is a full message about 'political' issues of controversy with 'man.'

CHANGE

One guarantee we have in life is that things will change. This year in Burma has seen political movement on a larger scale than in many years, potentially reflecting changes in a good direction, especially in ethnic areas where FBR works. Early conversations among our teams, during the stage of ceasefire 'rumors,' brought about mixed feelings in different directions. The skeptical track was one of heightened alert to deception, betrayal and defense. The hopeful track considered what redefining of roles and relationships would look like. As weeks have passed it has become apparent that regardless of whether the regime is sincere in its expressed intent to reform, or whether it's merely putting a pretty face on the same oppression, change is occurring. Leaders are talking to the SPDC, and some, e.g. the Shan, have already signed agreements. The political momentum seems to be sweeping everything before it and whether it is change for the better or not, it cannot be ignored. At the same time, change in our own organization is becoming impossible to ignore and the need to rearticulate our foundation is becoming clear. For us and our friends in Burma there is a need to define those things that are unmistakably foundational about who we are, while identifying other things that are changeable with the current events. Being strengthened by change is to be unified in distinguishing between the two.

Today, as our route crossed a Burma Army road, 'change' colored the whole day. Many of the Burma Army roads dissect Karen State and are used to resupply camps established by the Burma Army and from which they launch patrols and attacks on villages. They are often centers of violent conflict as villagers try to thread through Burma Army patrols just to move through their land. Our group crossings of these lines are always laden with Karen army security to clear landmines and watch for attacks before, during, and after our whole group, including villagers on both sides, crosses. Often this happens at night, without lights, to avoid being seen by Burma Army camps near the crossing points. There are certain days of the week identified as 'road crossing days' so people can plan their travel around the scheduled security. Several of our friends have lost loved ones who crossed without protection and met Burma Army soldiers who harassed and then killed them.

On this morning, as our column moved quickly and silently to cross this contested area, we were stopped by our front security and told to sit and wait. The first soldiers had unexpectedly met Burma Army soldiers on the road who fired one shot in warning. We heard a dog barking and then, surprisingly, we heard shouting back and forth between the Burma Army soldiers and our Karen security. Amazing - an unprecedented conversation! Everyone was still....everyone was listening. Mostly everyone was expecting firing to begin but instead the Burma Army soldiers were yelling out to the Karen soldiers they couldn't see, but knew were armed in the bushes along the road, "We're not going to shoot. Don't shoot! We've been ordered not to shoot. You can come out." One brave Karen soldier defied the long history of mistrust and did step out to talk to the Burma Army soldier. They agreed on our group crossing safely, shook hands, and the Burma Army continued on to their camp. For the first time in our experience a road crossing had been verbally negotiated in a face-to-face meeting.

Here was a change we not only witnessed but were affected by as well. As we left that area, one of our ethnic team leaders, Doh Say, told me again about signs of the times I hadn't recognized. "Do you remember seeing the empty rice fields about one kilometer before we reached the road? They were black and charred from burning. That is the first step in preparing them for use."

I asked, "Is it safe for the villagers to start planting there?"

He said, "Not yet.... but they do that first step as a test. They are just testing the situation."

Change can be like dark water -- hard to tell how deep it is, hard to tell how fast it will go, hard to tell what lies beneath. It requires eyes wide open and a solid boat to navigate these waters -- not getting swept over falls and not getting stuck on sandbars. We should know what our destination is or we will simply ride the current, an aimless piece of flotsam.

Change is inevitable -- for all of us in any area of our lives. It has momentum and frequently we are swept along without really having desired it. Then, there are times we desire change but can't enact or affect it the way we want. What is our response to change, personally? What is FBR's response to change? What is God's response?

John 15:4 says, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

DESOLATION

Yesterday, as our trail wound through a deserted area of tall grass and weeds, Doh Say pointed out that it used to be inhabited by 60 houses. I looked again, as it was hard to imagine in the current overgrown state. What I was being told was that it used to provide a full and rich life for many people, but what I saw was a picture of abandonment and desolation. Disheartening -- and all the more so because this was at least the third time in our two months that Doh Say had told me the exact same thing in different places. The first time was in December as our team passed by rice fields within mortar range of a Burma Army camp. The second time was as we walked through a two-km stretch on either side of a Burma Army road. This last section was in a river valley with easy access from Burma Army camps in the plains. All these areas had been abandoned, not because they weren't fertile, but because they weren't safe. The nearby presence of the Burma Army forced the farmers to sacrifice the long-term maintenance of their land as well as immediate food supply by pushing them into the mountains where the farming is low-yield slash-and-burn, with long-term consequences of deforestation and soil erosion. How much more would families be able to produce and eat if oppression was really removed? No one is farming these areas -- not even the Burma Army who casts the shadow; they are desolate and abandoned, yet the richness God put in the soil is still there. This desolation is a choice and a consequence. The land itself is not desolate and is full of potential -- it is waiting for something -- for someone to take courage, for someone to have mercy, for someone to take action. Desolation is not of God, it is not eternal.

What is my response to desolation in myself and others? What is FBR's response to the desolation we witness? What is God's response? The times I have felt desolate, empty, and abandoned are probably the worst I have known. In high school a friend wrote out this verse for me and I've always been thankful for the translation she had that I've rarely seen since: "I will not leave you desolate, I will come to you." (John 14:18) Jesus' words go right to that deep place saying that what I feel is overcome by who He is.

CLARITY

One of the most beautiful sights on our walks in Burma are the clear, clean, glassy streams and rivers we walk by and cross over, we bathe in and camp by, that we use for cooking and drinking and fishing. When we are walking beside them the clarity is both fascinating and beautiful. But when crossing over or wading through these waters, it is of vital practical importance. We can see rocks of various sizes, shapes, stability, and surfaces (read 'slipperyness') -- both interesting and useful in terms of which one is going to flip you into an unplanned bath or help you along your way. Being able to see - and read - the bottom mud is another gift of clarity. Looking down we can differentiate between the kind of mud that will trap a foot, a leg, or swallow you up to your waist. Mud mixed with sand is better for bathing, but even so, stepping into it can change an inviting bathing pool into a cloud of debris in an instant. With extreme clarity, depth can be deceiving. Finding the right place to submerge can be a challenge when there is an illusion of depth because of clarity.

Yesterday I crossed a bridge and looked down into the still, clear water to see an entire tree submerged, leaves and all. At first I was struck by its beauty, but then was reminded (as I continued on the bamboo bridge) that losing my balance and falling in right there would be a challenge to recover from with a heavy backpack. The clarity of these rivers is beautiful but also necessary for navigating through them. In our lives there is so much to see and comprehend and good vision -- clarity - is the difference between a solid step and a painful plunge. On a deeper level it is more of an 'ascertaining' or discerning - discerning what we're seeing and knowing beyond what our eyes see. This is my prayer: I want to have the vision that fills up on beauty as well as knows how to navigate through it.

Psalm 19:14 "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer."

DISCOURAGEMENT

Courage surprised me as the 'missing piece' on a day I felt ground slip out from beneath me. It was at a Good Life Club (GLC) program, put together in a less than ideal situation of a remote location with little support. We wanted to give encouragement and hope to children in the vulnerable plains region but, because of the threat of repercussions on the villagers from the Burma Army, could only come as far as a small Karen army outpost about four hours from the villagers' homes. It was the best we could do and the villagers themselves asked us to not come any closer. Our GLC singing and drama team was a small group of Rangers and a group of young adults who were representing their township for a month-long internship to build relationships in remote villages -- we had first met them at the beginning of the mission, given them a one-day training and then begun the mission. Every subsequent program was more training, and their levels of enthusiasm and participation varied.

On this particular day, several programs into our trip, the challenges started to strike at my enthusiasm. The audience was only a handful of adults instead of children, this new team had been slow to take leadership of the program and they were now late for the afternoon session. Only a couple Rangers directly leading GLC came and I wished for more support from the FBR teams. Between the absence of children and the absence of a team my insecurity grew and the enemy of confidence took full advantage of my weak heart to feed me discouraging lies: "Your new team is not motivated to do their jobs. The villagers are not motivated to be here, the Rangers are not motivated to support this program."

By the afternoon I felt the 'good' in Good Life Club was dissolving away and the ground underneath me was open space -- no foothold and nothing sure to stand on. If the villagers didn't want it, and the team didn't care, why was I here? Thankfully, God gives us names for things, and after one of our team asked how I was feeling, I was able to articulate the root of it all -- discouragement. I thought about it. If I am dis-couraged, I must have lost 'courage' somewhere. Courage is the strength that holds onto faith, that continues to believe in what we cannot see (in the face of what we can see) and to put hope in all that God has given prior to a crisis and regardless of what seems to be happening. Sometimes courage is simply survival, simply clinging to the vision God has given us to steward in both joys and trials. GLC is awesome on a great day: hundreds of kids, a full and vibrant team, busy clinic and happy families milling around, colorful balloons, full lunch, and great gifts for everyone. On a sparse day with very few children, a handful of adults, scattered team and few supplies to offer, is God doing the same thing? Courage is to act passionately out of faith that God continues to be bigger than what we see, hear and feel around us.

As I thought about it later I realized God was doing a full thing even as I was in my black cloud. The team of young leaders who joined us to become the GLC team all came from the plains area that we had not been able to visit. Only on the last day were we able to visit one-on-one with their group, 50 people, and learn that God had been working out a different way for us to reach those families in an inaccessible area. Instead of giving a one-time program to a group of children, we sent the concept, planning, and production to seven different villages through this leadership team. I pray that God will abundantly multiply what He has begun in them, and in my own courage for both what I can and cannot see.

What have been our most recent moments of discouragement? What was our response? What is FBR's response to discouragement? What is God's response?

Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord you God is with you wherever you go."

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FBR: FBR: Western Burma Update: Burma Army abuses in both conflict and non-conflict areas

Fri, 04 May 2012 10:37:27 PDT

FBR REPORT: Western Burma Update: Burma Army abuses in both conflict and non-conflict areas

Karen State, Burma

2 May, 2012

IN THIS REPORT

Western Burma Overview
Arakan State: Forced labor, rape, child conscription, commercial project update, natural disasters
Naga areas, Sagaing Division: forced labor and religious persecution
Chin State: forced labor

Western Burma Overview

In Arakan State, Chin State, Naga areas of Sagaing Division and other areas of Burma, the frequent demands of Burma Army forced labor often are so great that people cannot take care of their own livelihoods. According to one Arakan man from Mariwa Village, Paletwa Township who is now an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) on the border, "The government is not good. All the time forced labor and more forced labor. We cannot take care of our farms and we do not have time to work at our farm. Then the animals were destroyed at our farm. So we have many problems to live in Burma." (Interview: 22 February 2012.) Burma Army abuses remain prevalent even though most of these areas have little or no armed resistance. While the Burma Army is more likely to commit violent abuses such as burning homes and killing villagers in conflict areas, daily oppression such as forced labor and extortion continue in areas without active fighting.

Arakan State

Human Rights Abuses: Rape, Child Conscription and Forced Labor

On 5 April 2012, the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) signed a ceasefire agreement with the Arakan State Government including an end to fighting and freedom of movement for unarmed personnel. The government did not commit to any troop withdrawals or Burma Army movement restrictions in conflict areas, despite a pattern of Burma Army atrocities against civilians in the area. Many IDPs are scattered along the mountainous borders with India and Bangladesh, having fled from frequent Burma Army demands for forced labor, extortion, and instances of beatings.

In May 2011 in Nygpourchawn Village, Paletwa Township, a 29-year-old ethnic Khumi woman was raped by a Burma Army soldier who entered her home while she was home alone. The father of the victim decided not to report the incident because he suspected there would be no punishment for the perpetrator. Note: Paletwa Township is in Chin State, but is home to many Arakan villages.

On 27 October 2011, a 14-year-old boy from Aurama Village, Buthidaung Township was recruited by the Burma Army with promises of an education. The recruiting commander was Sergeant Soe Aung from Infantry Battalion (IB) 234. The parents of the child were later denied access to him when they requested to see him at a recruit center in Sittwe Township. This is a common occurrence for children recruited by Military Operations Command (MOC) 9 in nearby Kyauk Taw Township, where they are recruited and cut off from outside contact.

Map showing area of report

Sixteen Arakan people from Piedown Village, Paletwa Township, were forced to carry rations and ammunition for 60-70 soldiers in Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 344 commanded by Major Kray Naing Oo. According to one victim, a 50-year-old farmer, each porter had to carry two heavy weapons. They portered for the army column for eight days, going from Piedown to La Ba Wa Village and back, then portered for nine days to a border post and back. During the patrol, one of the villagers sustained an accidental knife wound to his arm but was refused medical treatment by the soldiers, who said he should use "jungle medicine". The villager recalled instances of beatings if villagers arrived late for forced labor duty, and said that the village chairman had been beaten by the military as well.

A 28-year-old farmer from Doechawnwa Village, Paletwa Township, was called for forced portering of arms, ammunition and rations along with nine other villagers on 3 October 2011 by a patrol from Infantry Battalion (IB) 20 led by Myo Man Thun. Along the way they fled to the border because the load was too much to carry, and now live as IDPs. He said, "we would like to return to our home village but we are afraid of Burma Army torturing and killing."

A 27-year-old farmer from Mariwa Village, Paletwa Township, fled to the border from his village after frequent demands from the Burma Army including extortion of food and money, forced labor, forced portering and being forced to serve as a night sentry. In Mariwa Village, villagers were forced to build a perimeter fence around the village, including the Burma Army outpost in the village held by IB 232, for which Soe Man Lwin is Second in command. Twelve villagers per night are required to work as night sentries at the village gate. According to the man, "If we don't take [sentry duty], we are beaten by Burma Army." In an interview on 22 February 2012, he said, "Now we cannot return to my village. If we return to my village, we are beaten and tortured by Burma Army."

About two or three times per month, Burma Army patrols check boundary markers on the international border and force villagers to guide and serve as porters. The porters are intermixed with the soldiers to be used as human shields to prevent ambushes. On 18 February 2012, a 28-year-old man from Salinewa Village, Paletwa Township, was called to be a guide for a patrol from LIB 550 commanded by Lt. Khan Maung Kyi. He was beaten after showing the wrong way through the jungle.

In the second week of July 2011, twenty villages were forced to send 400 bamboo poles to Tarraweye Village's Burma Army Camp. Though the current market price is 30,000 kyat per 100 poles of bamboo, the Burma Army compensated the villagers 1,000 kyat per 100 poles. Later, the Burma Army sold the bamboo for 25,000 kyat per 100 poles.

Burma Army units known to be operating in Northern Arakan State and Paletwa Township including LIB 344, IB 232, IB 289, LIB 550, IB 20 and IB 55, all under Burma Army Western Command. Their weapons include assault rifles, RPGs and M79 guns.

Medical treatment at Piedown Village, 11 March 2012

During their last relief mission, Arakan FBR teams treated 255 medical patients. Previously in July 2011, FBR teams met a 32-year-old mother in Wa Pram Village who stepped on a nail but could not afford medical care. By the time an FBR medic reached her, her foot had become infected and progressed nearly to the point of requiring amputation. The FBR medic treated the wound and provided approximately US$500 to go to a hospital. The ALP contributed US$200. Because she was able to go to the hospital, her foot was saved and she is now recovering.

Commercial activities

Construction site at Maday Island shows the insignia of two corporations involved in the pipeline project: China National Petroleum Company and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. Daewoo Intl. (Korea), ONGC Videsh (India), KOGAS (Korea) and GAIL (India) also have a stake in the project. Photo 2 February 2012

Homes of Maday Island residents, affected by loss of land and fishing areas by pipeline construction. Photo 2 February 2012.

Construction continues on the 2806-kilometer-long Shwe Gas Pipeline, which is being built to carry natural gas from sites offshore from Arakan State through Burma, and into China. It also includes a deep sea port and an oil pipeline to deliver imported oil to China. The pipeline reaches land at Kyauk Phyu in Arakan State and runs across Maday Island before continuing northeast into China. Fishing has been prohibited around the pipeline and bridge construction areas near Maday Island, leaving up to 1000 of the island's residents without work.

In September 2011, Burmese Minister of Industry Oo Than Htee announced to Parliament that the gas will be exported to China and not used in Arakan State. Protesters around Arakan State are demanding access to a portion of the gas being exported as well as access to 24-hour access to electricity. Some protesters have been detained and investigated for such activities.

Natural Disasters

Heavy rains flooded parts of Arakan State last year.

Fire destroyed 1272 shops at the Central Market of Minbya Township, Arakan State

There are food shortages especially in the highland areas of Arakan State due to heavy rainfall last year which created poor conditions for rice farming. In addition, multiple fires have caused heavy losses throughout Arakan State throughout the month of November. The first occurred on 1 November 2011 in Kyaknimaw Villager, Ramree Township, destroying 200 houses and leaving 800 people homeless. On 12 November 2011, the Central Market of Minbya Township caught fire, burning 1272 shops and causing billions of kyat in losses. In Mrauk-Oo Township, a fire burned nine establishments near Lakuck market and ten million kyat was estimated in damages. On 19 November, in Sitesa Village, Myebon Township, fire destroyed 146 houses. All fires were accidental, but have caused major losses for Arakan people ranging from the loss of their homes to that of their livelihood.

Forced Labor and Religious Persecution against Naga people

In this section, names of people and villages have been abbreviated to protect the identities those mentioned.

Naga women forced to porter for Burma Army, 9 March 2012

Map of Naga areas

The Burma Army continues oppression against Naga people in Northern Sagaing Division and Kachin State. Naga villagers live in fear of the Burma Army due to frequent demands for food, forced labor, forced portering and poor treatment including beatings. On 9 March 2012, nine people from N--- Village, including two children, were forced to carry rations for IB 237 from N--- Village to P--- Village.

Young boy forced to porter for Burma Army, 9 March 2012

Soldiers from IB 237 travelling with forced porters, 9 March 2012

On 21 March 2012, the village headman from C--- Village was hit twice in the back with a rifle butt by soldiers from IB 297. The soldiers demanded one pig from the village, and the headman responded saying that all the villagers were in the fields and he would find them a pig from the villagers that evening. In response, the soldiers beat him.

According to a 36-year-old Naga villager, IB 52 under Commander Kyaw Soe routinely demanded villagers to serve as porters while also taking the villagers' livestock. In P--- Village, IB 229 used one villager as a porter for heavy equipment and later beat him when he was unable to handle the heavy load. The same battalion forced villagers from H--- Village to serve sentry duty and as porters for the construction of a nearby Burma Army Camp. In M--- Village, soldiers ordered 10 porters as well as 20 kilograms of rice and 2 chickens. In L--- Village, soldiers forced villagers to porter for four days to a Burma Army camp, forcing villagers to give over their animals as payment if they could not physically work.

In K--- Village in 2010, the government administration gave 24 sheets of roofing to the village and demanded that the villagers build a school within three months or face steep fines. The value of the 24 sheets is 1,000,000 Kyat but the cost borne by villagers was 1,600,000 Kyat. Later, newspapers and television inside Burma announced that Naga villages including K--- Village now have schools provided by the government.

During the last relief mission in Naga areas, FBR treated approximately 350 medical patients.

FBR team member treats Naga child with an ear problem, T--- Village, 17 March 2012.

Religious Persecution

During their recent mission, the Naga FBR team interviewed a Christian pastor who, along with his congregation, faced religious persecution at the hands of Burma Army Battalion 229. The incident itself took place in 2005. The interview is reported here to indicate the fear of the Burma Army that exists amongst many ethnic people.

Interview with Pastor U -----, 14 March 2012: I was ordered by Nanyun Baptist Association to serve as a minister for the 16 believer households in Kyet Tun Village (village name changed to protect victims). When I stayed in Kyet Tun Village, on 16 December 2005 I was arrested by Burma Army Infantry Battalion 229. And they arrested me beside the camp in Kyet Tun Village. First, the commander Thet Tun Naing pointed my throat with his pistol and shouted at me that I was a swindler then hurt me. He accused me that I was collecting taxes for the Naga insurgents and I was a fake pastor. When he shouted at me also he slapped me more than ten times and checked my pocket and look at my ID card and ministry card and slapped my face with the cards. Then Commander Thet Tun Naing met the Christian villagers and asked them "would you all enter in Buddhism or not. If you would not do like that you were not allow to stay in Kyet Tun Village anymore. And you have time one week to think about it." But the Christians didn't say anything, and then he slapped the Kyet Tun leader two times but the Kyet Tun villagers said that they would not change.

Then commander Sun Win Naing (serving under commander Thet Tun Naing) chopped the nape of my neck three times with his hand. When I felt dizzy, I lied down on the guarding house and controlled my body. Then Thet Tun Naing accused me that I was a Naga rebel and asked me many questions and tortured me badly. Then he ordered the village head and village committees to check my house, and when they didn't see anything he ordered commander Sun Win Naing and other soldiers to tie my hands on my back and blindfolded my eyes with clothes then they took me to camp and put me in jail the whole night.

The next day 17th December, they took me to Nyaw Kwa Camp and put me there for two days. On 18th about at 8 or 9pm the commander Thet Tun Naing forced me to drink alcohol until I felt drunk and asked me where am I from, and where are the other people with me, what is my position, where are your equipments and then what is my unit? When he asked me the questions like this, I said that "I have no any idea about it and I was not belonging to it. Then I said I am from Nanyun Baptist Association and I was a missionary at there. So I could not answer you any other things. If you want to know about me you can ask Nanyun Baptist Association." I just answered like that. Then he hit me till my blood flowed from my nose and he went back. Then he went to talk about it with the battalion commander and came back and asked me the question again and persecuted me as the same things like that for three times until 11pm. Then he shouted to me that "you are a very stubborn pastor, so you have to wrestle with me and the loser must be killed." He threatened me like this. Then I told him "I came here not to do the competition with anybody. I was here as missionary for believers in Kyet Tun Village." Then he said "Hey man, don't tell like this, come on and we will wrestle" and then he pulled my hand and ordered me to kneel on the door frame and he told me "Hey stubborn pastor, now you are going to be finished, you will not be able to meet your association leaders, your family members and you will have to do nothing with your ministry because you have to go to Yangon soon. And now you pray!" Then I spoke to God and pray for them and pray for Kyet Tun Village. After the praying he ordered me "Now bend down your head on your knees as your praying position." Then I had to stay like this position about 2 to 3 minutes till I felt my neck pain and I didn't make any sound. Then he shouted at me "Hey stubborn pastor, have you died? Get up! You man, the stubborn pastor and the rebel provider, go back to your bed!" And then he tied my hands on my back and my legs and my neck with the bed until I could not move at all, like I was a dead body. Then he told me "Tonight you have to die like that and you have to use toilet on your bed like this position." And he told me that tomorrow 9 o'clock we will meet our Major and he will have the electricity and we will use the electrical shock to pain your body and at that time don't say anything if you get the trouble. He said, "Just say the same words that you say tonight." Then he went back. After he left, a sergeant who was guarding around came and released me, so that I could sleep well for that night.

The next day he took me to Kyet Tun Village and he didn't let the commander to see me. When we entered in village he changed my clothes and let two soldiers guard me at my left side and right side and took me to Kyet Tun Camp. Then at that night they made the fire and we slept beside fire. The next day early morning one of the commander (I didn't know his position), he came to me and pretended to asked me a question, but he didn't ask anything. And he ordered me to write something as he said. Then he asked me to write that "I declare that Kyet Tun Village become Buddhist." Then when I was ordered to write like this, I said "No, I can't do it. It is not possible. I will never agree that Kyet Tun Village become a Buddhist village. I could not write like this." But he said to me that even if you didn't write we have to sign. And he strongly forced me to write. Then I have to end my writing like that.

After then he took me to a different part of Kyet Tun Village and when we entered the village they showed me Rev. U Ch----'s house and took me to a different house. And they kept me there the whole day without food. The other days they gave me food, but then when they didn't give me food, I asked for the food from Kyet Tun Villagers. The next morning at 8 o'clock the commander That Tun Naing came to me and untied the rope and he said "Pastor, now you are finished."

The interviewed pastor is now living in another Naga village in Sagaing Division.

Forced labor in Chin State

In this section, names of people and villages have been abbreviated to protect the identities those mentioned.

There has been no widespread conflict in Chin State for several years. The Chin National Front (CNF) fought against the Burma Army for 23 years, though the conflict was localized to a small area in southwestern Chin State. The CNF signed a ceasefire with the government on 6 January 2012. In spite of years of relative peace, Burma Army demands for supplies, forced labor and other abuses are still present.

Map of Chin State

In Chin State, Burma Army patrols often do not carry their own rations, but demand food from local villagers. On 28 January 2012 at 2pm, a Burma Army soldier named Min Mu Aung in IB 50, commanded by Ku Me Zaw and based at Tibual Burma Army Camp and under Northwest Command, demanded 2kg of rice and a chicken from C---, age 45, from S--- Village, Falam Township, Chin State.

Burma Army forced labor also continues in Chin State. On 8 April 2011, V---, age 32 from S--- Village, was forced by IB 50 to spend one day working on the perimeter fence of Tibual Camp. Troops based at Tibual Camp demand forced labor from nearby villages multiple times throughout the year. In some areas of Chin State, demands for forced labor and portering are enough to cause people to flee the area. About 500 people from Thantlang and Matupi Townships of Chin State have fled to Ta--- Village, Ka Lay Township, Sagaing Division to avoid the demands of forced labor. While formerly they worked their own farms, many now earn incomes as day labourers.

People in Tl--- Village receive mosquito nets from FBR team. 23 January 2012

FBR medic treats patient, P--- Village, 4 March 2012

FBR helps build a latrine in O--- Village, which was destroyed by the Burma Army on 10 June 2000. After the villagers fled, only a fraction returned. Photo 11 February 2012

God bless you,
Arakan, Chin and Naga FBR teams

For more information, please visit www.freeburmarangers.org

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[Altsean-Burma] April 2012 Burma Bulletin

Wed, 02 May 2012 03:34:57 PDT

Dear Friends,

Please find attached the April 2012 issue of ALTSEAN Burma Bulletin.

The Burma Bulletin is a short month in review of events in Burma,
particularly those of interest to the democracy movement and human
rights activists.

In the April 2012 issue you will find:

* NLD wins by-elections
* Tatmadaw steps up Kachin State offensive
* Ethnic groups sign agreements
* Migrant workers in Thailand
* Sanctions eased
* UK PM, EU top official, UN Sec-Gen visit Burma
* List of Reports
* Much more...

The April 2012 Burma Bulletin is also available online at: http://bit.ly/Kq3EIa

You can also receive daily Burma updates by following us on Twitter
http://twitter.com/altsean

Yours, in solidarity,

ALTSEAN-Burma

FBR: FBR: Shan FBR Teams Complete Trainings and Prepare for Missions

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 11:12:13 PDT

FBR REPORT: Shan FBR Teams Complete Trainings and Prepare for Missions

Shan State, Burma

April 2012

Dear friends,

With your help, encouragement and prayers, the FBR medical team conducted a one-month medical training for the Shan FBR relief teams. This training focused on commonly encountered illnesses such as malaria, pneumonia, dehydration, diarrhea, and anemia. Additional topics included Basic Trauma Care. During this one month period, students also received training in the Good Life Club (GLC) program.

Shan medical students at graduation

Following this one-month course, the students also finished relief mission preparation on 22 April, which included training in reporting, navigation, GPS, GLC, lifesaving and mountaineering as well as some additional medical training. The teams are now preparing for relief missions in Shan State.

In addition to providing humanitarian relief, the teams will continue to try to put a light on the situation in the Shan areas, where, despite negotiations and a preliminary ceasefire being signed, there have been several clashes between the Burma Army and the Shan State Army-South.

We thank all of you who continue to make this work possible, and for your stand with the people of Burma and the courageous young men and women who have committed their lives to serving those in need. We also want to thank the many guest instructors we had at the medical training and missions preparation training. Finally, thanks to CSW and PRAD for their support of the GLC program to the Shan people.

GLC in Shan State

During the medical training the students covered the following subject areas:

English
Subjective-Objective-Assessment Plan (SOAP Notes)
Basic math, drug calculations etc.
Emergency/Trauma lectures (first aid week)
Diarrhea
Dehydration- including how to make ORS, IV fluid calculations
Malaria
Pneumonia
Common cold
Asthma
Brief TB
Wounds
Burns
UTI
STD
Pre-Eclampsia, Eclampsia
Post Partum Hemorrhage
Typhus
Typhoid
Brief ophthalmology- infection, FB, cataracts, glaucoma
Vitamin A deficiency
Vitamin B1 deficiency
Anaemia
Anaphalaxis
Tetanus
Dental Practical exercises
Case studies

Thank you and God bless you,

Free Burma Rangers

CHW and FBR medics treating patients

GLC games

GLC anatomy class

Shan medics practice emergency procedures

GLC singing with kids

Teaching health and nutrition

For more information, please visit www.freeburmarangers.org

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FBR: FBR: Burma Army Mortars Villages and Burns Homes in Kachin State; 50,000 people displaced

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:50:53 PDT

FBR REPORT: Burma Army Mortars Villages and Burns Homes in Kachin State; 50,000 people displaced

Kachin State, Burma

24 April, 2012

	KEY DEVELOPMENTS
	Burma Army fighting continues in Kachin State since the original outbreak of violence on 9 June 2011, when Burma Army soldiers broke the ceasefire previously held with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). As Burma Army attacks continue, the KIA attempts to defend the population and numerous clashes have occurred between Burma Army and KIA soldiers. Burma Army soldiers have also repeatedly attacked civilian villages, often occupying and looting the village afterwards and forcing villagers to flee. Free Burma Ranger teams have collected multiple reports of extrajudicial killing, imprisonment and torture. There are over 50,000 Internally Displaced People in camps on the border, with thousands more hiding in the jungle.

Map showing area of report

On 8 April 2012, Burma Army soldiers attacked a hill near Gan Dau Yang Village and N'Pawn Village, Wai Maw Township, on which a Christian church and KIA outpost are both located. Burma Army soldiers shelled 120mm and 81mm mortar the hill every 15 minutes throughout the day, shelling a total of 40 mortar rounds. Attacks continued the following morning, with Burma Army soldiers shelling an additional 60 mortars.

Burma Army Infantry Battalions (IB) 390 and 260 started burning the N'Pawn Village on 27 March 2012, and resumed on 5 April 2012 after clashes with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Eighty houses have been burned down. There are currently three battalions with 300 Burma Army soldiers in N'Pawn Village, and eight battalions total in the area (IB 340, 389, 260, 348, 398, 305, 360 and 380), totaling approximately 1,000 soldiers.

Homes burning in N'Pawn Village, Wai Maw District where IB 390, 260, and 389 have burnt 80 homes.

On 28 March 2012 at 12:30 pm, Wa Pyat Village, Wai Maw Township, was burned by Burma Army IB 438. The battalion had 300 soldiers, with 200 soldiers outside the village while 100 soldiers occupied the village. The burning of Wa Pyat Village, a village of 15-20 households, followed fighting with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) that happened the day prior, 27 March 2012. Civilian casualties have not yet been determined, but three Burma Army soldiers have been confirmed dead.

On 18 March 2012, LIB 384 and LIB 360 attacked KIA troops between Gawng Dau Village and N'Pawn Village. On 22 March 2012, the fighting continued at N'Pawn (where days later, Burma Army soldiers burned several homes). On the morning of 25 March 2012, the fighting continued at Nam Sam Yang, where Burma Army troops mortared the village and burned nine houses. Multiple restaurants and stores beside the road were destroyed when the village was mortared. Over 200 Burma Army soldiers patrolled around Nam Sam Yang Village and were equipped with rifles, 60mm and 80mm mortars, and M79 launchers.

The remains of a home burned by Burma Army soldiers in Nam Sam Yang Village on 25 March 2012.

Stores that were destroyed by mortars in Nam Sam Yang Village on 25 March 2012.

On 15 March 2012 in Momauk Township, Burma Army IB 69 under Light Infantry Division (LID) 99 mortared a KIA camp near Ban Htang Village. Fighting has been ongoing between the KIA and the Burma Army in the area, while the Burma Army has consistently resupplied troops, patrolled the area, and occupied civilian villages. There are currently over 12,000 Burma Army troops throughout Kachin State.

God Bless You,

Free Burma Ranger Kachin Teams

For more information, please visit www.freeburmarangers.org

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FBR: FBR: Loss of a Ranger - Saw Kler Lay

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:29:16 PDT

FBR REPORT: Loss of a Ranger - Saw Kler Lay

Karen State, Burma

19 April, 2012

Dear friends,

We are sad to report the loss of a team member. On 28 March 2012, Saw Kler Lay was killed by a lightning strike during a heavy thunderstorm. He was working inside Burma in his home area of Ta Naw Th'ree Township, Mergui/Tavoy District, Karen State. Kler Lay was a video cameraman as well as a deputy team leader, and he had been serving his people as a Free Burma Ranger since 2008. He was tough, smart and kind, and always willing to help and encourage others. On the news of his death, multiple staff members wished to express their appreciation of him and the life he led. These testimonies are below.

-N
FBR Mergui/Tavoy District Coordinator

Saw Kler Lay, 2009

In my first Mergui/Tavoy District FBR Training Kler Lay was a man who immediately stood out to me. He was smart and a strong leader, but what I remember the most was his amazing smile and pleasant, joyful personality. He was so enthusiastic and attentive during all our training sessions and his smile just made you feel honored to be a small part of his life. It was obvious that he was highly respected as a leader by all district team members.

-L

Kler Lay at Training, 2011. Photo credit: hisvoiceforthekaren@gmail.com

Kler Lay was very special friend of mine during the Mergui/Tavoy District FBR Training. His devotion to his Christian faith, and his joy and commitment at being a Ranger will stay with me all my life. He was an excellent team leader and took pride in his role as videographer, setting an example to all to love each other and never surrender. I am honored to have known this man and saddened for all for this loss. I pray for his team and family as they cope with this tragic event.

-J

Kler Lay on Mission, 2011. Photo credit: hisvoiceforthekaren@gmail.com

Dear friends, family and teammates,

I am so sorry for the loss of Saw Kler Lay. He was a wonderful man, teammate and servant of all. I had the privilege of training and working with him and am honored to call him my friend and team mate.

He set an example of love, service, perseverance and professionalism that reflects great credit on him, his people, the FBR and the KNU. He will always be remembered as a real Ranger who gave his all of his people. In life he was a willing servant and a hope for the oppressed. In death he was a hero giving his all and dying while on duty of help, hope and love.

We miss him and look forward to seeing him in God's heaven.

May God comfort and lead us all on to serve as Saw Kler Lay did.

Love,

David Eubank
Free Burma Rangers

For more information, please visit www.freeburmarangers.org

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From Dictatorwatch - Burma's semi-freedom score card

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:22:53 PDT

Two couples and old cherry tree - photo copyright Kyi May Kaung Italics added. From: free burma Date: Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 11:57 PM Subject: Burma's semi-freedom scorecard To: announce@dictatorwatch.org Please forward this link to as many people as possible. http://www.dictatorwatch.org/articles/semifreeburma.pdf BURMA’S SEMI-FREEDOM SCORECARD By Roland Watson www.dictatorwatch.org April 13, 2012 Dictator Watch has dedicated itself to helping Burma one day unambiguously become free. Our dream is that the dictators of the country, the BSPP/SLORC/SPDC/NDSC, will fall, and never to be resurrected, as occurred with the German and Japanese regimes at the end of World War II. We planned to celebrate this event with the word “VICTORY,” in 96 point type, across the banner of our website. Oh well. Burma is not there yet. The question is: Will Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy joining the rulers in Naypyidaw bring real victory and real freedom closer, or will it make them more remote? Only time, and the actions of Daw Suu, will tell. Many critical elements of the Burma situation have now changed. It is therefore a good idea to appraise where we are. There are clearly winners, but also losers, from the new status quo. The jury is out on what the new situation means for the most important group of all - really the only important group - the people of the country. Losers The victims of Burma’s military regime The biggest losers from the “New Burma” are the victims of the Burma Army (Tatmadaw), the police, and the other organs of the dictatorship’s oppression apparatus (i.e., military intelligence, swan-arr-shin, fire brigades, prisons and labor camps, etc.). Most directly this comprises all of the people who have been raped, assaulted, murdered, robbed, extorted, forced to labor, imprisoned, and tortured. Their victimhood is now compounded, because in the New Burma there is no chance that they (or their families) will ever receive justice. Daw Suu and the NLD made a political calculation that justice must be sacrificed, that there should not be an international investigation into the regime’s crimes against humanity, or a tribunal for them, much less the ability to bring a case to a local court. The NLD talks about establishing the rule of law in Burma, but since it will take years to address the problems with the regime’s 2008 Constitution, which grants the generals and their foot soldiers immunity from prosecution, any possible investigations are probably at least a decade if not two decades away. It is noteworthy that the tribunal for the victims of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge also took decades to organize, and that due to this and the fact that Dictator Hun Sen, who was with the KR, did everything possible to impede it, this effort at national justice failed. Through the process now underway in Burma it is inevitable that the Naypyidaw regime will preserve its own veto power and that its victims will also be denied justice. Almost everyone in Burma is a victim of the regime in one of these ways (directly or through immediate family members) as well as in others, including through having had to suffer enforced relocation, poverty, malnutrition, inadequate medical care, and the denial of education. In this sense then the entire country has lost through being refused justice. In recent years, though, the bulk of the regime’s victims who have suffered the worst forms of abuse have been members of the country’s ethnic minorities (aka the ethnic nationalities). Three observations about this are as follows: 1. Daw Suu had no right to decide unilaterally that the people of Burma should never have justice. While she may have received near unanimous support in 1990, and this year from the country’s Burman majority, her support among the ethnic nationalities, who have their own leaders and who in some cases openly disagree with her, is less. 2. While I would hope this is not the case, the question should be asked: Did Daw Suu make this calculation because the greatest number of contemporary victims are from the ethnic groups, and that it is safe to ignore their suffering? More generally, she has ignored the ethnic nationality plight for years. (She traditionally focused almost exclusively on the nation’s political prisoners.) Through doing this she turned a blind eye to what is Burma’s core social issue: Racism against the ethnic nationalities by the country’s Burman generals. (A credible case of genocide has been prepared.) It is difficult to fathom her actions, but a number of explanations are possible, including: She didn’t know how bad the Tatmadaw was treating the ethnic groups; she was afraid to talk about the subject, fearing a reaction from the regime, so she censored herself; she thinks the problems that the ethnic nationalities have are their own fault (as many Burmans believe); she doesn’t want to upset those Burmans among her supporters who are racist (it is not only the generals who have an ethnic superiority complex); or, she noticed that since the international community ignored the atrocities it was safe for her to do so as well. (Of note, the United States, her close advisor, for two decades only backed her and refused to acknowledge the regime’s war crimes.) I don’t know which one of these possibilities is correct. I’m assuming it is fear of the regime. Nevertheless, since this fear has subsided, she must - if she intends to represent all of Burma - concentrate on the country’s ethnic problems front and center. 3. The regime remains free to continue its crimes, as it has been doing, most notably against the Kachin and the Karen peoples, safe in the knowledge that it has impunity and will never be charged. Many commentators say the reform is driven by the regime’s desire to escape from the United States’ economic sanctions, which is certainly true in part. However, it begins with this. Than Shwe, Maung Aye, Shwe Mann, Thein Sein and the other leading generals want a guaranteed amnesty for all of their past and future crimes. The victims of Burma’s military junta are not unknown. Indeed, a few are as follows. I want to start with Nan Bway Poung, whose story is described in the top center article on the Dictator Watch homepage. On June 10, 2002, now almost ten years ago, she was gang raped by some twenty Burma Army soldiers in Karen State. After returning home (many ethnic rape victims are murdered after they have been violated, but some are released), she announced: “I am not willing to live in this world anymore,” and committed suicide. Her final words remain an indictment of everything that is taking place in Burma, including Thein Sein’s “reform.” (They have been a personal goad for me.) Daw Suu does not have a right to deny Nan Bway Poung and her family justice. What is worse is that the lead perpetrator, Captain Ye Htut, of LIB 349, was clearly identified. Who knows, perhaps he is a Colonel or even a General now. He can and should be brought to trial for this crime and the no doubt many others that he has committed. It is intolerable that the thousands of Ye Htuts in the Tatmadaw can be given immunity. It won’t work in any case, either. If and when Burma does finally becomes free, the dictatorship’s victims will raise their voices and demand justice. From last month: A newly-wed Arakanese woman was gang-raped by one soldier from LIB 550 and two members of the swan-arr-shin, after she and her husband reported their overnight stay at her home village. A Karen villager, Saw Lay La Thaw, was killed by MOC 9 troops while crossing a road. Northeast Regional Command troops in Shan State under Col. Tun Tun Nyi killed two Palaung villagers, Gawlai Hkam and Aik Chaing, while they were fishing. Burma Army troops attacked the Kachin Independence Army’s 5th Battalion with chemical weapons, the latest in a series of attacks using the banned ordinance. A Karen woman was sexually assaulted by two BA soldiers at Thay Baw Bo village. Two Karen women were killed during fighting between the regime’s BGF troops and the DKBA. There have been tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of such victims in Burma since the massacre in 1988 (and of course many more before that), and for which not one person has received justice. For a record of the regime’s atrocities during the last year, please visit our Burma Death Watch blog - http://www.dictatorwatch.org/burmadeathwatch.html I would strongly encourage everyone who has been victimized by the military junta to travel to the NLD office, 97/B West Shwegondine Road, Bahan Township, Rangoon, and file a grievance with their now duly elected Members of Parliament, providing as many details about the crimes as possible. (If a lot of people do this, maybe the Party will start to show more concern.) The Burma Pro-Democracy Movement In the years following the 1990 election, a major pro-democracy movement, one of the most substantial in the world, was created for Burma. It had many different elements, including: - Ethnic and student armies, which sought to overcome the junta through force. - The NLD, which advocated pacifist tactics and which tried, repeatedly, to achieve positive change through “Burma’s legal system” (an oxymoron, if ever there was one). - Student activists inside the country, who led protests and organized other forms of dissent. - And manifold groups on the outside, including both free media and political dissidents, most notably in neighboring Thailand, the United States, Europe, and Australia, and organized both by exiles and foreign activists, which in innumerable ways documented the terrible crimes of the junta and sought to bring about its defeat. The objective of this movement was always singular and clear: The end of the dictatorship and real freedom for the people of Burma, followed by the construction of a well-functioning system of democracy and then carefully planned and methodically implemented social and economic development. This entire movement, and also its goal, are also losers in the New Burma. The reason for this is again quite simple. The movement existed to exert pressure against the junta. Daw Suu, with one sweep of her hand, decided that the correct course of action was actually to join the regime, to merge with it, and then try to change it from within. Pressure therefore was no longer necessary, or even desirable. Through taking this step, she effectively became the Dictator of the Pro-Democracy Movement. She has even repudiated the idea that Burma should be a subject of pro-democracy activism and advocacy. Her astonishing decision has left everyone in disarray, wondering what, if anything, they should now do. Many different organizations that have worked hard for years are failing, their contributions are no longer desired. (If you are not going to prosecute crimes against humanity, why even document them?) In addition, particularly for groups outside of Burma, they are losing their funding. Funders are now redirecting their money to other groups inside the country, and which also have different missions, to set up a financial system, to lay the grounds for economic development, etc. Now, all of this would be fine if we could be certain that the regime will carry through with its reform, that it will meet the basic demands of a free and open society. 1. To stop attacking the ethnic groups and establish a nationwide ceasefire. 2. To stop expropriations of villager land for economic development. 3. To irreversibly end the Myitsone Dam project, and to evaluate properly all other developments that will have a significant impact on local populations and the environment. 4. To put in place strong protections against corruption and bribery. 5. To release all the political prisoners. 6. To end the nuclear and missile programs including their cooperation with North Korea. 7. To allow political parties and the press complete freedom to operate. 8. To hold a free and fair general election in 2015, if not sooner. 9. And finally, to honor that election result. This is what a real democratic transition would encompass, but there is already great evidence that it is not the regime’s intention. Most importantly: Naypyidaw is continuing its policy of divide and conquer with the ethnic groups, currently through making all sorts of promises to the KNU while at the same time conducting a massive offensive against the KIO. There has been no movement on the release of the remaining political prisoners, believed to number close to one thousand individuals. The regime very carefully excluded the ethnic groups and also the 88 Generation student activists from Parliament. This has a number of consequences. First, it means the generals only have to deal with the tame NLD for at least the next three years. Secondly, it reinforces Daw Suu as Burma’s focal point, which responsibilities she is ill-equipped to deal with on a day-to-day basis, if only because there is so much to do. Daw Suu is being forced to act as an opposition Prime Minister, but without resources or staff, and also with no guarantees that her actions will be tolerated. Furthermore, this has also reinforced the death of the Burma Pro-Democracy Movement. The movement has now been transformed into the Suu Kyi Democracy Movement, meaning that where democracy, human rights and environmental activists formerly targeted the regime and also the International Community, the activists that do remain must now press their cases directly with Daw Suu, as she is the only legitimate representative. She is now an advocacy choke-point, which is both a structural flaw and also an inappropriate role, given that she has so many demands on her time, and also that given her age, health, and inclinations she is not really suited for the role of a master hands-on administrator of all the issues that need to be addressed in Burma, and also all the area’s of regime activity, from military to political to economic, that need to be scrutinized. The ethnic nationalities The varied ethnic nationalities are also losers in the New Burma, because they allowed themselves to be out-maneuvered and out-negotiated. They fell victim to a decades-long series of divide and conquer entreaties, and were never able to create a unified military front, which with coordinated campaigns could have defeated the Tatmadaw. They also now have been excluded from Parliament for the next three years, and will therefore be forced to lobby Daw Suu as well, to press for their interests through her, even though she has never been their strong advocate. Furthermore, taken one-by-one they are at the mercy of international corporations, which in partnership with supranational institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank, and the trade representatives of the United States, the members states of the E.U., China, Thailand, Singapore, India, Japan, Australia, etc., are certain to create unbearable pressure to go along with poorly-planned, large-scale economic developments in their respective homelands. However, the ethnic nationalities, even without representation in Parliament, are in no way powerless. They still control armies, and they should fight back against any regime violations of their ceasefire agreements, inappropriate developments including villager land expropriation, and also assist those groups such as the KIA against which the Tatmadaw continues to wage war. In addition, even though the ethnic nationalities failed to create a working military front, they can create an effective political front, through the United Nationalities Federal Council. This organization is now well-established, and political cooperation is in many ways easier than military. (Burma’s geography always presented a huge hurdle to armed coordination.) Indeed, the UNFC is an excellent forum for the different ethnic nationalities to combine their common interests, to provide a balance to the NLD, and to ensure that their demands are both heard and satisfied, until they are in a position to enter Parliament as well (if and when the regime ever permits it). Internal pro-democracy groups such as 88 Generation, ABFSU, ABMA, Generation Wave, etc. The many different internal pro-democracy organizations, which operated clandestine, “underground” networks, dedicated to supporting if not actually organizing a new popular uprising, are also now left out in the cold in the New Burma. The common goal of these groups was to achieve a real freedom transition following the pattern of what has in recent years been accomplished by the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Serbia, the Ukraine, Georgia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland (among others - uprisings are also now underway in Syria and Bahrain). Daw Suu and the NLD, by joining Naypyidaw, ended - for the moment at least - any possibility of a new uprising for Burma. These groups have been sidelined, and it is difficult to see what they can do, what room for action they have, other than to serve a supporting role for the NLD and to patiently wait until 2015. (The question should also be asked: Why did Burma’s massive pro-democracy movement, and which strove for twenty years, fail, when Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, etc., which had relatively microscopic movements, at least at the beginning, succeed, and all in a short period of time? Who is responsible for this?) On the other hand, I do not mean to in any way underestimate the ingenuity of individuals such as Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, and their many colleagues. They are fearless, and will unquestionably make their voices heard through strong and varied pressure for a new, better, and ultimately free and democratic Burma. The workers, natural environment, and future social make-up and character of Burma Countries are graded by the United Nations and other institutions. One measure is the Human Development Index, and under this system Burma is ranked Low Human Development. A broader and in some ways less precise measure is simply “Development,” with countries split between developed, developing or less-developed, and least developed. This measure has an implicit bias towards economic indicators, and here Burma ranks Least Developed. The first is an excellent guide. Every country should strive for high human development, since it encompasses such measures as life expectancy, literacy, education, standard of living, and quality of life. Development in the New Burma should focus almost exclusively on social development projects, beginning with education - schools, health care - clinics, and sufficient supplies of nutritious food and clean water; and political development, meaning real democracy and the rule of law, as these are necessary to ensure one’s quality of life. The quickest way therefore for Burma to escape from its Low Human Development level is to focus on social and political objectives. The standard of living measure in the Human Development Index, and the overall Development characterization, concentrate instead on economic development, meaning the manner and outcome of one’s “employment,” as measured by such variables as personal income and also a nation’s gross domestic product. There is a bias here, though. More income and a higher GDP, and with both growing as fast as possible from year to year, is not only an unequivocal good, it is the goal. Standard development measures (based on the “neoliberal” development model, the idea that markets and corporations should be unregulated for the greatest economic growth to be achieved) assign no value whatsoever to whether a nation has a rich culture or collection of cultures, which prize their traditions and also the elderly; a high degree of personal morality and a correspondingly low crime rate; massive and intact areas of natural environment, in which other forms of life are free from hunting and other forms of abuse; a degree of social fairness such that there is limited income and wealth inequality and therefore personal inequality and class structure; and also that the overall society pitches in, through different mechanisms, to help the disadvantaged and disabled. Paradoxically, many traditional societies, while at the mercy of annual weather and crop cycles, do an excellent job on all of these measures. They value their cultures, and establish communities with minimal inequality and where everyone who needs it is helped. They are, though, almost exclusively Least Developed, which to the greater world is an unacceptable stigma and which must be changed, no matter the cost. Had Burma achieved real freedom, it could have used its Least Developed status, ironically, to its advantage. It could have worked to preserve everything that makes the country special, its rich array of cultures and extraordinary natural environment, while working on social and political projects to boost its human development index. Economic development, such as resource exploitation, industrial factories, etc., could have been pursued slowly and very carefully to ensure that the benefits went to all the people of the country and that the social and environmental costs were minimized if not eliminated. This development course is now precluded, because the military regime remains in power. Three years from now, even if the election in 2015 is fair, the die will have been set. So much will take place in the interim that it will be impossible to redirect Burma back to the correct development course. Naypyidaw, working with the U.N., World Bank, ADB, IMF, and the U.S., Europe and Asia (all neoliberal true believers, at least as far as “primitive” countries like Burma are concerned), will shove large-scale economic development projects down the throats of the people (as is happening now with Tavoy and ItalThai). Let the Burma Gold Rush, the corporate rape of the natural environment and the exploitation of Burma’s workers, begin! For decades, young ethnic women have systematically been raped by the Tatmadaw, and Burma’s workers exploited in Thailand. Now the powers that be want to - they will - rape the environment in Burma on a scale hitherto impossible (shiploads of earthmoving machines will soon begin arriving at Thilawa Port), and exploit the country’s workers in new industrial estates full of sweatshops. Indeed, the people of Burma will work for less than the Chinese! It is impossible to understate how quickly this exploitation will ramp up. Corporate dealmakers are already signing contracts with regime officials at the Strand, Sedona and other top-end Rangoon hotels, greased by lucrative bribes, and there are absolutely no controls in place. Years from now, when Burma’s towns and cities are monstrosities like those in Thailand, and there are no longer disparate peoples (as Thailand also once had), and the political economy is so stagnant and class ridden and corrupt that real democracy can never take hold and high-level criminals can never be held to account (again, like Thailand), and where the environment is destroyed (Thailand), everyone should understand that now, 2012, is when it all began. Burma will have higher personal income and GDP, to be sure, but its quality of life, its overall quality as a nation, will be much lower. Winners Daw Aung San Suu Kyi The biggest winner by far in the New Burma is Daw Suu. She is back on the pedestal again and subject to wild public exaltation (at least in Burma’s major cities). She also has such prominence now in the eyes of the International Community that really, the Nobel Peace Prize does not do her justice. She is the Savior Of A Nation. In all of human history, very few individuals have ever been able to claim that accolade. I do not mean to begrudge Daw Suu her due. She has suffered tremendously, including by being locked up interminably under house arrest. She also maintained her courage and commitment throughout years of hardship and sacrifice, and through this deserves unqualified respect. The only concern that one might have is if she fully grasps not only the magnitude of the risk her strategic redirection poses for Burma, but also the risk that having everything channeled through her presents. She has to consider, and guard against, the possibility that she is being used not only by Thein Sein and Than Shwe, but also by the U.S., including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Derek Mitchell, as well as Europe, the U.N., etc. Daw Suu should not want to be the dictator of the pro-democracy movement. She should work to ensure that other, younger leaders are given public prominence, particularly from among the ethnic nationalities. She should ask the diplomats of the world not only to speak to her, but to have regular communications with the leaders of such groups as the UNFC, KNU, KIO, RCSS, etc. At the moment, this is not happening at all. The international community has been very careful not to talk to the ethnic leaders or to show concern for their specific problems. Although I hesitate to mention it, Daw Suu also cannot ignore the legacy of her father. The country’s premier national hero, Bogyoke Aung San’s career was ended by his mortality, and through this all of Burma plunged into dictatorship for over a half a century. The two greatest risks of leadership in the system of representative democracy are (1) poor leadership, and (2) a leader’s passing and the power vacuum this creates and which opportunists soon seek to exploit. The leadership of a nation has to be diversified. For example, the ‘uncles’ of the NLD have been criticized for years for blocking the development of a new generation of leaders. Had this not been the case, there would now be a large group of middle-aged NLD members fully qualified to take charge at both the national and regional levels, and not only as politicians but as administrators. Indeed, the NLD is a beneficiary of the New Burma as much as Daw Suu. Coming under increasing criticism in recent years for its ineffectiveness, it has now been revived. As for policy recommendations for Daw Suu, this article is not the place for such an analysis. I can only suggest that as an MP she finally become specific, that she take clearly defined positions and push for them as forcefully and repetitively as possible. For instance, it is not enough to oppose the conflict in Burma, in general. She needs to acknowledge openly that Burma’s Civil War begins with the Tatmadaw. She also should very aggressively call for the cancellation of the Myitsone Dam. As a figurehead (or diplomat), you have the luxury of not being specific. This is no longer the case when you become a hands-on politician. Daw Suu should announce, firmly and repeatedly, her opposition to uncontrolled economic development, including major projects such as Myitsone, Tavoy, Kaladan, and the Dawei pipeline. If she does not oppose these projects, she is sending a clear signal of what she thinks is important for Burma and how development of the country should proceed. She is saying that she fully supports the neoliberal model. I can further comment that I have a number of friends who are pro-democracy activists for China, and they are very disappointed that Daw Suu on a number of occasions has said that Burma should have good relations with Beijing, i.e., the Communist Party. They think it would be much better if she supported publicly the democratic aspirations of the people of China, rather than implicitly back their oppressors. The military regime After Daw Suu, the biggest winner in the New Burma is the military regime, starting, of course, with Senior General Than Shwe. He can relax and enjoy his Asian-style elderly dictator retirement, still pulling the strings from behind the scenes as required. He will not be overthrown, or tried at the International Criminal Court. His family is protected. All is well. All levels of the regime are in fact winners, and in multiple ways. The other top generals, who should also be tried at the ICC, as well as all the specific on the ground war criminal Tatmadaw commanders and soldiers, are now off the hook. The generals and officers, whether they retain their uniforms or not, will also cement their position as the new upper-class elite of Burma, as they become the part-owners and signatories to the new development deals. Not only will they not be charged for their crimes, they are being given preferred positions as the Gold Rush, otherwise known as the initial stage of astronomical corruption for the country, commences. To them we can also add all the regime cronies and fixers, such as Tayza, Myanmar Egress, etc., Burmese and international consultants, and corrupt ethnic leaders and “pro-democracy” politicians, who are also well-positioned for the start of the nation’s degradation. And finally, the rank and file soldiers of the Tatmadaw are winners. They had been under tremendous stress, with insufficient rations and through being ordered into one battle bloodbath with the ethnic nationalities after another. The peace is good for them. Except against the Kachin their lives are no longer at risk, and they will probably get more food. Development will also improve their lot. There will be a lot more money available for the Tatmadaw, even after the top leaders take their cut. The soldiers should beware, though, their respite may well be temporary. If and when Than Shwe decides that enough is enough, the nation-wide offensives and battles will restart. The Obama Administration Another big winner is the Obama Administration. The President has been roundly and properly criticized for having a weak and poorly conceived foreign policy (and which ignores human rights). Washington has struggled to respond to, much less anticipate, developments in Iran, North Korea, China, and the Arab Spring. Indeed, for the last Secretary Clinton backed the Arab world dictators, pushing for “peaceful,” negotiated transitions in which the dictators would both participate and be protected. The local peoples, though, would have none of it, and instead rose up. This forced Washington to reverse its policy, and it also created mistrust and suspicion among the Arab peoples that the United States was not really for democracy, at least as far as Muslims are concerned. Because of Daw Suu, the U.S. was able to pursue its preferred policy in Burma. A new popular uprising was circumvented. Now there will be an attempt at a negotiated transition, which, even if it fails, still benefits the Administration. The U.S. has positioned itself well in the geopolitical game against China, and also India. Furthermore, U.S. corporations can now grab a share of the Burma lucre. Also, even if it everything falls apart, and Than Shwe’s stormtroopers at some point reassert overt control and even kill or imprison Thein Sein, regarding President Obama’s most important objective, his re-election, he will have a foreign policy victory to trumpet. Presuming he is re-elected, what happens later in Burma is irrelevant. He is limited to two terms. We can prevent a complete betrayal by the U.S. by forcing it to pay attention to the real world, as Daw Suu in fact has done. The U.S. should not end its sanctions until all its benchmarks have been achieved. The by-election was only the first of these (and as we anticipated, it was not free or fair but nevertheless the regime allowed the NLD to win). There are still three benchmarks to go: The end of the civil war; the freeing of all political prisoners; and the hidden issue, which is often ignored, the nuclear and missile program cooperation with North Korea. If we, and Daw Suu, continue to demand that these benchmarks be met, we can force the U.S. to preserve the sanctions, and only eliminate them in response to demonstrable positive change. There is also another issue about the sanctions which no one has mentioned. They do not “belong” to the U.S. government. Rather, the sanctions are “owned” by the many Burma activists who pushed for them, who pressed Congress and then the President to act. As one of those activists - in the Spring of 1997 I was doing a photo show about Burma at a series of U.S. universities, which installation called for sanctions, when President Clinton signed the first law, actually an executive order prohibiting new investment - I feel like they are “our” sanctions. We, the U.S. activist community (most of which was affiliated with the Free Burma Coalition), and other groups such as the NCGUB, pushed for them and got them enacted. I personally want them to stay enacted until their job is complete, until Burma is irreversibly on the road to democracy and a path of appropriate social, political and economic development. (Of note: It is the new investment sanction of President Clinton’s executive order that the Administration announced the U.S.will now relax - ironically, by Bill Clinton’s wife, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Administration is able to do this because this sanction is not part of a congressionally-approved law, i.e., the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act or the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act.) We also need to guard against the Administration deceitfully dropping the nuclear/North Korea issue, which is actually, together with the geopolitical positioning relative to China, its greatest concern. To fully illuminate the depth of the deception that is now underway, I want to describe, once again, the State Department’s woeful response to my Freedom Of Information Act filing for the Report on Military and Intelligence Aid to Burma required under Section 10 of the Tom Lantos Act, and which report must include whatever intelligence the U.S. has about the nuclear program and its North Korean links. My April 2010 filing was accepted by State’s FOIA office that June, and it should then have been easy to fulfill. The Act requires that the report be prepared, for submission to the House and Senate foreign affairs and foreign relations committees, with an unclassified version to be placed on State’s website. Therefore, I was not asking for anything extra, something that would require a State foreign service officer to set aside time from his or her busy schedule to prepare. Under the FOIA, the agency in question has to respond within thirty days. I actually expected a response, but that it would say that my request had been denied. The FOIA allows a number of exemptions to information requests, the first of which is for “national defense or foreign policy.” I expected State, specifically the East Asian and Pacific Bureau, to say that it could not satisfy my request, and also the provision of Section 10 which requires the report’s publication, because it would be detrimental to U.S. security. We believe that the report has been prepared, given to the Congressional committees, and that it describes relations between U.S. allies such as Israel and Germany, and the Tatmadaw. Revealing this would be embarrassing. By claiming the exemption, these links can be kept hidden (and perhaps also older military cooperation between the U.S. and Ne Win, not to mention China’s involvement in the nuclear program.) EAP though refused to follow the law, indeed, both laws - FOIA and Tom Lantos. They just ignored the filing. I have had a series of discussions with officials at the State FOIA office, who have been very helpful. They have done everything in their power to get EAP to comply. Every month or two they send a “search tasker,” which request EAP then ignores. This month I escalated the process and a State FOIA officer talked to EAP’s Burma Desk Officer. This individual responded that the Burma department was busy and that they would need an additional six to nine months to release the report. (This after what is already now a two year delay.) This response, though, was a lie. The last BDO apparently never had time to satisfy the filing either. It is clear that what is really happening is that EAP Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell has instructed the department never to respond. State’s FOIA office told me that my only hope is “judicial review.” What this means is that I must hire a lawyer and sue EAP to get it to comply, which step frankly I can’t afford. EAP therefore itself has immunity, from its legal obligations, and like the criminals in the Tatmadaw it too can act with impunity. Does anyone think that any of this will change when Derek Mitchell, after Daw Suu, the biggest individual winner in the New Burma, is approved as Ambassador? Total and Chevron Probably what activists will regret more than anything is that the western oil companies Total and Chevron, who are clearly villains, absolutely culpable for the regime’s war crimes, are also winners in the New Burma. Starting with the No Petrodollars for SLORC campaign in the early 1990s, we tried - and failed - to force them to divest. Chevron, then Unocal, was given an exemption to President Clinton’s order, and the Tom Lantos JADE Act was postponed and then rewritten to protect it as well. The fact that these companies, like the regime, have gotten away with murder, is deplorable, all the more so because they can now expand their operations in Burma without restraint and exploit the country and the people even more. If Burma had gone free, a new democratic government could have carefully evaluated all of the regime’s contracts with multinational corporations, and invalidated them where appropriate. This opportunity is now lost. Instead, these companies, which helped the regime block democracy in Burma for decades, now get to profit even more from the reform. This is disgusting. The modern world, which Nan Bway Poung forsook, where the rich and powerful do everything they can to exploit the poor and weak, is truly a savage place. Right now, legions of corporate executives and bankers are drooling over Burma, like dogs around fresh meat. They have already begun to penetrate the country, as an invading army. Moreover, not only do they not care if it goes free, they prefer the status quo. Legitimized dictatorships are better for business. If Daw Suu, the NLD, internal activists who are still willing to protest, and the ethnic armies don’t stop it, Burma is open for business, and Everything and Everyone Is For Sale. Conclusion I’d like to conclude by saying that I hope I am wrong, about all of the above: about the New Burma, about Daw Suu, and even about deceptive and self-serving American diplomats. I’m a foreign activist who decided to dedicate his life to helping the people of the country. (There are lots of people like me.) I believe it is too early to tell if the reform is good or not, particularly for the ethnic nationalities. I dearly hope, however, that it does succeed and that in the coming months Daw Suu and the NLD make great inroads in Parliament on all of the above issues. To recall her famous words, we should hope for the best but plan for the worst. (It is not hope for the best and be blind to the rest!) If Than Shwe launches a new crackdown, the people of Burma need to be prepared to rise up, and, Daw Suu should publicly support this. The ethnic armies should never surrender their weapons. They need to continue to improve their cooperation with each other, maintain their operational readiness, and fight against all Tatmadaw aggression. Everyone needs to oppose the forthcoming corporate rape of Burma, including its diplomatic, media, academic, trade association, and economic consultant promoters. There is absolutely no need to rush. The people of the country do not need any new factories, mines, or pipelines this year or even next. Instead, they need food, water, schools, and clinics, and which the International Community should be prepared to help provide, and with no neoliberal economic development strings attached.

Kyi May Kaung's Analysis: April Fools' Day By-Elections in Burma in Asian Correspondent

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:40:11 PDT

http://asiancorrespondent.com/79400/burma-the-april-fools-day-by-election/

[Altsean-Burma] March 2012 Burma Bulletin

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 07:12:38 PDT

Dear Friends,

Please find attached the March 2012 issue of ALTSEAN Burma Bulletin.

The Burma Bulletin is a short month in review of events in Burma,
particularly those of interest to the democracy movement and human
rights activists.

In the March 2012 issue you will find:

* By-elections: threats, harassment, vote-buying, irregularities,
and censorship
* Tatmadaw violates peace agreements
* Media censored and intimidated
* Ojea Quintana's report
* UNHRC resolution
* Myitsone dam project still active
* List of Reports
* Much more...

The March 2012 Burma Bulletin is also available online at: http://bit.ly/H9zzdY

You can also receive daily Burma updates by following us on Twitter
http://twitter.com/altsean

Yours, in solidarity,

ALTSEAN-Burma

FBR: FBR: New Relief Teams Help over 1200 Children and Treat over 900 Patients in Northwestern Karen State

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:37:15 PDT

FBR REPORT: New Relief Teams Help over 1200 Children and Treat over 900 Patients in Northwestern Karen State

Karen State, Burma

30 March, 2012

	IN THIS REPORT
	Multi-ethnic teams complete mission in Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District Updates from around Karen State Relief teams complete missions in Bu Tho Township, Mu Traw District

Multi-ethnic Relief Teams Complete Mission in Moo Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District:

Mission Overview: Ethnic relief teams recently completed missions in the Moo Township of Kler Lwee Htoo District, in northwestern Karen State. Karen, Karenni, Lahu, Mon and Shan teams did Good Life Club programs and medical treatments at 6 IDP sites for people from 29 villages. All together, the teams helped over 1200 children through the programs and treated 922 patients. Additionally, representatives from each team visited the plains area of Moo Township and met with leaders from 24 relocation sites there.

Good Life Club program, northern Karen State

Education:

The teams interviewed teachers from 29 different schools in southwestern Moo Township. Of those schools only one was a high school. About 20% of children in the villages represented by these interviews cannot go to school either because they are needed to help their family or because they cannot afford to go to boarding school or refugee camp after they�ve finished the highest level of school offered in their village. The schools themselves rarely have enough school supplies and often must mix curriculum from the Karen Education Department with supplies bought in Burma Army-controlled villages. Besides basic school supplies, many teachers also request solar light kits and sports equipment.

In the plains area, west of the mountains, most of the villagers are living in relocation sites under control of the Burma Army. Education is controlled by the central government. Most schools in the relocation sites are grammar schools while high schools are in the cities and most students cannot afford to board in the city and attend school.

Health:

None of these villages have clinics. In the plains area there are Burma Army-controlled clinics but few villagers can afford to go to them. Common illnesses are dysentery and malaria and severity depends often on the time of year.

Medics caring for young girl after surgery

Giving out glasses while on a mission in northern Karen State

Plains Visit:

FBR teams also visited brown zone areas in the plains. Because of Burma Army control throughout the area, they were only able to meet with a few village and church leaders from each village in the area. These churches and villages are in brown zone areas of Karen State; they have all been forcibly relocated and live side-by-side with the Burma Army. They are regularly subjected to forced labor and arbitrary taxation and frequently imprisoned, tortured and killed by Burma Army soldiers. They can be imprisoned on any pretext and jailed without trial. They are forbidden contact with their organization, the Karen National Union (KNU), and so receive none of the services offered by the KNU, such as education and health assistance. Despite this, the underground resistance is strong.

Looking back at the mountains from the plains.in Karen State

(The following report and information was sent out on 3 February 2012, and can also be found at: http://www.freeburmarangers.org/Reports/2012/20120203.html)

Standing for Freedom in the Midst of Change - a Report from the Field.

(For the security of the people we met in the relocation sites, we have not included pictures from the plains)

Here in Burma there are some good changes, yet oppression continues and in some areas such as Karen and Kachin States, shooting by the Burma Army continues.

The sun is coming up after a night movement from the mountains down to the plains of Burma. It is here that the Burma Army has feudal rule with tight control over people's lives and camps surrounding the forced relocation sites. Up in the mountains the Burma army shoots to kill, but there is room to get away and the resistance is strong enough to slow and sometimes stop Burma Army attacks. Two days ago in the mountains, we could hear the Burma Army shelling towards Karen villages as they advanced to supply their camps. In Kachin State our team is helping over 40,000 IDPs displaced in ongoing attacks.

Down in the plains the Burma Army has almost complete control. But it is impossible to fully control people who have the conviction that all people are equal in the sight of God and that this is their home. Here in Burma we still face giants, but we do not face them alone.

We moved like mice in between the Burma Army camps and patrols to meet the people in the relocation sites. We met them in the bushes and trees that separated the miles and miles of rice fields. "The church is the greatest source of unity here," the local underground resistance leader told us. "Oppression, imprisonment and death has caused fear to grow in us and between us, breaking down our trust and unity."

As we prayed about our meetings with the people here, our medic, Eliya, shared these words from Psalm 100: "Make a joyful shout to the Lord all you lands, serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing, know that the Lord, He is God, it is He who has made us and not we ourselves, we are His people and the sheep of His pasture, enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise, be thankful to Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endures to all generations."

We did not make ourselves, God made us and we are His and we also belong to each other. We can live with joy and boldly, knowing we are God's children. From this relationship with God and each other, come the convictions that we live and act on. We met Karen Christians, Burmese Buddhists and Karen Buddhists and felt close to all. Into our little hide site came a man we had met on the last mission to the plains, the father of one of our team members and the leader of the underground here. He was beaming and under his thin windbreaker showed us the FBR t-shirt he dared to wear. He smiled proudly and then grabbed my arms and we began to wrestle like we did when we met last year. He was testing my strength, courage and sense of humor, and to see if we were still brothers. I call him "Big bear" as he is a very stout and strong man, built like a Mongolian warrior, with a bull neck, broad chest, powerful arms, and tree-stump like legs. His smile is clear and the love of life shines through him.

Later that night we met other church leaders and for the next four days and nights moved and met many leaders from different relocation sites. We prayed together and shared experiences and listened to their thoughts, needs and convictions. An elder told us, "I had to watch every step to come here. No matter what is said about changes, the Burma Army can still kill you anytime. We are glad you came and we pray for the end of restrictions we live under." Another man from this village told us of two farmers who were shot by Burma Army troops two months ago, one a father of four, killed, and another one wounded.

Another church leader said, "We have been forced to move three times. The Burma Army just told some of us that we could go back home, but when we asked about proof in writing, there was none. Is it a trap? Going back to our original homes can be true vision if we pray. I know God's plans are above ours, and dreams like this can come true."

A woman's group leader told us, "We need to be free. We want unity and we also need help with our schools, churches and Early Child Care Development programs."

One man had just been released from prison after serving five years after being accused of helping the KNU. "I was beaten badly when I was arrested and then taken to Toungoo prison. There I was fed rice and salt water. I was watched all the time and only allowed to pray in Burmese and not in my Karen language. I spent much time in solitary. I knew the Karen lady medic who was captured and saw her in prison too."

Another man in his 60s told us, "Last year, I was captured by the Burma Army on the trail and had four of my teeth knocked out by the soldiers. I was beaten with sticks and clubbed with a rifle to my entire body. After six days of torture my friends were able to pay 300,000 kyats to the army and I was released."

A pastor told us, "Things have gotten a little better and we are stopped at checkpoints less than before. After 60 years of war, hearts need to change. My message to Aung San Suu Kyi is, 'Please remember the ethnic people of Burma.' All of us should be united, and for me the church is the central pillar of unity. We want all churches to be free. We do not want to have to apply for permission as we do now. Now we have to apply for permission to hold special church events, for building projects, and for any traveling we want to do. I do want to thank you all for the gifts you gave us last time and for the bibles and hymnals. We used the gift to make a wooden library to safely store all of our bibles, hymnals and books. Now we need more Bibles and hymnals. Thank you so much and may God bless all of you."

We committed to helping each community and church as much as we could and are grateful for the help of Partners and others. As we talked, I told them about how the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood for the Jews and other oppressed people in WWII. Bonhoeffer gave up his life to stand against Hitler's Nazi oppression. Bonhoeffer died in a concentration camp just before the war ended and freedom came. Even the end of World War II did not mean freedom for all. For many in Eastern Europe, China and other places, oppression under another name continued. Last year the former Czech President, Vaclav Havel, died. He was one of many who stood for freedom until Eastern Europe too was free. He was a friend of FBR and here in Burma we paid tribute to him with a memorial service, prayer and song. Here in Burma, like Havel and Bonhoeffer, we are directed by the conviction that God wants us to stand with and help His people be free. God's power of love brings change in each of us and helps us to move forward together to be part of His freedom, mercy and grace everywhere.

Thank you and God bless you,

Dave, family and FBR teams.

Karen State, Burma.

Updates from Around Karen State

Doo Pla Ya District From 16-23 January 2012, Burma Army soldiers shot at villagers, and forced villagers to support their resupply activities. Burma Army Infantry Battalions (IBs) 61 and 62, and Light Infantry Battalions (LIBs) 591 and 343 advanced and secured the road in the Anankwin and Thaphuzaya areas. They resupplied food and supplies. When they arrived at Anankwin Village, they told villagers to make baskets for their loads. They demanded four baskets from Htee Kler Ni, Ten from Htee Ler Hsaw, ten from Lu Shah and ten from Mae Klu villages, Win Ye Township, Dooplaya District, south- central Karen State.

On 18 January, a soldier from Burma Army LIB 562 (battalion commander Kyaw Soe Naing) under control of Military Operation Command (MOC) 5, shot a villager, Saw Pa Dah, 35 years old from Ta Pho Poh Hta Village, Noh Ta Kaw Township, Doo Pla Ya District. Saw Pa Dah was wounded in the leg.

Taw Oo District On 22 January, Burma Army and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) forces fought between Lay Day Burma Army camp and Play Hsa Lo camp at 1200 hrs. Burma Army had one killed and one wounded, the KNLA had no casualties. The clash occurred on the mule trail between Lay Day Burma Army camp and Play Hsa Lo (They Pu) Burma Army camp as the Burma Army was sending supplies to Play Hsa Lo camp. Play Hsa Lo, Htantabin Township, Taw Oo District, Northern Karen State.

Kler Lwee Htoo District

On 24 January, Burma Army troops mortared and shot machine guns into IDP and village areas in Kyaukkyi Township, Kler Lwee Htoo District, western Karen State. At 17:20 hrs on 24 January, Burma Army troops of the Southern Command, (Battalion 351 and Battalion 60 identified. One commander identified from Battalion 351- one Company Commander named They Ko) advanced on the Kyauk Kyi-Muthey- Hsaw Hta road, shooting mortars and machine guns into the surrounding area. Some of the mortar rounds were directed at the villagers of Khe Der Village Tract and in Khe Der Village itself the people are on alert. As the Burma Army moved they fired mortars, machine guns and small arms. Over 150 horses and mules are being used for their resupply operation now and we have a report of 60 trucks of ammunition, food and supplies but can confirm the 41 trucks we saw and videoed. We have not yet heard of any casualties however. The shelling was from Wa Me Kwee and Kler Soe camps.

Mu Traw District

On 24 January, Burma Army troops shot at villagers in Kay Pu area, Lu Thaw Township, Mu Traw (Papun) District, northern Karen State. At 0845 hrs on 24 January, Burma Army troops from MOC 9 shot at villagers near the old Kay Pu Village site. The Burma Army has a camp above the old village that was abandoned when the Burma Army attacked here in a major offensive in 2006. The villagers were animists on the way to a religious ceremony. The Burma Army was patrolling down into the IDP areas near the Plo Lo Klo River (south of the junction with the Yunzalin River). When the Burma Army saw the villagers, they opened fire. The villagers ran and no one was hurt.

On 28 January, Burma Army troops and KNLA troops shook hands at a road crossing near Ler Mu Plaw, Lu Thaw Township, Mu Traw District, northern Karen State. At 1145 hrs on 28 January, Burma Army troops on the Saw Mu Plaw-Baw Ga Li Gyi road between Saw Mu Plaw and Ler Mu Plaw, met KNLA troops on the road. The Burma Army called out, "Don't shoot, we will not shoot you."

The Karen soldiers responded, "We will not shoot you." The Karen troops moved out onto the road and talked briefly with the Burma Army troops.

The Burma Army troops said, "You can go back to your farms and villages now."

The Karen troops responded, "We cannot go back to our homes until you leave your camps and this area." The troops smiled and laughed together, shook hands and the Burma Army troops continued down the road.

Bu Tho Mission:

Starting 15 December 2011, the K5 Bu Tho FBR team began a mission to the Day Wah and Kyaw Pa village tracts in Bu Tho Township. They met students from 12 schools in this area, did medical treatment and observed and recorded Burma Army and Border Guard Force (BGF) activity. This was the first time these villages had received help from FBR.

In this area, Burma Army Division 11, Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 218 and BGF unit 1014 are active. They have been patrolling in the areas of Meh Nyaw Village, Na Kyaw Village and Pwa Day Mu village, and also in the Kyoe Lo, Thoo Mweh Hta and Meh Pa areas. LIB 218 is controlled by Tun Tun Nai. He has ordered the his troops to patrol in this area in groups of 20-30 soldiers. Division 11 has 80 troops all together. Also active in this area is the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, unit 3/3.

Enemy activity here has forced over 100 villagers into hiding, and several schools are shut down while the activity continues. In the Meh Lah area, school was shut down because of Burma Army and BGF activity, while the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA- a proxy force of the Burma Army) plans to build a dam there.

FBR mule team carries supplies into a village.

Team member practicing at mule training

Shan team leader prays before a program, northern Karen State

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[Altsean-Burma] Burma's by-elections: Still short of international standards

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:30:31 PDT

Dear Friends,

ALTSEAN-Burma has released a briefer titled �Burma�s by-elections: Still short of international standards.�

On 1 April, more than six million Burmese are eligible to go to the polls to elect less than 7% of the total number of seats in the National Parliament.

While the by-elections have limited political significance, they are important because they are being championed as an indicator of progress by the international community after the sham 2010 polls. Despite the hype, the bulk of laws and regulations that still govern Burma�s electoral process are the same as those applied in the widely-condemned 2010 elections.

In addition to the flawed election laws, another obstacle towards holding free and fair elections is the regime�s handpicked Election Commission. The body, which oversees all aspects of the electoral process, has repeatedly failed to act in an impartial and independent manner.

Despite pledges that the by-elections will be free and fair, regime authorities and the Election Commission have repeatedly obstructed the NLD�s campaign activities. Widespread irregularities, threats, harassment, vote-buying, and censorship have marred the electoral process in the lead-up to voting day. In addition, the regime disenfranchised over 200,000 voters in Kachin State.

The regime�s eleventh hour decision to invite external election monitors is a public relations ploy that is �too little, too late� to ensure adequate, effective, and independent monitoring of the electoral process.

The briefer is available at: http://bit.ly/Ha0Um1

You can also follow Burma�s by-elections on our by-elections special http://bit.ly/GUvO1H and twitter feed https://twitter.com/#!/ALTSEAN

Yours, in solidarity,

ALTSEAN-Burma

FBR: FBR: A Compilation of Burma Army Activities Since 12 January 2012

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:09:25 PDT

FBR REPORT: A Compilation of Burma Army activities since 12 January 2012, as of 23 March 2012

Karen State, Burma

23 March, 2012

	In This Report:
	As we continue relief missions in Burma we also are monitoring the situation as regards to the different stages of ceasefire negotiations and the situation the ground. There have been good reforms including the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and permission for her National League for Democracy to contest by-elections on 1 April 2012, freeing of some political prisoners and some relaxation in media censorship. However, Burma Army attacks, human rights abuses and troop movements continue in ethnic areas. The following are a compilation of Burma Army activities in Karen, Kachin, Karenni and Arakan States since 12 January 2012, the date of a preliminary agreement toward a ceasefire between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Government of Burma on 12 January 2012. One of the 11 points to which the government "agreed in principle" at that time was to cease fighting in all ethnic areas. As this is a compilation, all incidents have been previously reported unless otherwise noted.

Karen State

On 12 January 2012, a preliminary agreement toward a ceasefire was reached between the KNU and the government and both groups ordered their troops not to shoot at each other.

Taw Oo (Toungoo) District -- Northern Karen State

22 January. Burma Army and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) forces fight between Lay Day Burma Army camp and Play Hsa Lo camp at 12pm. Burma Army had one killed and one wounded, the KNLA no casualties. Burma army troops and KNLA troops fought on the mule trail between Lay Day Burma Army camp and Play Hsa Lo (They Pu) Burma Army Camp as the Burma Army was sending supplies to Play Hsa Lo camp. Play Hsa Lo, Htaw Ta Htoo Township, Taw Oo District, Northern Karen State.

The Burma Army has continued to resupply camps with food and troops. On 5 February 2012, Division 66 used vehicles and forced labor in the Kler Lah Area (Klay Soe Kee Village, Kaw Soe Koh Village, Gah Mu Der Village, and Der Doh Village) to carry food supplies from Ta Aye Hta Camp to Bu Hsa Kee Camp. On 3 February, Division 66, commanded by Win Bo Shew, arrived in Kler Lah Camp to take the place of MOC 9. On 1 February 2012, Light Infantry Battallion (LIB) 377 (stationed at Kler Lah Camp) forced one villager from Klay Soe Kee Village and two villagers from Der Doh Village to carry food from Klay Soe Kee Camp to Koe Day Camp. On 21 January 2012, the Burma Army sent food supplies from Moe Pya to Play Hsa Lo Camp. Food supplies have also been carried from Zaya Gyi to Tha Byae Nyunt and from Tha Bya Nyunt to Moe Pya. Military Operation Command (MOC) 9 also forced villagers from Play Hsa Lo Village, Yer Lo Village, Plow Baw Der Village, Hsu Lo Village, and Lay Gaw Lo Village to send 120 bamboo poles to build a new fence for Play Hsa Lo Army Camp.

Burma Army MOC 9 has stationed troops to secure the road between Bu Hsa Kee and Kay Pu in southern Taw Oo (Toungoo) and northern Mu Traw Districts, Karen State. On 9 March 2012 at 9:50am, a group of villagers tried to cross the road at Ka Thay Hta in the Si Day area. Before the villagers arrived to the road, local village defense volunteers went up to the road to check for security, and were fired on by Burma Army troops. One of the defense volunteers, Saw Lay La Thaw, age 23, died and one other was wounded.

Burma Army Division 66 is also securing the length of road from Kler La (Bawgali Gyi) to Bu Hsa Kee.

Mu Traw District -- Northern Karen State

New Information: In early March, the Burma Army sent two more units, Light Infantry Division (LID) 11 and LID 77, to the Pa Pun area including mortars, ammunition and other supplies. LID 44 is in the Thoo Mwe Hta area. On 9 March 2012, LID 44 left Ka Ma Maung Camp with eight six-wheel trucks and also forced villagers to use their trucks to help with transportation. They arrived to Ka Ter Hti Village and divided into two groups there.

New Information: On 5 March 2012, shooting occurred between the Burma Army and Karen local village defense volunteers in the Plow Ta area of Lu Thaw Township. More fighting occurred on 8 March 2012 between the Burma Army and village defense, leaving one of the Karen men dead and another wounded.

The military is sending food to Burma Army Camps throughout Mu Traw District, including Muthey Camp and Paw Kay Ko Camp. On 12 February 2012, the Burma Army sent Division 7 to Ler Mu Plaw Army Camp, Lu Thaw Township. Burma Army troops have been guarding the route from Mae Pray Hkee Camp to Meh Way Camp in Dwe Lo Township (Division 44 Headquarters) in efforts to protect roads used to transport food and supplies.

24 January, Burma Army troops shot at villagers in Kay Pu area, Lu Thaw Township, Mu Traw District, Northern Karen State. At 0845 hrs on 24 January, Burma Army troops from MOC 9 shot at villagers near the old Kay Pu village site. The Burma Army has a camp above the old village that was abandoned when the Burma Army attacked here in major offensive in 2006. The villagers were animists on the way to religious ceremony. The Burma Army was patrolling down into the IDP areas near the Plo Lo Klo river (south of the junction with the Yunzalin river). When the Burma Army saw the villagers, they opened fire. The villagers ran and no one was hurt.

Kler Lwee Htoo (Nyaunglebin) District -- Northwestern Karen State

On 16 February 2012 in Kler Lwee Htoo District, 15 Burma Army trucks carrying both food and army supplies arrived at Muthey Camp, afterwards going onto Paw Kay Ko Camp. The trucks carried 88 soldiers and one commander. Soldiers from Way Me Kwee Camp, Ee Tha Plaw Camp, and Thwein Boe Plaw Camp have recently cleared the brush near the car road.

24 January, Burma Army mortars and shoots machine guns into IDP and village areas in Ler Doh (Kyauk Kyi) Township. At 17:20 hrs on 24 January, Burma Army troops of the Southern Command, (Battalion 351 and Battalion 60 identified. One commander identified from Battalion 351- one Company Commander named They Ko) advanced on the Kyauk Kyi-Muthey-Hsaw Hta road, shooting mortars and machine guns into the surrounding area. Some of the mortar rounds were directed at the villagers of Khe Der village tract and in Khe der village itself the people are on alert. As the Burma Army moved they fired mortars, machine guns and small arms. Over 150 horses and mules are being used for their resupply operation now and we have a report of 60 trucks of ammunition, food and supplies but can confirm the 41 trucks we saw and videoed. We have not yet heard of any casualties however. The shelling was from Wa Me Kwee and Kler Soe camps.

Hpa-an District -- Central Karen State

In Hpa-an District, the Border Guard Force (BGF) forcibly confiscated weapons from three Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) Camps, including Yin Pine Camp, T'kot Poe Camp and Wa Kleh Mu Camp. On 19 February 2012, fighting between the DKBA and the BGF resulted in two DKBA soldiers dead, five BGF soldiers dead, one villager dead and one villager wounded in the Myai Gyi Ngu area.

Doo Pla Ya District -- South Central Karen State

New Information: On 4 March 2012 at 3:30pm, a 22-year-old woman was raped by a Burma Army soldier outside Thay Baw Boh Village, Kaw T'ree Township, Doo Pla Ya District, according to KNU officials present in the village at the time of the crime. The victim, Naw La Lay Poh (name changed to protect the victim), had gone to buy fish in another village and was on her way back to her village when she was assaulted. She was beaten, including being hit with a rifle butt. As the perpetrator ran from the scene, he dropped his identification card, which identifies him as Maung Tin Tway from Bago Region. He is part of Infantry Battalion (IB) 299, commanded by Zau Zau U (second-in-command is Aung Thoo Win) which is under MOC 19, commanded by Than Win. His battalion was patrolling in the area at the time.

16-23 January, Burma Army soldier shoots villager, Burma army force villagers support their resupply activates. From 16/1/2012 to 23/1/2012 SPDC IB 61, IB 62, LIB591 and LIB343 advanced and secured the road in the Anankwin and Thaphuzaya areas. They resupplied food and supplies. When they arrived at Anankwin village, they told villagers to make baskets for their loads. Four baskets from Htee Kler Ni, 10 from Htee Ler Hsaw, 10 from Lu Shah and 10 from Mae Klu villages, Waw Ray Township, Doo Pla Ya District, South Central Karen State.

18 January, a soldier from SPDC LIB 562 (battalion commander Kyaw Soe Naing) under control of MOC 5, shot a villager, Saw Pa Dah, 35 years old from Ta Pho Poh Hta village, Noh T'kaw township, Doo Pla Ya District. Saw Pa Dah was wounded in the leg.

On 29 January 2012, Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 346 asked villagers from Par Klaw Kee Village, Mae Ka Ti Village, Htee Yo Kee Village, Htee Mae Baw Village and Kyaw Kee Village to send 12 trailers of food to Mae Ka Ti Burma Army Camp. Each village was forced to carry 30 bags of rice. On 27 January 2012, the Burma Army increased troops in Seitkyi, Kaw T'ree Township with the addition of Military Operations Command (MOC) 19, which numbers approximately 240 soldiers. Two days later, an additional 170 soldiers arrived under MOC 19. Under Commander Myo Thant Zin, they replaced LIB 563 in the Ka Li Kee area.

Positive Encounters

28 January, Burma Army troops and KNLA troops shake hands at a road crossing. Ler Mu Plaw, Lu Thaw Township, Mu Traw District, Northern Karen State. At 1145 hrs on 28 January, Burma Army troops on the Saw Mu Plaw-Baw Ga li Gyi road between Saw Mu Plaw and Ler Mu Plaw, met Karen KNLA troops on the road. The Burma Army called out, "Don't shoot, we will not shoot you". The Karen soldiers responded, "We will not shoot you". The Karen troops moved out onto the road and talked briefly with the Burma Army troops. The Burma army troops said, "You can go back to your farms and villages now." The Karen troops responded, " We cannot go back to our homes until you leave your camps and this area." The troops smiled and laughed together, shook hands and the Burma army troops continued down the road.

New Information: On 13 March 2012, KNLA troops crossing the car road near Tha Dah Der Village, Lu Thaw Township, Mu Traw District, met Burma Army soldiers on the road and shook hands.

Kachin State

The Burma Army continues attacks in Kachin State and has not agreed to a ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Over 40,000 people have been displaced since the fighting began 9 June 2011. The Burma Army continues to reinforce troops. Fighting has reduced in some areas in recent months but is still frequent in the KIA's 4th Brigade area in Northern Shan State.

New Information: Fifty armed men from Burma Army Division 99, Battalion 69, fired mortars into a KIA Camp near Ban Htang Village at 2pm on 15 March 2012. Fighting continued until 4pm.

From mid-January, the Burma Army was attacking within six miles of Mai Ja Yang, a city and a refuge for over 1,000 displaced people who fled from other areas since fighting started in June 2011. On 13 January 2012, 60 elderly people who are unable to walk were taken by car to a new Internally Displaced Person (IDP) site.

On 12 January 2012, Division 88 and Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 321 shot a villager named Mi San, age 40 and a father of three, from Kawng Nan Village, Lwe Je Township. He was returning from his farm when he met the Burma Army troops. They arrested him, tied his hands, and made him walk in front of the soldiers to show the way. After one Burma Army soldier stepped on a landmine, the soldiers became angry and shot Mi San. The bullet went through his mouth and out the back. The KIA found his body and started to burn the body, but Burma Army soldiers began shooting, forcing the KIA to leave the site. The Burma Army is telling local villagers that KIA killed Mi San.

Karenni State

The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and the Government of Burma signed a ceasefire on 8 March 2012. The ceasefire did not include any restrictions on Burma Army movements in Karenni State. Twenty-three Burma Army battalions are operating in Karenni State.

Prior to this agreement the following incidents occurred since 12 January:

On 14 January 2012, IB 295, commanded by Aung Zey Ya, killed a village man in Karenni State.

On 15 January 2012 in Hpruso Township, after a battle between the Burma Army and the Karenni Army, Burma Army IB 54 killed a 35-year-old villager named Lu Reh in Htay Byar Nyae.

Arakan State

In Arakan State, the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) has agreed to ceasefire talks with the government, but the talks have not occurred yet.

New Information: At 12:30pm on 14 March 2012, as an Arakan FBR team was providing medical treatment at a village in Paletwa Township, security personnel posted outside the village were fired on by soldiers from Burma Army Battalion 232. No FBR members were hurt.

God bless you,

Free Burma Rangers

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FBR: FBR: Burma Army kills one, wounds one as villagers try to cross road in Northern Karen State

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 11:07:17 PDT

FBR REPORT: Burma Army kills one, wounds one as villagers try to cross road in Northern Karen State

Karen State, Burma

10 March, 2012

Burma Army Military Operation Command (MOC) 9 has stationed troops to secure the road between Bu Hsa Kee and Kay Pu in southern Taw Oo (Toungoo) and northern Mutraw Districts, Karen State. On 9 March 2012 at 9:50am, a group of villagers tried to cross the road at Ka Thay Hta in the Si Day area. Before the villagers arrived at the road, local village defense volunteers went up to the road to check for security, and were fired on by Burma Army troops. One of the defense volunteers, Saw Lay La Thaw, age 23, died and one other was wounded.

Map showing area of report

Burma Army Division 66 is also securing the length of road from Kler La (Bawgali Gyi) to Bu Hsa Kee.

God bless you,

Taw Oo District Free Burma Rangers

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FBR: FBR: Loss of a Ranger: Our Karenni Friend Hsaw Reh, a Karenni FBR team member who died bringing aid to Internally Displaced People

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:08:11 PDT

FBR REPORT: Loss of a Ranger: Our Karenni Friend Hsaw Reh, a Karenni FBR team member who died bringing aid to Internally Displaced People.

Karenni State, Burma

15 March, 2012

On March 6, 2012, eight months into a long range relief mission, Hsaw Reh drowned while crossing the Pon River in central Karenni State. He was going to get a restock of medicine so his team could continue their mission. Hsaw Reh was 23 and single. We are saddened by his death and extend our love and sorrow to his family, his team and the KNPP (Karenni National Progressive Party). His loss will be greatly felt not just by all of us but also by those people he served so faithfully.

Karenni FBR team member Hsaw Reh

Karenni FBR team member Hsaw Reh first attended FBR training in 2009. He was 20 years old and decided he wanted to help his people by helping them tell their story, by documenting the abuses of the Burma Army - he decided to become a digital cameraman. After his first year of missions to Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Karenni State, he decided to become a medic and attended medic training in 2010. Afterward he returned to the IDP areas to bring medical aid to the people there.

Hsaw Rey and Karenni FBR team in action

We will miss him. At the same time we are inspired by his life and his example of perseverance and sacrifice. He spent much of his time on relief missions. To Hsaw Reh we want to say, "Thank you and we thank God for you. You were a good teammate and you served your people well - you are an honor to your family, your team and your people and we are blessed to have known you. We look forward to meeting you in what the Karen call 'the undiscovered land.' "

To his family we want to say, "We are so sorry for the loss of your son - we know that no words can replace him. We love him and love you and are honored to have known and worked with him." Hsaw Reh died for freedom and for love and we are reminded of Jesus' words, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

May God bless you,
The Free Burma Rangers

Hsaw Rey (left) and team carry patient in relay.

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Kyi May Kaung's say on Sanctions - still relevant

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:00:52 PST

II. ‘SANCTIONS ARE FOR AN ETHICAL OR MORAL REASON’ As part of a new strategic dialogue, Kyi May Kaung - a Burmese dissident, artist, poet, and political analyst living in exile - replies to a crucial question asked by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF): Which is the best way to effect change in Burma - through sanctions against the government, by engaging the leadership, or some combination of the two? Here are some excerpts [FPIF: 18.1.07] BURMA now is second only to North Korea as a rogue regime, to use the phrase first used by Noam Chomsky. With North Korea, I have heard Wendy Sherman of the Albright Group argue for more engagement, and with respect to North Korea, I agree with her. But North Korea is much more a hermit kingdom than Burma is, and we know much less about it. And so there can be an argument for the United States “engaging” with North Korea just to know what is going on and to have some leverage. In the Burmese case, however, the outside world knows a great deal already, more than enough. The United States has very little trade with Burma. As one Burmese dissident from the 1988 generation pointed out at a seminar in Washington D.C. last fall, “we don’t need to go to Burma to find out about Burma. There are thousands of refugees in Thailand and elsewhere, and we can find out everything we need to know from them.” Chiang Mai in northern Thailand is fast becoming the base for many foreign non-profits, Western and Australian expatriates, Burmese refugees, and Burma watchers. In the eye of the storm, in Rangoon itself, there is often a false calm due to the news blackout. A senior broadcaster who once worked at the Voice of America called this “Rangoonitis.” It often affects even western diplomats who unconsciously start to echo the junta’s statements. So, in terms of a token engagement in order to find out more about the system and how it operates, there is very much less of an argument in the Burmese case. … Sanctions and Burma have been an academic and policy issue for Burma watchers and foreign policy makers since at least 2001. At that time, the international sanctions movement picked up steam, with great success in divestment achieved by organizations such as The Free Burma Coalition (up to 2003) and Burma Campaign UK. Since then, the junta has sent overseas a steady stream of apologists to argue that sanctions hurt Burma. But their arguments have not been convincing at all. Alfred Oehlers has argued convincingly that sanctions in Burma are not scattershot but finely focused and have minimal “collateral damage.” There is no ban on travel to Burma or on exports, including food and medicines. To my mind, sanctions in the case of Burma are meant to send a message, to hurt but not to totally bring down a regime. When a tourism ban to Burma was first discussed in the early 1990s by one of the very first Burmese activist groups, the Canadian Friends of Burma, I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the junta will understand nothing except what hurts their pocket book; on the other, total isolation might not be the best idea. Burma-born economist Ronald Findlay, who is an international trade theorist, told me at the time that “sanctions are for an ethical or moral reason.” Later, at an Open Society Institute event in 2004, he said, “Collapse is not an economic term.” By this I think he meant that a nation can go on for decades without a regime change, hanging on at the survival level. … The anti-sanctions faction argues for removing sanctions and visa bans against officials and families of the Burmese military regime. But it is impossible to ignore the fact that human rights abuses not only still exist in Burma, they are growing more numerous, more widespread, and also more blatant. Should we listen to the testimony of one million internally displaced persons inside Burma, thousands of political prisoners, and thousands of refugees outside the country? Or should we be taken in by the “arguments” of a few individuals who support engaging with the Burmese generals. Should the free world appear to “reward” such a horrible regime? 

FBR: FBR: Forced Labor, Torture and Military Activity Still Present in Karen State

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:10:26 PST

FBR REPORT: Forced Labor, Torture and Military Activity Still Present in Karen State

Karen State, Burma

5 March, 2012

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

This report includes documents ongoing abuses since the initial January 12th agreement (one between the Karen National Union and the Burmese government which laid the foundation for future ceasefire discussion), as well as previously unreported abuses prior to that. It contains information gathered by teams working throughout Karen State and includes the following:

Torture, Human Shields, Forced Labor and Military Activity in Doo Pla Ya District
Killing, Forced Labor, Property Confiscation and Military Activities in Taw Oo (Toungoo) District
Forced Labor, Military Activity and Flooding in Kler Lwee Htoo (Nyaunglebin) District and Mutraw District
Forced Labor in Mergui/Tavoy District (Tenasserim Region)
Forced Labor and Fighting in Hpa-an District

Warning: This report contains graphic images.

Doo Pla Ya District -- South Eastern Karen State

On 12 December 2011, in response to clashes with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA -- prodemocracy ethnic resistance) in the days prior, Infantry Battalion (IB) 283 (led by Myo Myint Kyaw) ordered the arrest of the Ta Ku Kee Village headman, pastor and multiple other villagers. In total, 60 villagers were taken to Ko Kgaw Klow Village. All but five villagers were released shortly afterwards. The five individuals were detained because they were falsely accused of being KNLA soldiers. In pursuit of confessions, Burma Army soldiers tied up and blindfolded the villagers and proceeded to torture them. The villagers were held for almost two months, being released on 6 February 2012. The five are listed below:

Saw Wah Nu, 30 years old, was beaten with bricks and hit in the head with a pistol.

Saw Hsaw Bush, 27 years old, was hit in the face while detained.

Saw Kyaw Pleh, 24 years old, was beaten with bricks, which broke his leg.

Saw Toh Kee Baw, 30 years old, was hit with bricks to his legs and face.

Saw Thay Chit, 18 years old, was hit in the head while detained.

On 14 December 2011 in Waw Ray Township, IB 62 (led by Ko Ko Oo) captured Noh Sho Ner villagers near Noh Sho Ner Village. The villagers captured were Saw Htin Myint, 28 years old, and Pa Do Hsaw, 45 years old. The following day, Burma Army soldiers captured 29-year-old Saw Than Htin and 45-year-old Saw Min Than. Both men were forced to carry supplies as well as serve as guides. On 16 December 2011, Saw Pa Do Hsaw and Saw Thi Myint escaped because they were no longer able to carry their loads. On 17 December 2011, Saw Min Than and Saw Than Htin were then released.

In Kaw T'ree Township on 18 December 2011, LIB 357, Column #1 and Column #2, combined to make 100 soldiers in total. On 20 December 2011, the combined LIB 357 took villagers from Kya Ka Wa Village to serve as human shields from Kya Ka Wa Village to Daw Plaw Village. The villagers that were taken are listed below.

Naw Plet -- 52 years old.
Ye Tu Htee -- 52 years old.
Eh Naw Gay -- 30 years old.
Naw Ree -- 34 years old.
Kay Mu Dah -- 29 years old.
Sa Daw Na Maw Dah -- 43 years old.
Day Naw -- 47 years old.
Naw Kho Mi -- 40 years old.
Ma Nay Tha -- 40 years old.
Na Ma Htin -- 38 years old.
Ta Poe Tu -- 29 years old.
Naw Hsaw Paw 53 old
Naw Lay Ku -- 54years old.
Naw Ker Ler -- 49 years old.
Naw Moh Loh -- 40 years old.
Naw Htoo -- 53 years old.
Naw Mu Thaw -- 50 years old.
Naw Lee Pra -- 29 years old.
Naw Lu -- 52 years old
Naw Aye Nay -- 50 years old.
Mu Tu -- 34 years old.
Naw Paw Nyee -- 36 years old.
Na Mu Naw -- 54 years old.
Naw Mu Kler -- 48 years old.
Pee Klay Nay -- 46 years old.
Mu Kya Paw -- 60 years old.
27. Naw Pet Bu -- 67 years old.
28. Naw Dah Heh -- 48 years old.

14 October 2011, Burma Army soldiers captured the Kwee Ler Shu Village headman and live stock. The same day, they also went to Taw Oo Hta Village, where they took the headman and the villagers' live stock. On 12 October 2011, three battalions under Light Infantry Division 22 (LIB 201, 203, 315) entered Ta Oo Hta Village, forcing the villagers to flee. The soldiers occupied the village for days, confiscating the villagers' rice.

On 4 September 2012, fighting broke out between KNLA Battalion 16 and LIB 543, in the area between Jauke Ku Village and Myin Tha Ya Village in Waw Ray Township. During the fighting, the Burma Army sent 13 mortars into Jauke Ku Village. After fighting, they entered Jauke Ku Village and shot at villagers' houses, damaging their homes and killing their animals. The following are people who lost property:

1. Saw Kyaw Hlaing - 63 years old. His house was damaged by Burma Army soldiers' gunfire.

2. Saw Par Nga Pan -- 32 years old. Burma Army soldiers took 1000 Bhat from his bag.

3. Father of Naing Dee - age unknown. Burma Army soldiers took his Casio watch.

4. Saw U Sein Myint - 43 years old. His house was damaged by Burma Army soldiers gunfire

5. Saw Hta Paung - 40 years old. Burma Army shot and killed his male ox and wounded two cows.

6. Naw Pa Doh - 45 years old. Her male ox was shot and killed by the Burma Army.

Two days later, LIB 566, led by Commander Tin Za Lin, arrived in A'plon Village. There they stole 3000 Baht, 300 Kyat two ducks, one mobile phone, one MP4 player, eight boxes of cigarettes, three gallons of fuel, and various medications. On 19 August 2011, LIB 346, led by Commander Zaw Min Hteh, captured and killed Par Klaw Poh, a villager from Ler Kgaw Village, Kaw T'ree Township. On 20 August 2011, LIB 549, led by Commander Kyaw Zay Ya, stole 850,000 Kyats and gold in Ka Meh Koh Village, Kaw T'ree Township. The following day, when the owner asked for his money and gold back, the soldiers only returned 350,000 kyat. On 5 June 2011, both columns of LIB 373 combined, under Commander Aye Min Soe, and forced villagers from Myine Tha Ya Village and A'plon Village, Waw Ray, to porter and serve as human shields while soldiers patrol.

Taw Oo (Toungoo) District- Northern Karen State

On 27 August 2011, LIB 540 (based in Ta Aye Hta Camp) shot and killed two villagers from Hsaw Wah Der Village in a betelnut grove while patrolling. The two villagers were Saw Ka Theh (32 years old) and Saw B Eh (23 years old). On 1 September 2011, soldiers forced 41 men and 64 women to clean the Play Hsa Lo Army Camp. The same day, soldiers shot Saw Hsar Bu, a 54-year-old civilian, because he was in the betelnut grove against instruction from the Burma Army.

In recent weeks, the Burma Army has continued to resupply camps with food and troops. On 5 February 2012, Division 66 used vehicles and forced labor in the Kler Lah Area (Klay Soe Kee Village, Kaw Soe Koh Village, Gah Mu Der Village, and Der Doh Village) to carry food supplies from Ta Aye Hta Camp to Bu Has Kee Camp. On 3 February, Division 66, commanded by Win Bo Shew, arrived in Kler Lah Camp to take the place of MOC 9. On 1 February 2012, LIB 377 (stationed at Kler Lah Camp) forced one villager from Klay Soe Kee Village and two villagers from Der Doh Village to carry food from Klay Soe Kee Camp to Koe Day Camp. On 21 January 2012, the Burma Army sent food supplies from Moe Pya to Play Hsa Lo Camp. Food supplies have also been carried from Zaya Gyi to Tha Byae Nyunt and from Tha Bya Nyunt to Moe Pya. MOC 9 also forced villagers from Play Hsa Lo Village, Yer Lo Village, Plow Baw Der Village, Hsu Lo Village, and Lay Gaw Lo Village to send 120 bamboo poles to build a new fence for Play Hsa Lo Army Camp.

Kler Lwee Htoo (Nyaunglebin) and Mu Traw District- Northern Karen State

On 16 February 2012 in Kler Lwee Htoo District, 15 Burma Army trucks carrying both food and army supplies arrived at Muthe Camp, afterwards going onto Paw Kay Ko Camp. The trucks carried 88 soldiers and one commander. Soldiers from Way Me Kwee Camp, Ee Tha Plaw Camp, and Thwein Boe Plaw Camp have recently cleared the brush near the car road. On 28 December 2011 in Moo Township, the Burma Army sent 36 supply trucks to Thay Pyi Nyut Camp, along with 80 soldiers and 50 mules. The following day, soldiers forced villagers from Lei Lan Ku Village, Kyauk Kyu Pauk Village, and That Pyt Nyut Village to take food to Moe Pya Camp. On 1 January 2012, LIB 599 forced villagers from Yulo and Kamulo to send food to Moe Pya and Lay Day Burma Army Camps. On 30 December 2011, LIB 590 demanded 5000 kyat from each villager using a bull lock cart to work their fields in Kyaun Pya Village, Kyun Bin Seik Village and Ng Lauk Tek Village. On 5 December 2011, 500 soldiers arrived in Kyauk Kyi and Than Bo (Infantry Battalion 60 Headquarters). On 24 September 2011, LIB 599, Commanded by Soe Tin Lin, forced 30 men from Tat Kon Village to perform sentry work in the area. On 27 October 2011, the same battalion forced villagers to clean the ground to prepare for the building of a small airport at Tay Pyu Nyunt Burma Army Camp.

The military is sending food to Burma Army Camps throughout Mu Traw District, including Muthe Camp and Paw Kay Ko Camp. On 12 February 2012, the Burma Army sent Division 7 to Ler Mu Plaw Army Camp, Lu Thaw Township. Burma Army troops have been guarding the route from Mae Pray Hkee Camp to Meh Way Camp in Dwe Lo Township (Division 44 Headquarters) in efforts to protect roads used to transport food and supplies. While patrolling in November 2011, they captured two medics and used them as guides around the Township Headquarters. They later sent both medics back to be detained at a Burma Army Camp. Burma Army soldiers also killed one civilian from Ta Hu Law Village, Dwe Lo Township, who was forced to be a guide, but was later was accused of supporting the KNLA.

Flooding in the plains during the last wet season caused multiple difficulties for villagers. The flood water caused multiple deaths, including that of Pah Dah Pow from Kwee Lay Village, who drowned in his field and is survived by a wife and four children. In Lu Thaw Township, Naw Mu Si, 6 years old, and Saw Na Maw Htoo, 68 years old, both drowned. In Kaw Lu Der Village Tract, Lu Thaw Township, Saw Maw Eh, 70 years old, and his wife Naw Pwen, 60 years old, were also swept away by the water. The excess water will also create problems for farmers in the coming harvest. In Moo and Ler Doh Township, thousands of acres were flooded and a majority of the crops were destroyed. This may cause food shortages in the coming year.

Saw Na Mai Htoo drowned in a flooded field.

Mergui/Tavoy District (Tenasserim Region) -- Eastern Karen State

On 3 December 2011, Burma Army IB 560 demanded six porters each from Ta Ket and Nyaung Pin Village, which are both located in Tenassarim Division. If the villagers were unable to work, they had to pay 40,000 Kyat each.

Hpa-an District - Eastern Karen State

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Song for President Thein Sein by Pink

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:56:48 PST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz7pjusCFxM&feature=share

[Altsean-Burma] February 2012 Burma Bulletin

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:06:04 PST

Dear Friends,

Please find attached the February 2012 issue of ALTSEAN Burma Bulletin.

The Burma Bulletin is a short month in review of events in Burma,
particularly those of interest to the democracy movement and human
rights activists.

In the February 2012 issue you will find:

* NLD by-election campaign obstructed
* 'Peace agreements' in jeopardy
* KIA-Tatmadaw conflict rages on
* Activists and monks still harassed
* Regime HRC says 'no' to human rights probe
* Uncertainty surrounds foreign investments
* Number of IDPs grows
* List of Reports
* Much more...

The February 2012 Burma Bulletin is also available online at:
http://bit.ly/AvAByq

You can also receive daily Burma updates by following us on Twitter
http://twitter.com/altsean

Yours, in solidarity,

ALTSEAN-Burma

Myitsone Dam and other Dams in N. Burma - International Rivers Report

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:02:18 PST

http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/6876

Important conversation between Aung San Suu Kyi and veteran Kachin Leader

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 03:20:01 PST

Daw Inhpangyar-yar (spelled phonetically) met ASSK for dinner, and in response to ASSK's 2 questions 1. on origins of KIO (Kachin Independence Organization) 2. why there is no reconciliation - related how Aung San came to Kachin first for historic Panglong Treaty and how other major ethnic groups signed because they signed - with guarantee given by Aung San that they could secede in 10 years. - however Aung San was assassinated and U Nu sold off Kachin territory to China (in 1950s) - as for 17 year ceasefire, which is not "peace" yet, it was violated by SPDC. This is an informal summary - if you need more ask your (other) Burmese speakers to translate - to read the Burmese you need Zawgyi or other Burmese font. Daw Inhpangyaryar said they spoke for two hours, and ASSK listened so intently - as if it was all new to her, that "her neck seemed to be bent to one side." Daw Inhpangyaryar said she told Daw Suu, "Well, you were very young then and so you didn't know all this, and then you went overseas with your mother --" --- Those of you in the Burmese language media etc should have this translated and should follow up on this some more. As Stiglitz said, "National Reconciliation" has to come first. Kyi May Kaung --- On Tue, 2/28/12, xxx wrote: From: Subject: [8888peoplepower] Fwd: ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုကုိ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ(ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖြဲ ့နာယက)ေျပာခဲ့ေသာစကားမ်ား [1 Attachment] To: Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 4:43 AM [Attachment(s) from xxx included below] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Date: Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 4:36 PM Subject: Fwd: ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုကုိ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ(ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖြဲ ့နာယက)ေျပာခဲ့ေသာစကားမ်ား To: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Date: 2012/2/28 Subject: ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုကုိ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ(ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖြဲ ့နာယက)ေျပာခဲ့ေသာစကားမ်ား To: YPI – ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ကို ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့စကားေတြ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ကို ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့စကားေတြ by Yangon Press International on Saturday, 25 February 2012 at 08:25 · ျမစ္ႀကီးနား၊ ေဖေဖၚ၀ါရီ ၂၅၊ ၂၀၁၂ (YPI) (ဆိုင္းဆြတ္) ေဖေဖၚ၀ါရီလ ၂၃ ရက္ေန႔ ည ၈နာရီ ျမစ္ႀကီးနားၿမိဳ႕ မေနာကြင္း မဂ်ြယ္ခန္းမမွာ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္သို႔ စည္းရုံးေရး ခရီးစဥ္အျဖစ္ ေရာက္ရွိေနတဲ့ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္နဲ႔ တိုင္းရင္သား ေခါင္းေဆာင္းမ်ား၊ ဘာသာေရး ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားနဲ႔ ညစာအတူစားခဲ့ၾကပါတယ္။ ထိုစဥ္က ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖဲြ႔ နာယက ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ နဲ႔ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္တို႔ ေျပာဆိုၾကတဲ့အေၾကာင္းကို YPI သတင္းေထာက္က ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာကို ေမးျမန္းထားပါတယ္။ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ။ ။ ည ၈နာရီ ကေန စျပီး ၁၀ နာရီ ေလာက္အထိ စကားေျပာျဖစ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္ သူက အဖြားကို ေမးခြန္း ႏွစ္ခုပဲေမးပါတယ္။ အဲဒါေတြက ၁- KIA က ဘာလို႔ျဖစ္လာတာလဲ ၂ – ဒီေန႔အထိ ဘာေႀကာင့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ေဆြးေႏြးလို႔ မရေသးတာလဲ ဆိုတာကို ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္က ေမးခဲ့ပါတယ္။ အရမ္းအေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ေမးခြန္ေတြကို သူေမးခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ကြ်န္မ ျပန္ေျပာျပလိုက္ပါတယ္၊ အရင္ကတည္းက ကခ်င္ႏိုင္ငံဆိုျပီးရွိခဲ့တာပါ ဘယ္ဘုရင္ကမွ ဒီေနရာက ကခ်င္ေတြအတြက္ဆိုျပီး ေပးထားတာမဟုတ္ပါဘူး၊ ကခ်င္ေတြက ကိုယ္ေနရာ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံ ကိုယ့္ေဒသနဲ႔ ကိုယ္ ေနထိုင္ခဲ့ႀကတဲ့သူေတြျဖစ္တယ္၊ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံ ကိုယ့္ေနရာနဲ႔ကိုယ္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ျပီး ျငိမ္ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းခ်မ္း ေနထိုင္ခဲ့ ႀကတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြဟ ျမန္မာျပည္ဘက္ကိုလည္း မသြားဘူး ျမန္မာလူမ်ိဳးေတြကလည္း ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြကို ေတာသား လူရုိင္းေတြဆို ျပီး အရမ္းေႀကာက္ခဲ့တာ။ ျဗိတိသွ် အုပ္ခ်ဴပ္တုန္းက ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြဟာ စစ္ေရးစစ္ရာ တိုက္ခိုက္တဲ့ေနရာမွာ ကြ်မ္းက်င္တဲ့ လူမ်ိဴးေတြျဖစ္တယ္၊ ပထမ ကမၻာစစ္နဲ႔ ဒုတိယ ကမၻာစစ္ ဂ်ပန္ေခတ္ ေတြမွာ ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြ ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ား ပါ၀င္ တိုက္ခိုက္ပါ၀င္ခဲ့ႀကတယ္၊ ဒီလိုနဲ႔ ၁၉၄၇ ခုႏွစ္မွာ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဴပ္ေအာင္ဆန္း ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ကိုတက္လာတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ကြ်န္မ က အဲဒီအခ်ိန္ ၁၅ ၊ ၁၆ ႏွစ္ဘဲရွိေသးတယ္၊ အဲဒီတုန္းက ကြ်န္မ ႀကိဳဆိုဧည့္ခံေရး အဖဲြ႔မွာပါ၀င္ခဲ့တယ္၊ အခုက်ြန္မ အသက္ ၈၀ ေက်ာ္ျပီေလ၊ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဴပ္ေအာင္ဆန္းက ျဗိတိသွ် ေတြဆီက လြတ္လပ္ေရးရေအာင္ဆိုျပီး တျခားလူမ်ိဳးေတြဆီ မသြားပဲ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ကို အရင္လာတာျဖစ္တယ္။ ကခ်င္ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ႀကတယ္၊ အစကေတာ့ လြတ္လပ္ေရးမွာ မပါ၀င္ခ်င္ဘူး၊ ဒါေပမဲ့ ေအာင္ဆန္းက ကခ်င္တစ္က်ပ္ ဆို ျမန္မာတစ္က်ပ္ဆိုတဲ့ အခြင့္အေရးေပးမယ္ဆိုျပီး ျပည္ေထာင္စုမူ အရ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔ယူႀကမွပါ ခင္ဗ်ားတို႔ မႀကိဳက္ရင္လည္း ေနာက္ ၁၀ႏွစ္ေလာက္ဆို ျပန္ခဲြထြက္လို႔ ရတယ္ဆိုလို႕ ကခ်င္ေတြ ပင္လံုစာခ်ဳပ္မွာ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးခဲ့ႀကတာပါ။ ကခ်င္ေတြ ပင္လံုစာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္ဖို႔ သေဘာတူလို႔ ရွမ္းျပည္ကိုေရာက္တယ္ ရွမ္းေတြလည္း လြတ္လပ္ေရးကို မလိုခ်င္ႀကဘူး ဒါေပမဲ့ ကခ်င္ေနာင္ေတာ္ႀကီးေတြေတာင္ သေဘာတူတယ္ဆိုေတာ့ ဆိုျပီး ရွမ္းေတြလည္းသေဘာတူ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးခဲ့ႀကတယ္။ ျပီးေတာ့ ခ်င္းေတြ ျပန္ေရာက္လာတယ္ ခ်င္းေတြေရာ ဒီအတိုင္းဘဲ သေဘာမတူဘူး လြတ္လပ္ေရးကို မလိုခ်င္ႀကဘူး၊ ဒါေပမဲ့ ကခ်င္နဲ႔ ရွမ္းေတာင္ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးတယ္ဆိုျပီးသူလည္း သေဘာတူခဲ့တယ္၊ ပင္လံုမွာလက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးတာက ဗမာ ကိုယ္စား ေအာင္ဆန္း (ဖဆပလ) ေခါင္းေဆာင္ လက္မွတ္ထိုးတယ္ ကခ်င္၊ ရွမ္း၊ ခ်င္း ေလးဦး သေဘာတူျပီး ပင္လံုမွာ စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ုဳပ္ခဲ့တာျဖစ္ပါတယ္၊ ၁၉၄၈ ဇန္န၀ါရီ ၄ မွာ လြတ္လပ္ေရး ရတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ဒါေပမဲ့ ရွင့္အေဖ ေပးထားတဲ့ ကတိစကားကို ကြ်န္မတို႔ အရမ္းအားကိုးနားေထာင္ျပီး လက္ခံထားတာကို ေအာင္ဆန္းမရွိေတာ့လို႔ ကၽြန္မတို႔ အရမ္း၀မ္းနည္းျပီး စိတ္ပ်က္သြားတယ္၊ အဲဒီအခ်ိန္က စျပီး ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္ေတြက ဘာ အခြင့္အေရးမွ မရေတာ့တာပါ၊ ဦးႏုက ဖဆပလ (ဥကၠ႒) တက္လာေတာ့ ကခ်င္ေတြကို ဘာမွ မဟုတ္သလို ဆက္ဆံခဲ့တာပါ၊ ဒီလိုနဲ ့ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ တရုတ္ျပည္နယ္စပ္က ဖီေမာ္၊ လံကိုင္ နယ္ေျမကို ဘယ္သူ႕ကိုမွ မတိုင္ပင္ဘဲ တရုတ္ေတြကို ေရာင္းစားလိုက္တာဟုတ္တယ္။ ဒါေႀကာင့္ အရမ္း၀မ္းနည္းတယ္ အခုထိလည္း ၀မ္းနည္းေနတုန္းပါဘဲ။ ၁၉၆၂ မွာ ကၽြန္မတို႕ ကခ်င္ေတြ သူပုန္ထလာတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ဒါဘာျဖစ္လို႕လဲဆိုေတာ့ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ဘာသာ ဆိုတာကို ဘယ္သူ႕ကိုမွ တိုင္ပင္တာမရွိပဲ ဦးႏု သူ႕ဟာသူ စီစဥ္လုပ္ခဲ့တယ္ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္ဘာသာမွာ ဆိုရင္ (တစ္ႏိုင္ငံလံုး ဗုဒၶဘာသာ ျဖစ္ရမယ္ဆိုတဲ့ ဦးတည္ခ်က္နဲ႔သြားရမယ္) က်န္တဲ့ ခရစ္ယာန္ ၊နတ္စား ၊ စတဲ့ ဘာသာေတြကို ႏိွမ္သလိုျဖစ္လာျပီး ဒါေႀကာင့္ KIO ေတာ္လွန္ေရးစလာတာပါ၊ ကခ်င္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးကိုစခဲ့တာ ေနာ္ဆိုင္းဟုတ္ပါတယ္ ေနာ္ဆိုင္းက ရွမ္းျပည္ကေန ကခ်င္ဖက္ကိုတက္လာေတာ့ သူ႕ကို ဘယ္သူမွ ႀကိဳဆိုေထာက္ခံမဲ့သူ မရွိလို႔ ေနာ္ဆိုင္းက တရုတ္ကြန္ျမဴနစ္ေတြနဲ႔ ေပါင္းသြားတာျဖစ္တယ္။ ကၽြန္မတို႕ ကခ်င္ေတြက ျမန္မာေတြကို သတ္မယ္ျဖတ္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ စိတ္ဓာတ္လံုး၀ မရွိပါဘူး ဗမာကို မုန္းရေအာင္ေနာ္ဆိုတဲ့ စိတ္လည္းမရွိပါဘူး၊ ဒါေပမယ့္ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံကိုယ့္ျပည္ကို ကိုယ္ပိုင္ဆိုင္ခြင့္ အရင္က ပိုင္ဆိုင္သလို ပိုင္ဆိုင္ခြင့္ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံႀကီးပြားတိုးတက္ဖို႔ ကိုယ့္ေျခေထာက္ကိုယ္ ရပ္တည္သြားမယ္ ဆုိျပီး ေျပာႀကည့္ရင္လည္း မျဖစ္လို႔ ေတာ္လွန္ေရး KIO ဆိုတာ ျဖစ္လာတာဟုတ္တယ္၊ ဒီေန႔ အထိလည္း ဒါပါပဲ တျခားေတာ့ ဘာမွမဟုတ္ဘူး အပစ္ေခတ္ရပ္စဲေရးကို ၁၇ ႏွစ္ႀကာေအာင္ ျပန္လုပ္ခဲ့ျပီးျပီး က်ြန္မတို႔ အရမ္းေပ်ာ္ရြင္ခဲ့ပါတယ္၊ ဒီအပစ္ခတ္ရပ္စဲေရး လုပ္ျပီး ေတာ့ ေနာက္တစ္ဆင့္အေနနဲ႔ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး လုပ္ဖို႔ လိုအပ္လာတယ္၊ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္စဲေရးက ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးမဟုတ္ဘူး..ျငိမ္းခ်မး္ေရး ဆိုတာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအရ စားပဲြေပၚမွာ ျပဳလုပ္ဖို႔ျဖစ္တာ ဒါကို လုပ္ခြင့္မေပးဘူး KIO အေနနဲ႔ ခဏခဏေတာင္းဆိုတယ္ မလုပ္ေပးခဲ့ဘူး “ျပည္သူ႕အစိုးရေပၚလာေတာ့မယ္ မင္းတို႔ သိပ္မေလာႀကနဲ႔ ဆိုျပီးျပန္ေျပာတယ္” ျပည္သူ႕အစိုးရ ေပၚလာျပီး အစည္းအေ၀းေတာင္ မလုပ္ေသးဘူး သူတို႔ အရင္ပစ္တယ္ ၂၀၁၂ ဇြန္ ၉ မွာ စစ္စျဖစ္တယ္။ အခု ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္မွ ျမန္မာစစ္သား ၁သိန္းေက်ာ္ျပီး သိလား.. ဒံုးက်ည္ ၂ေသာင္း ေရာက္ေနတယ္.. အေျမာက္ေတြလည္း အမ်ားႀကီးေရာက္ေနတယ္ ကခ်င္နဲ႔ခရစ္ယာန္ေတြကို အျမစ္ျပတ္သြားေအာင္ လုပ္သြားမွာျဖစ္တယ္။ ဘာျဖစ္လို႕လဲဆိုေတာ့ အျပင္က ေလာဘ စိတ္ေႀကာင့္ဟုတ္တယ္ ကြ်န္မတို႔ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္မွာ သံယဇာတေပါမ်ားတယ္ ဒါေႀကာင့္နယ္ေျမကို လုယူပိုင္ဆိုင္ခ်င္လို႔ျဖစ္တယ္ လို႕ ကြ်န္မတို႕ ကေတာ့ ဒီလိုပဲ ထင္ႀကပါတယ္။ ကခ်င္လြတ္လပ္ေရးအဖဲြ႔ ကေတာင္းဆိုထားတာကက (၁) ပင္လံုစာခ်ဳပ္ ပင္လံုစိတ္ဓာတ္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးကို ႏုိင္ငံေရးလို စားပဲြေပၚမွာ ပင္လံု အေျခခံျပီး ေဆြးေႏြးမယ္ (၂ ) ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ ေရာက္ေနတဲ့ တပ္မေတာ္သားေတြ ကို ကိုယ့္ေနရာကိုယ္ျပန္ဆုတ္ခိုင္း ဒါဆိုရင္ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္မယ္ စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္မယ္ဆိုရင္ႏိုင္ငံတကာက လူေတြကိုေခၚျပီး စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္မယ္ဆိုျပီးေတာင္းဆိုထားတာ အခုထိေတာ့ဘာမွ အေႀကာင္းျပန္လာတာ မရွိေသးဘူး၊ ေဒၚစုက အံႀသစြာနဲ႔ လည္ပင္းေတာင္ ေစာင္းတယ္ ကၽြန္မေျပာတာကို နားေထာင္ေနတာ သူက ဘာမွမသိတဲ့ပံုပဲ မင္းကအဲဒီတုန္းက ငယ္ေသးတယ္ေလ ျပီးေတာ့ မင္းအေမေနာက္လိုက္သြားရေတာ့ ငါတို႕ဒီက သမိုင္းေႀကာင္းကို ဘာမွ မသိလိုက္ဘူးေပါ့ လို႕ကၽြန္မေျပာခဲ့တယ္။ အထက္က ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သည္မ်ားမွာ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အား ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာက ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သည့္ စကားမ်ားကို ၎ကိုယ္တိုင္ ျပန္လည္ေျပာျပတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ထိုေန႔ညက ရွင္းျပအၿပီး ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အား သူေျပာခ်င္တဲ့ စကားတစ္ခြန္းျဖစ္သည့္ “ျမန္မာ့နည္းျမန္မာ့ဟန္ ဆိုရွယ္လစ္ အခုလည္း ျမန္မာ့နည္းျမန္မာ့ဟန္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ မလုပ္ရင္ေကာင္းတယ္” ဆိုတာကို မီးပ်က္သြားတာေၾကာင့္ မေျပာလိုက္ရဘူးလို႔ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ က YPI ကိုျပန္ေျပာျပပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ့ေနာက္ YPI သတင္းေထာက္က ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ဘာေၾကာင့္ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္သို႔ လာသည္ထင္သလဲ ဟုေမးရာ “ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ပါတီစည္းရံုးေရး ထြက္လာတယ္ ထင္တာပဲ” လို႔ေျဖဆိုပါတယ္။ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ လာတဲ့အေပၚ ဘာေမွ်ာ္လင့္ထားလဲ ဆိုတဲ့ ေမးခြန္းကိုေတာ့ “ ဘာမွ ထူးထူးျခားျခား မေမွ်ာ္လင့္ပါဘူး၊ ပါတီစည္းရံုးေရး သက္သက္ပဲ ထြက္လာတယ္၊ တကယ္လို႔ သူေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမွာ ႏိုင္လို႔ လႊတ္ေတာ္မွာ ၀င္ထိုင္ျဖစ္ရင္ေတာ့ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္အတြက္ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္ အေတာ္မ်ားမ်ား ရွိတယ္ ” လို႔ေျဖသြားပါတယ္။

Burma soldier and Burmese-born US Marine

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:02:43 PST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EknTt3aCDKc&feature=relmfu In Burmese - summary The first interviewee compares what little he got from the Burmese government with the disability support he gets from the US government in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

FBR: FBR: Burma Army Killing and Raping Civilians in Karenni State

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:02:13 PST

FBR REPORT: Burma Army Killing and Raping Civilians in Karenni State

Karenni State, Burma

19 February, 2012

In This Report

The following information was collected from the five FBR teams in eight townships of Karenni State.

Map showing area of report

On 15 January 2012 in Hpruso Township, after a battle between the Burma Army and the Karenni Army, Burma Army IB 54 killed a 35-year-old villager named Lu Reh in Htay Byar Nyae. In December 2011, a Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 57 soldier raped Buu Leh (name changed to protect victim), a villager from Dah Weh Village in Sha Daw Township. On 25 November 2011, six soldiers from IB 428 and IB 531 who were stationed at a training base in Hpruso Township raped three women from Law Jar Village. On 14 January 2012, Infantry Battalion (IB) 295, commanded by Aung Zey Ya, killed a village man in Karenni State.

There are currently 23 Burma Army battalions operating in Karenni State with two to three battalions located within each township. Last month, seven battalions rotated in and out of the area. From 1 January 2012 to 28 January 2012, nine battles took place between the Burma Army and the Karenni Army (KA). Three of the battles took place in Sha Daw Township, two in Maw Chi Township with one battle each occurring in Loi Kaw Township, Baw La Ke Township, Hpruso Township and Demawso Township. The KA did not suffer any casualties in these battles, but the BA suffered a total of ten casualties and ten wounded. The Burma Army units involved were IB 250, IB 135, IB 248, IB 54, LIB 72 and Military Operations Command (MOC) 55. Burma Army soldiers are also stopping civilian vehicles on Shadaw Road, Bawlake Road, and a main hwy running into Thailand and forcing them to transport food, weapons and supplies.

Development Projects in Karenni State:

1) Mining taking place in Maw Chi Township and Ho Yar Village.

2) Three dams are projected with surveys presently being conducted. A 600 Megawatt (MW) dam will be built on the Salween River with smaller dams of 110 MW on the Thabet River and a 130MW on the Pawn River. The construction of the dams has been awarded to the Datang Corporation of China. The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) and the villages to be affected wrote letters to both the government of Burma and China protesting the construction of the dams. Over 200 people have already been forced to leave, with another 800-1000 people projected to be displaced by the end of construction.

3) There are two hydropower plants in Karenni State with one more projected to be built. One is located in Law Pi Ta Village.

4) A cement plant is under construction in Pa Kyaeh Village in Loi Kaw Township. Numerous villagers have already been relocated due to the construction.

5) In 2011, the Burma Army built more than 10 new Army bases in Karenni State, including a training camp in Hpruso Township.

Thank you and God Bless,

FBR Karenni Teams

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FBR: FBR: Medical school graduation at the Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:30:47 PST

FBR REPORT: Medical school graduation at the Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei

Karen State, Burma

15 February, 2012

The first class of the Free Burma Ranger medical school- Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei- graduated 20 new medics on 8 February 2012 in Karen State, Burma. We are grateful to Earth Mission, Partners, Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW) and others who help make the school possible. We are also thankful for the outstanding team of doctors, nurses and medics who operate the school and clinic. They are running an outstanding program of instruction that includes class room, interactive lectures and practical experience in the care of patients in the clinic the school supports here. The students also conduct medical missions to the surrounding villages under supervision of the instructors. Most of the students are FBR team medics but the school also helps to train medics from the KDHW.

First graduating class, Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei

Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei

After 10 months of training the medics joined the rest of the FBR relief teams who had just graduated from relief team training for a month long mission. While on this mission, with the help of senior medics, the new medics helped care for over 1,350 patients. Their compassion, hard work and skill in medicine brought comfort and healing to people in need. Upon completion of the mission the medics returned to the school to finish training and take their exams.

Lab work at the clinic, Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei

When some of us returned to Tha U Wa camp this week after the final mission, we arrived as the school's doctors and medics were operating on a little girl with a severe infection. The prayer, love, team work and excellence in surgery resulted in a little girl who was healed and a family relieved. This operation is only one of many ways the clinic and school changes life for the better for the villagers in the surrounding area. The school and clinic is a place of learning, growing and healing, and most of all it is a place of love.

Medical Students singing at graduation

Graduation was held on 8 February and now the newly trained medics are on their way back to their FBR teams and duties in the KDHW. The new students have arrived and the Jungle School of Medicine is now starting its second year of producing medics who give help, hope and love. Thank you to all of you who support the medical school, clinic and all of us here.

May God bless you,

The Free Burma Rangers

Karen State, Burma

Medical students treat patinest at clinic

Medics caring for young girl after surgery

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FBR: FBR: Ceasefires, Continued Attacks and a Friendly Encounter Between Enemies

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:55:09 PST

FBR REPORT: Ceasefires, Continued Attacks and a Friendly Encounter Between Enemies

Karen State, Burma

3 February, 2012

In This Report

Dear friends,

As we continue relief missions in Burma we also are monitoring the situation as regards to the different stages of ceasefire negotiations and the situation the ground. This update is sent from northern Karen State and includes information sent from other FBR teams in different areas of Burma. In some areas such as Arakan State, western Burma, where there are no ceasefire negotiations, the Burma army continues it operations. In other areas such as Kachin State, although there are negotiations, the Burma army is continuing operations with over 100 infantry battalions. In Karen State, there has been a significant reduction of fighting, but the movement of supplies and Burma army troop movement into Karen State continues. In the Karen State no ceasefire has yet been signed but both the Karen National Union (Karen ethnic pro-democracy resistance) and the Government of Burma have ordered their troops not to shoot at each other. The following are the incidents of hostilities as well as one incident of a friendly encounter from January 16 to present, 1 February 2012.

16-23 January, Burma Army soldier shoots villager, Burma army force villagers support their resupply activates. From 16/1/2012 to 23/1/2012 SPDC IB 61, IB 62, LIB591 and LIB343 advanced and secured the road in the Anankwin and Thaphuzaya areas. They resupplied food and supplies. When they arrived at Anankwin village, they told villagers to make baskets for their loads. Four baskets from Htee Kler Ni, 10 from Htee LerHsaw, tenfrom Lu Shah and ten from Mae Klu villages, Win Ye Township, Dooplaya District, South- central Karen State.

Burma Army supply convoy at Muthey advancing into Karen State 22 January 2012

Burma Army troop communicates as resupply advances to Play Hsa Lo camp 22 Januray 2012

18 January, a soldier from SPDC LIB562 (battalion commander Kyaw Soe Naing) under control of MOC 5, shot a villager, Saw Pa Dah, 35 years old from Ta Pho Poh Hta village, Noh Ta Kaw township, Dooplaya District. Saw Pa Dah was wounded in the leg.

22 January. Burma Army and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)- forces fight between Lay Day Burma Army camp and Play Hsa Lo camp at 1200 hrs. Burma Army had one killed and one wounded, the KNLA no casualties. Burma army troops and KNLA troops fought on the mule trail between Lay Day Burma Army camp and Play Hsa Lo (They Pu), Burma Army camp as the Burma Army was sending supplies to Play Hsa Lo camp. Play Hsa Lo, Tantabin Township, Toungoo District, Northern Karen State.

Burma Army troops and convoy in Muthey in advance into Karen State 22 January 2012

Burma Army troops enter Play Hsa Lo village 22 January 2012

24 January, Burma Army mortars and shoots machine guns into IDP and village areas. Ler Doh (KyaukKyi township) Nyaunglebin District, Western Karen State. At 17:20 hrs on 24 January, Burma Army troops of the Southern Command, (Battalion 351 and Battalion 60 identified. One commander identified from Battalion 351- one Company Commander named They Ko) advanced on the KyaukKyi-Muthey- Hsaw Hta road, shooting mortars and machineguns into the surrounding area. Some of the mortar rounds were directed at the villagers of Khe Der village tract and in Khe der village itself the people are on alert. As the Burma Army moved they fired mortars, machineguns and small arms. Over 150 horses and mules are being used for their resupply operation now and we have a report of 60 trucks of ammunition, food and supplies but can confirm the 41 trucks we saw and videoed. We have not yet heard of any casualties however. The shelling was from Wa Me Kwee and Kler Soe camps.

24 January, Burma Army troops shoot at villagers in Kay Pu area, Luthaw Township, Muthraw (Papun) district, Northern Karen State. At 0845 hrs on 24 January, Burma army troops from MOC 9 shot at villagers near the old Kay Pu village site. The Burma Army has a camp above the old village that was abandoned when the Burma army attacked here in major offensive in 2006. The villagers were animists on the way to religious ceremony. The Burma army was patrolling down into the IDP areas near the Plo lo Klo river ( south of the junction with the Yunzalin river). When the Burma Army saw the villagers, they opened fire. The villagers ran and no one was hurt.

Burma Army troops on road before handshake with Karen soldiers 28 January 2012

28 January, Burma Army troops and KNLA troops shake hands at a road crossing. Ler Mu Plaw, Luthaw, Muthraw district, Northern Karen State. At 1145 hrs on 28 January, Burma Army troops on the Saw Mu Plaw-Baw Ga li Gyi road between Saw Mu Plaw and Ler Mu Plaw, met Karen KNLA troops on the road. The Burma Army called out, "Don't shoot, we will not shoot you". The Karen soldiers responded, "We will not shoot you". The Karen troops moved out onto the road and talked briefly with the Burma Army troops. The Burma army troops said, "You can go back to your farms and villages now." The Karen troops responded, " We cannot go back to our homes until you leave your camps and this area." The troops smiled and laughed together, shook hands and the Burma army troops continued down the road.

Karen and Burma Army troops shake hands on a road in Northern Karen State. 28 Jan 2012

Good Life Club Program with IDPs

Karen FBR medics treat a burn victim

Relief supplies and FBR on the move to help IDPS

Shan FBR medics treat Karen pateint

Karen mother using early warning radio network before movement

Included here is a report we sent out during this time.

Standing for Freedom in the Midst of Change - a Report from the Field.

(For the security of the people we met in the forced relocation sites, we have not included pictures from the plains) Here in Burma there are some good changes, yet oppression continues and in some areas such as Karen and Kachin States, shooting by the Burma Army continues.

The sun is coming up after a night movement from the mountains down to the plains of Burma. It is here that the Burma Army has feudal rule with tight control over people's lives and camps surrounding the forced relocation sites. Up in the mountains the Burma army shoots to kill, but there is room to get away and the resistance is strong enough to slow and sometimes stop Burma Army attacks. Two days ago in the mountains, we could hear the Burma Army shelling towards Karen villages as they advanced to supply their camps. In Kachin state our team is helping over 40,000 IDPs displaced in ongoing attacks.

Down in the plains the Burma Army has almost complete control. But, it is impossible to fully control people who have the conviction that all people are equal in the sight of God and that this is their home. . Here in Burma we still face giants, but we do not face them alone. We moved like mice in between the Burma Army camps and patrols to meet the people in the relocation sites. We met them in the bushes and trees that separated the miles and miles of rice fields. "The church is the greatest source of unity here", the local underground resistance leader told us. "Oppression, imprisonment and death has caused fear to grow in us and between us, breaking down our trust and unity." As we prayed about our meetings with the people here, our medic, Eliya, shared these words from Psalm 100: "Make a joyful shout to the Lord all you lands, serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing, know that the Lord, He is God, it is He who has made us and not we ourselves, we are His people and the sheep of His pasture, enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise, be thankful to Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endures to all generations." We did not make ourselves, God made us and we are His and we also belong to each other. We can live with joy and boldly, knowing we are God's children. From this relationship with God and each other, come the convictions that we live and act on.

We met Karen Christians, Burmese Buddhists and Karen Buddhists and felt close to all. Into our little hide site came a man we met on the last mission to the plains, the father of one of our team members and the leader of the underground here. He was beaming and under his thin windbreaker showed us the FBR t-shirt he dared to wear. He smiled proudly and then grabbed my arms and we began to wrestle like we did when we met last year. He was testing my strength, courage and sense of humor, and to see if we were still brothers. I call him "Big bear" as he is a very stout and strong man, built like a Mongolian warrior, with a bull neck, broad chest, powerful arms, and tree stump like legs. His smile is clear and the love of life shines through him.

Later that night we met other church leaders and for the next four days and nights moved and met many leaders from different relocation sites. We prayed together and shared experiences and listened to their thoughts, needs and convictions. An elder told us, "I had to watch every step to come here. No matter what is said about changes, the Burma Army can still kill you anytime. We are glad you came and we pray for the end of restrictions we live under." Another man from this village told us of two farmers who were shot by Burma troops two months ago, one a father of four, killed, and another one wounded.

One pastor told us, "We have been praying for the leaders to change and thank God we do see some changes. But still there is oppression, so it seems the change is only of the mind. We need a change of heart too. We pray now that God will grab Senior General Than Shwey's heart! Last week the Burma army told us, 'Now there is change in Burma, if you contact the Karen National Union (Karen pro-democracy resistance), you will be severely punished'." Another church leader said, "We have been forced to move three times. The Burma army just told some of us that we could go back home, but when we asked about proof in writing, there was none. Is it a trap? Going back to our original homes can be true vision if we pray. I know God's plans are above ours, and dreams like this can come true." A woman's group leader told us, "We need to be free. We want unity and we also need help with our schools, churches and Early Child Care Development programs."

One man had just been released from prison after serving 5 years after being accused of helping the KNU. "I was beaten badly when I was arrested and then taken to Toungoo prison. There I was fed rice and salt water. I was watched all the time and only allowed to pray in Burmese and not in my Karen language. I spent much time in solitary. I knew the Karen lady medic who was captured and saw her in prison too."

Another man in his 60's told us, "Last year, I was captured by the Burma army on the trail and had four of my teeth knocked out by the soldiers. I was beaten with sticks and clubbed with a rifle to my entire body. After six days of torture my friends were able to pay 300,000 kyats to the army and I was released."

A pastor told us, "Things have gotten a little better and we are stopped at check points less than before. After 60 years of war, hearts need to change. My message to Aug San Suu Kyi is, 'Please remember the ethnic people of Burma.' All of us should be united, and for me the church is the central pillar of unity. We want all churches to be free. We do not want to have to apply for permission as we do now. Now we have to apply for permission to hold special church events, for building projects, and for any traveling we want to do. I do want to thank you all for the gifts you gave us last time and for the bibles and hymnals. We used the gift to make a wooden library to safely store all of our bibles, hymnals and books. Now we need more bibles and hymnals. Thank you so much and may God bless all of you. " We committed to helping each community and church as much as we could and are grateful for the help of Partners and others. As we talked, I told them about the German theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer stood for the Jews and other oppressed people in WWII. Bonheoffer gave up his life to stand against Hitler's Nazi oppression. Bonheoffer died in a concentration camp just before the war ended and freedom came. Even the end of WWII did not mean freedom for all. For many in Eastern Europe, China and other places, oppression under another name continued.

Last year the former Czech President Vaclav Havel died. He was one of many who stood for freedom until Eastern Europe too was free. He was a friend of FBR and here in Burma we paid tribute to him with a memorial service, prayer and song. Here in Burma, like Havel and Bonheoffer, we are directed by the conviction that God wants us to stand with and help His people be free. God's power of love brings change in each of us and helps us to move forward together to be part of His freedom, mercy and grace everywhere.

Thank you and God bless you,
Dave, family and FBR teams.
Karen State, Burma.

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