Joint Action Committee of Burmese Community in Japan
在日ビルマー人共同行動実行委員会 ＪＡＣ）参加団体
၂ဝ၁ဝ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ႀကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္ စီစဥ္ျခင္းႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ JAC-Japan မွ ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကညာခ်က္
ရက္စြဲ - ၂ဝဝ၉ ခုႏွစ္ စက္တင္ဘာလ ၂၃ ရက္
တိုက်ဳိ၊ ဂ်ပန္
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ ၂ဝ၁ဝ ခုႏွစ္ အေထြေထြ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပရန္ ႀကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္ စီစဥ္ေနျခင္းမ်ားအေပၚ လူထုအက်ဳိးျပဳ ဒီမိုကေရစီစံႏႈန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီျခင္း မရွိသျဖင့္ JAC-Japan မွ ဆန္႔က်င္ကန္႔ကြက္ေၾကာင္း ထုတ္ျပန္ ေၾကညာလိုက္သည္။
နအဖ စစ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္တို႔က ၎တို႔အာဏာတည္ျမဲေရးအတြက္ ၎တို႔ပင္ စိတ္ႀကိဳက္ေရးဆြဲ၍ ၂ဝဝ၈ ခုႏွစ္ ေမလတြင္ လူထုဆႏၵကို မတရားရယူကာ အတည္ျပဳခဲ့ေသာ ႏိုင္ငံဖြဲ႔စည္းပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒျဖင့္ ၂ဝ၁ဝ ခုႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ က်င္းပရန္ ႀကိဳးပမ္းေနသည္။ ယင္းမွာ လူထုအက်ဳိးစီးပြားအတြက္ ရည္ရြယ္ျခင္း မရွိသကဲ့သို႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံႏႈန္းမ်ားႏွင့္လည္း လံုးဝကိုက္ညီျခင္း မရွိပါ။
၁၉၈၈ ခုႏွစ္ စစ္အာဏာသိမ္းအုပ္စုသည္ (ထိုစဥ္က နဝတ အမည္ျဖင့္) ပါတီစံု ဒီမိုကေရစီစနစ္တရပ္ ထူေထာင္ရန္ ၁၉၉ဝ ခုႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို က်င္းပေပးခဲ့ေသာ္လည္း အဆိုပါ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ မဲအျပတ္ အသတ္ျဖင့္ အႏိုင္ရရွိခဲ့ေသာ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္အား ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေခၚယူခြင့္ျပဳျခင္း၊ တရားဝင္ အာဏာလႊဲေျပာင္းျခင္းမ်ား မရွိခဲ့ပါ။ နဝတ-နအဖဟု အမည္ေျပာင္းလဲကာ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေနေသာ စစ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးမ်ားသည္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ အပါအဝင္ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ ပါတီဝင္မ်ား၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ မင္းကိုႏိုင္ အပါအဝင္ ေက်ာင္းသားေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ရရွိေရး တက္ႂကြလႈပ္ရွားသူမ်ားအား ၁၉၈၈ ခုႏွစ္ အာဏာသိမ္းသည္မွစ၍ ယေန႔တိုင္ ရက္စက္ၾကမ္းၾကဳတ္စြာ ဖမ္းဆီး ႏွိပ္စက္ အက်ဥ္းခ်ထားျခင္း၊ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးမ်ားကို ဆုိးဆိုးဝါးဝါး ခ်ဳိးေဖာက္ျခင္း၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈ မ်ားကို ပိတ္ပင္ ၿဖိဳခြဲျခင္းမ်ား ျပဳလုပ္လ်က္ ရွိသည္။
လူထုအက်ဳိးအတြက္ ကိုယ္စားျပဳ ဒီမိုကေရစီစနစ္ ေပၚထြန္းလာေရးမွာ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ၏ ႏိုင္ငံေရးလိုအပ္ခ်က္ ျဖစ္သည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ နအဖ စစ္ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးတို႔သည္ အဆိုပါ လိုအပ္ခ်က္ကို ျဖည့္ဆည္းေပးရန္ တာဝန္အား လစ္လ်ဴရႈေနရံုမက ထိုလိုအပ္ခ်က္ကို ျဖည့္ဆည္းရန္ ႀကိဳးပမ္းေနသူတို႔အား ဖမ္းဆီး ႏွိပ္ကြပ္ေနျပန္သျဖင့္ ျမန္မာ့ ႏိုင္ငံေရး ျပႆနာမ်ားမွာ ပိုမို၍သာ ဆိုးဝါးလာေနခဲ့သည္။ ႏိုင္ငံေရးျပႆနာမ်ားႏွင့္အတူ စီးပြားေရး၊ က်န္းမာေရး၊ ပညာေရး၊ ဘာသာေရး၊ တရားမွ်တေရး အစရွိသည့္ လူထုေရးရာက႑ အဘက္ဘက္တြင္လည္း ႏိုင္ငံတကာ၌ ေအာက္ဆံုးအဆင့္သို႔ ထိုးဆင္းေနခဲ့ရသည္။
လူထုအက်ဳိးစီးပြားကို လစ္လ်ဴရႈလ်က္ အာဏာပိုင္စိုးထားေသာ နအဖတို႔က စီစဥ္သည့္ ၂ဝ၁ဝ ခုႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲျဖင့္ အထက္ေဖာ္ျပပါ အဘက္ဘက္မွ ႀကံဳေတြ႔ေနရေသာ ျပႆနာမ်ားကို လူထုအလိုက် ေျဖရွင္း ေပးႏိုင္မည္ မဟုတ္ေပ။
ဤအခ်က္ကို ၂ဝ၁ဝ ခုႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္မည့္သူမ်ား အထူးသျဖင့္ အတိုက္အခံ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုမ်ားႏွင့္ စစ္အာဏာရွင္ နအဖတို႔အၾကား ရပ္တည္ေနၾကေသာ ၾကားေနအဖြဲ႔မ်ား (ဝါ) တတိယအင္အားစု-အုပ္စုဟု ကင္ပြန္းတပ္ ေခၚေဝၚေနၾကသူတို႔က သတိျပဳရန္ လိုအပ္သည္။ လူထုဆႏၵျဖင့္ အတည္ျပဳထားသည္ဆိုေသာ ၂ဝဝ၈ ခုႏွစ္ ႏိုင္ငံဖြဲ႔စည္းပံု အေျခခံဥပေဒအား ဒီမိုကေရစီ စံႏႈန္းမ်ား ပါရွိေနေအာင္ ျပန္လည္ မျပင္ဆင္ႏိုင္လွ်င္၊ မတရား ဖမ္းဆီးထိန္းသိမ္းခံေနရေသာ ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသမားမ်ား ခြၽင္းခ်က္မရွိ ျပန္လည္ လြတ္ေျမာက္ျခင္း မရွိလွ်င္ ၂ဝ၁ဝ ခုႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲသို႔ ဝင္ေရာက္ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ျခင္း မျပဳရန္၊ အားေပး ေထာက္ခံျခင္း မျပဳရန္ႏွင့္ ဆန္႔က်င္ကန္႔ကြက္ၾကရန္ လိုအပ္သည္။ ထိုသို႔မဟုတ္ပဲ နအဖ အလိုက် ၂ဝ၁ဝ ခုႏွစ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ဝင္မည္ ဆိုေသာ္ အနာဂတ္ ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံေရး၌ ဆိုးက်ဳိးမ်ား ျဖစ္လာျခင္းအတြက္ နအဖတို႔ကဲ့သို႔ပင္ တာဝန္ယူရလိမ့္မည္ဟု အသိေပး ေၾကညာအပ္သည္။
ဂ်ပန္ႏိုင္ငံေရာက္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ လိုလားသည့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသားမ်ား
ပူးေပါင္းေဆာင္ရြက္ေရး ေကာ္မတီ (ဂ်ပန္)
JAC-Japan
1. Arakan League for Democracy ALD (Exile-JP)
2. Burma Democratic Action Group (BDA Group)
3. Chin National Community (CNC-JP)
4. Democratic Federation of Burma (DFB)
5. Federation of Workers’ Union of the Burmese Citizen in Japan (FWUBC)
6. Kachin National Organization, Japan (KNO-JP)
7. Kachin State National Congress for Democracy (Liberated Area-Japan Branch) KNCD (LA-JP)
8. Karen National League (KNL-JP)
9. Karen National Union-Japan (KNU-J)
10. League for Democracy in Burma (LDB)
11. Naga National Society (NNS)
12. National Democratic Front (Burma) (NDF-B) Representative for Japan
13. Palaun National Society (PNS)
14. Punnyagari Mon National Society (PMNS)
15. Shan Nationalities for Democracy-Japan (SND- JP)
16. Shan State Nationalities for Democracy-Japan (SSND- JP)
17. Confederation of National Youth for Burma (Japan Branch) (CNYB-JB)
18. Save Burma
19. Peaceful Burma
၂ဝ၁ဝ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ႀကိဳတင္ျပင္ဆင္ စီစဥ္ျခင္းႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ JAC-Japan မွ ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကညာခ်က္
Myanmar's Suu Kyi welcomes US plan to engage junta
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has welcomed US plans to engage diplomatically with the country's military rulers, her lawyer said Thursday.
Her comments came a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the possibility of an eventual easing or lifting of sanctions if US engagement produces political changes in Myanmar.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said that direct engagement is good," her lawyer Nyan Win said after meeting her at her home in Yangon to discuss her appeal against her recently extended house arrest.
BURMESE rally urges tougher line from new Japan govt
Agence France Presse: Myanmar rally urges tougher line from new Japan govt
Fri 18 Sep 2009
Filed under: International
Myanmar activists Friday called on Japan’s new government to take a tougher stance on the military junta as they rallied in Tokyo on the 21st anniversary of the coup that brought the regime to power.
Some 100 demonstrators rallied outside the Myanmar Embassy demanding the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners being held in the country formerly known as Burma.
“We want the new government to apply pressure on the military regime through harsher sanctions and to push for the release of Suu Kyi,” said one of the protestors, Win Myint.
Many carried pictures of Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate who has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest since her party won the last elections.
Japan’s new centre-left Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who took power on Wednesday, is known for his interest in human rights and has in the past led a group of parliamentarians that support Suu Kyi.
Japan’s previous conservative government of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) “did not show a clear stance toward the military junta and therefore did not apply sufficient pressure,” said another protester, Haw Thar.
The LDP, which ruled Japan almost without break since 1955, promoted trade and dialogue with Myanmar, fearing a hard line would push the junta further into the clasps of China, its main political and economic partner.
New-York based Human Rights Watch called on Japan to undertake an urgent policy review on Myanmar and to consider supporting targeted sanctions.
“Now is the time for Japan to revise its foreign policy and make promotion of human rights a central pillar,” wrote director Kenneth Roth in a letter to new Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. “Burma is a very good place to start.”
JAPAN CABANET SUPPORT RATE 72%
Friday, Sept. 18, 2009
Cabinet's support rate 72%
Hot start, high expectations for coalition team
Kyodo News
The support rate for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's first Cabinet is 72 percent, the highest since the early '90s, a Kyodo News survey said Thursday.
The Cabinet's disapproval rating is 13.1 percent, the poll said.
The nationwide telephone survey, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, also said support for Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan has jumped to a record of 47.6 percent.
The Liberal Democratic Party meanwhile was polling at a lowly 18.8 percent.
The highest initial support rate for a Cabinet in recent times was 86.3 percent for the team selected by popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in April 2001. That's followed by 75.7 percent for the team set up by former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa in August 1993.
The Cabinet of Hatoyama's predecessor, Taro Aso, garnered a support rate of 48.6 percent when it was formed in September last year.
The latest survey, which received valid responses from 1,032 voters, said 44.8 percent of respondents expect the Cabinet to put priority on administrative and fiscal reform and reduce wasteful government spending. About 37 percent want the team to address social security issues, including pension system reform.
Measures to improve the economy and employment were selected by 35.5 percent of respondents, who were allowed multiple responses.
Hatoyama's Cabinet was inaugurated Wednesday following the DPJ's historic landslide victory in the Lower House election on Aug. 30.
Child labourers behind many products: Study
Child labourers behind many products: Study
REUTERS, NEW YORK
Sept 11: Children and forced labourers are mining gold, sewing clothing and harvesting coco around the world, and India is the source for the biggest number of products made by these workers, a US government report said on Thursday.
The Department of Labour for the first time released a list of goods produced by child or forced labour in foreign countries after Congress told it to compile one. The department looked at 122 products in 58 countries.
Under international labour standards, child labour is defined as work performed by someone under the age of 15, or under 18 where specific forms of work are deemed harmful, the report said. Forced labour is involuntary or done under threat. In the new U.S. report, India was linked to the highest number of products made with child labour or forced labour including soccer balls and clothing, according to report.
Myanmar was noted the most often for forced labour for other products like rice, sugar cane and rubber. "The purpose for doing this is to shine a spotlight so more activities can take place that target these problems," said Sandra Polaski, deputy undersecretary for International Affairs in the U.S. Department of Labour.
"In our country we think of these at 19th century problems but these are 21st century problems," Polaski said.
Child labour laws vary widely and the practice is banned in many countries. An international convention ratified by 154 countries requires them to set a minimum working age and to work toward eradicating child labour.
According to the US report, Brazil, Bangladesh, China and the Philippines were also in the top six countries linked to individual products that use child or forced labour. The International Labour Organization has found that 69 percent of child labour worldwide is in agriculture, the report said.
The most common agricultural goods produced by child or forced labour are cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, rice and cocoa. Both forms of labour for cotton production were found in countries including China, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. In India, this was the case for cottonseed.
The listing of specific goods and countries, however, does not mean that total production of specific products involve forced or child labour. Instead, the report said it indicates a "significant incidence" of these types of labour.
For cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate, countries found using both forms of labour include the world's biggest producer Ivory Coast, as well as Nigeria, the report showed.
The most common mined goods included gold, where Peru and Burkina Faso use both child and forced labour, according to the report.
"Elimination of exploitive child labour or forced labour from a sector or a country requires intensive, sustained commitment by governments, employers, workers, and civil society organisations," the report said.
Win Tin Speaks Out
Win Tin Speaks Out
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
In an article published in the Washington Post on Wednesday, Win Tin hit out at the Burmese regime’s planned election in 2010.
Win Tin has spent 19 years in prison for his political beliefs and is considered to be the country’s most prominent contemporary politicians.
The senior leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) wrote: “Some international observers view next year's planned elections as an opportunity. But under the circumstances imposed by the military's constitution, the election will be a sham.”
He stated in his article that his party will not sacrifice the democratic principles for which many millions of Burmese have marched, been arrested, been tortured and died to participate in a process that holds no hope whatsoever for bringing freedom to Burma.
And he reinforced the NLD’s demands that all political prisoners are released, a full review of the constitution is granted and that the opposition be allowed to reopen its offices and have the right to associate and organize.
The former journalist and editor of the well-known Hanthawaddy newspaper wrote: “The regime's answer is the continued jailing of [Aung San] Suu Kyi and 2,000 other activists, massive military offensives against ethnic groups and the enforcement of rules to gag democracy.”
He also criticized US Sen James Webb’s recent and controversial visit to Burma.
Win Tin said that he understands Webb's desire to seek a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese ruling authorities. But, he said, “Unfortunately, his efforts have been damaging to our democracy movement and focus on the wrong issue—the potential for an "election" that Webb wants us to consider participating in next year as part of a long-term political strategy. But the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent.”
Webb’s visit received mixed reviews among Burmese and international observers. Burma’s military leaders, including junta chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe, received Webb during his visit and allowed the US senator to meet detained democracy leader Suu Kyi.
Many ordinary Burmese in Burma mistakenly thought Webb represented the US government. Therefore, they assumed the US had dramatically shifting its policy on Burma by embracing the repressive regime.
The US government’s policy on Burma is under review and it is believed that the new policy will be a mixture of carrots and sticks.
During a recent visit to Asia, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that neither sanctions nor engagement work with Burma’s military dictatorship.
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy. org
http://www.irrawadd y.org/article. php?art_id= 16751
[Ye Yint Thet Zwe] “ရင္ကြဲနာ”
အခ်ိန္ကာလေတြကို ေက်ာ္လႊားၿပီး
ေရႊ၀ါေရာင္ဒီလိႈင္းမ်ား
ရိုက္ခတ္လာပံုက
ေဟာဒီ ရင္ဘတ္ေတြေတာင္မွ
ေက်ာက္သား ေက်ာက္ဆိုင္လို
မာေက်ာမေနႏိုင္ေတာ့ဘူး ။
အသက္တေခ်ာင္း
ေထာင္းကနဲျပတ္ေတာက္
အေမ့ရဲ ့ မ်က္ရည္တေပါက္ဟာ
ဗိုလ္ေအာင္ေက်ာ္ ကိုဗဟိန္း မွသည္
ေက်ာ္ကိုကို တို ့အထိ
“ျမင္းခြာတခ်က္ေပါက္ရင္
မီးဟုန္းဟုန္းေတာက္ေစရမည္။”
ေခတ္ေတြကေတာ့
ထပ္တူထပ္မွ်သာပ ။
သမိုင္းကမဆံုးဘူး
မ်ိဳးဆက္ေတြ မတုန္းဘူး
ရာဇ၀င္ေရးအရ
ေျမလွန္ၾကည့္ရင္
ရဲရဲနီေဆြး
တိုင္းျပည္ရဲ ့ ရင္ေသြးေတြကို ေတြ ့ရမယ္ ၊
တစိမ့္စိမ့္ စီးယိုက်ေသြး
သာသနာ့ အာဇာနည္တို ့ရဲ ့
ေမတၱာဓါတ္ကိုေတြ ့ရမယ္ ။
ခင္ဗ်ားတို ့ခ်စ္တဲ့ေျမကို
(ခင္ဗ်ားတို ့)
အာရံုခံၾကည့္လိုက္ပါ
ရဟန္းရွင္လူ ျပည္သူလူထုႀကီးရဲ ့
အံႀကိတ္ႀကံဳး၀ါး
တက္(ေတာက္)ေခါက္သံမ်ား ၾကားရမယ္
ကမၻာမေၾကေတးသံမ်ား ၾကားရမယ္ ။
ဒီမိုကေရစီ ရမွ အမွ်ေ၀ပါ ၾကားရမယ္။
ငါတို ့ရဲ ့ အနာဂတ္အိပ္မက္မ်ားကို ၾကားရမယ္ ။
ရိုက္သတ္လို ့ေတာင္မေသ
အာဇာနည္ေတြ ေနတဲ့တိုင္းျပည္ ၾကားရမယ္ ။
နအဖစစ္အုပ္စုရဲ ့
အေၾကာက္တရားနဲ ့ ေသြးေလေခ်ာက္ခ်ားေနတာ ၾကားရမယ္။
အျဖစ္အပ်က္ တခုလံုးမွာ
တို ့ေမတၱာစြမ္း ကမၻာလႊမ္း
ေအးခ်မ္းၾကပါေစ ၾကားရမယ္ ။
တို ့ေမတၱာစြမ္း ကမၻာလႊမ္း
ေအးခ်မ္းၾကပါေစ ၾကားရမယ္ ။
တို ့ေမတၱာစြမ္း ကမၻာလႊမ္း
ေအးခ်မ္းၾကပါေစ ၾကားရမယ္ ။
ရဲရင့္သက္ဇြဲ
၀၆၊ ၀၉၊ ၂၀၀၉
Suu Kyi to be released?
Suu Kyi to be released?
YANGON- THE party of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said on Tuesday it was hopeful that she would be unconditionally released after a court agreed to hear an appeal against her recent conviction.
Lawyers for the Nobel laureate and the country's ruling junta are due to present legal arguments on September 18, after Suu Kyi challenged last month's guilty verdict for sheltering an American man who swam to her lakeside home.
The regime has ordered her to spend another 18 months under house arrest, softening the original sentence of three years' hard labour. However, the house arrest is still long enough to keep Myanmar's opposition leader away from the political scene during elections scheduled for 2010.
'There could be changes as the court has accepted our appeal,' said Nyan Win, her lawyer and a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD), referring to Yangon divisional court's decision on Friday to hear the case. 'We are hoping for her unconditional release, which is also what we wanted.'
'We will meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi this week after we got permission from the authorities. We need to get last instructions from her for the final arguments,' Nyan Win said. Daw is a term of respect in Burmese.
The appeal would focus on the fact that a 1974 constitution under which the 64-year-old was originally detained had been superseded by a new constitution approved last year, her lawyers have said.
The guilty verdict sparked international outrage and the imposition of further sanctions against Myanmar's powerful generals, who have already kept Suu Kyi locked up for 14 of the past 20 years.
Suu Kyi insisted on her innocence during the trial held at Yangon's notorious Insein Prison, saying that she allowed US military veteran John Yettaw to stay for two nights at her home because he was ill.
Mr Yettaw was sentenced to seven years' hard labour for the stunt in early May, but was freed after a visit by US senator Jim Webb last month on what the regime said were compassionate grounds because of health problems. -- AFP http://www.straitst imes.com/ Breaking% 2BNews/SE% 2BAsia/Story/ STIStory_ 426926.html
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Businessmen keep wary eye on Kachin situation
News - Shan Herald Agency for News
Tuesday, 08 September 2009 08:31
Burmese and Chinese businessmen, who have invested in Laiza town, the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), are keeping a wary eye on the relationship between the Burmese military junta and the KIO.
Relations between the junta and the ethnic ceasefire group in Kachin State have soured and are terribly strained after the junta proposed that it transform its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army into the Border Guard Force, which the KIO rejected. Instead it told the junta brass that it wants the KIA to change to a Kachin Regional Guard Force (KRGF) and also demanded a stake in the new Kachin State Government to follow the 2010 general elections.
Businessmen in Laiza are closely monitoring the situation because if it deteriorates, they will move their properties. They are especially alert after news leaked out about meetings between the KIO and the junta brass, a local businessman said.
On September 4, senior KIO leaders and the organisation’ s regional administrative officers and campaigners held a meeting in Laiza Hotel in the morning.
"I want to keep watch until October. If the situation worsens we will leave. Some shops are already closed. I do not know where they have moved their goods," a shop owner said.
The investors are mostly Chinese. They have invested in motorcycle companies, construction tool firms, textile shops, and shops dealing in electronic and related items.
Ceasefire groups on the Sino-Burma border, which have opposed transformation to the Border Guard Force, have no plans to extend their business since tension began mounting and clashes occurred between the Burmese Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) last month.
Now, some Chinese businessmen have closed their shops in Laiza. Some shops have downed shutters in Laiza market, a local said.
Many people have hired rooms and space on the Chinese side of Laiza. Chinese authorities are therefore compiling a list.
"Locals are also moving their belongings. People from China have lots of investments in Kachin State. Some people have already moved their goods and belongings. While some shops are already closed, gambling dens are still open," he added.
Most businessmen are from China and some are from Myitkyina and Bhamo, who have opened stores in Laiza.
Even though people are apprehensive, the KIO has not made any public announcement on the prevailing situation.
Local sources, said after the Burmese Army and Kokang Army fought gun battles near the Sino-Burma border in northern Shan State, the junta has deployed more troops near Laiza town.
KIO along with other ceasefire armed groups are being pressurized by the junta to transform to the Border Guard Force within October. As such people watching the situation with keen interest and apprehension. http://www.bnionlin e.net/news/ shan/6984- businessmen- keep-wary- eye-on-kachin- situation. html
Hatoyama hands Okada, Kan key roles
Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009
Hatoyama hands Okada, Kan key roles
Diplomacy, strategy posts filled
Kyodo News
Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama said Saturday he plans to appoint deputy chief Naoto Kan as both state strategy minister and deputy prime minister, and Secretary General Katsuya Okada as foreign minister.
However, Hatoyama said he has no plans to release the name of his finance minister yet. Both Kan and Okada have led the DPJ and were tipped as potential finance ministers.
If the appointments are finalized, Kan will take charge of the National Strategy Bureau, a policymaking body the party plans to establish in the Cabinet to seize control of governmental affairs from the bureaucracy, which has played a dominant role in the governments led by the Liberal Democratic Party.
Kan's experience tangling with bureaucrats when he exposed the scandal over tainted blood products as head of the health ministry could serve him well in his new role.
The National Strategy Bureau will also oversee the budget process.
Hatoyama's choice for the diplomatic portfolio is being closely watched because of concerns that his party's aim of being more independent from the United States could damage relations with Tokyo's biggest security ally.
Hatoyama also revealed that he will keep Azuma Koshiishi, head of the DPJ's Upper House caucus, in his current post.
Hatoyama has already nominated party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa as secretary general, saying his skills are needed to ensure victory in the Upper House election next year. Ozawa is widely believed to be the architect of the DPJ's landslide victory in the Aug. 30 House of Representatives election, which ended more than five decades of nearly continuous rule under the conservative LDP.
The DPJ leader also has decided to appoint his top aide, Hirofumi Hirano, as chief Cabinet secretary.
Hatoyama plans to formally present a list of key posts for his party and Cabinet at a meeting of the DPJ leadership Monday.
The new finance minister is likely to be informally named on Monday or later, party members said.
Hatoyama is also considering tapping Akira Nagatsuma, a DPJ lawmaker who helped expose the government's pension record debacle, for a Cabinet post.
Masayuki Naoshima, the DPJ's policy chief, is also expected to join the new Cabinet by taking an economics-related portfolio, possibly finance minister, party lawmakers said.
Hatoyama is set to be voted in as prime minister in a special Diet session on Sept. 16, and is expected to launch his Cabinet immediately.
The DPJ leader plans to ask the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), potential coalition partners, to put one lawmaker each in the new Cabinet.
Calls are growing within the two minor parties for their leaders — the SDP's Mizuho Fukushima and Kokumin Shinto's Shizuka Kamei — to take part in the Hatoyama Cabinet.
Kan, Okada profiles
Kyodo News
Naoto Kan
Naoto Kan, who is set to be deputy prime minister and strategy chief of the new government, is a cofounder of the Democratic Party of Japan and has headed the party twice since its inception in 1998.
The 62-year-old activist-turned-lawmaker is known for his debating skills and tough stance against the powerful bureaucracy.
Kan shot to fame as health minister in 1996 battling bureaucrats to bring the scandal over HIV-tainted blood products, which involved his ministry and a now-defunct pharmaceutical firm, into the public spotlight.
He was then a key member of the multiparty coalition that briefly ousted the Liberal Democratic Party in 1993.
After the LDP returned to power, Kan formed the DPJ with other anti-LDP lawmakers in April 1998 and served as its first leader until September 1999.
He was elected party leader again in December 2002 but stepped down in May 2004 after coming under fire for paying his pension premiums in the past.
After spending the 1970s engaging in civic activities, Kan got elected to the House of Representatives in 1980 as a member of a small opposition party.
He is now in his 10th term in the Lower House and represents the Tokyo No. 18 constituency.
Katsuya Okada
Katsuya Okada, who has been named to become foreign minister under Democratic Party of Japan chief Yukio Hatoyama, is well-versed in policy matters and sticks to his principles when mapping out policy.
Although Okada lost to Hatoyama in the party leadership election in May, he gained the support of junior members, establishing himself as the front-runner to succeed Hatoyama in the future.
The DPJ's 56-year-old secretary general was elected to a seventh term in the House of Representatives, representing Mie Prefecture's No. 3 constituency.
Okada became party leader in May 2004 but resigned in September 2005 after the DPJ took a drubbing in the 2005 Lower House election won by the Liberal Democratic Party under then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Okada, a former trade ministry bureaucrat, is the son of Takuya Okada, founder of supermarket chain Jusco Co.
BURMA: ILO Turns Spotlight on Officials to End Forced Labour
Inter Press Service News Agency
BURMA: ILO Turns Spotlight on Officials to End Forced Labour
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Sep 3 (IPS) - The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is turning its attention to a western corner of military-ruled Burma to end the scourge of forced labour, which remains rampant in most parts of the South-east Asian nation.
On Sunday, the ILO will be hosting a rare meeting of judges, military officers, police officers and members of the local labour department as part of its effort to raise awareness aimed at ending a form of human rights abuse that, at times, has included victims as young as 11.
"We hope to make presentations on international humanitarian law and raise issues about forced labour, child soldiers and harassment," says Steve Marshall, the ILO’s representative in Burma, also known as Myanmar. "This is a positive step."
There are a lot of "policy conflicts" on this issue, Marshall told a small group of journalists during a recent visit to Bangkok. "Even though we are being permitted to have this event, the military see themselves as above the law."
The weekend meeting in Sittwe, a port city in Burma’s Arakan state, close to the Bangladesh border, will be the fifth of its kind the Geneva-based labour organisation has held in Burma since July 2007.
The ILO’s efforts to make such inroads in a country ruled by a notoriously stubborn and defiant regime – particularly in placing strict limits on international agencies challenging its grip on power – have set this labour rights body apart from other United Nations agencies and international humanitarian organisations operating in Burma.
"The ILO is the only international organisation that has maintained principled pressure and engagement of the Burmese regime," says David Scott Mathieson, Burma consultant for Human Rights Watch, the New York-based global rights lobby. "It has shown how international organisations should deal with the Burmese government – that they will not keep quiet about problems, yet keep engaging and trying to help improve the situation."
At the same time, though, the concessions the military regime is offering to the ILO is not a sign of a growing shift in policy aimed at ending the forced labour problem, Mathieson tells IPS. "It is one of grudging respect. If the Burmese government can get away with not dealing with the ILO, it would do so."
The pressure on the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the military regime is formally known, stems from its running battles with the ILO. In 2006, following reports that Burma was failing in its obligations to the ILO to end forced labour, more pressure was turned on the SPDC.
The ILO’s members threatened to haul the country before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague for its record of abusive labour practices. Burma would have been the first country to face such humiliation had no changes been made on the ground.
One of the demands placed by the ILO was for Burma to have in place a "credible mechanism for dealing with complaints of forced labour with all necessary guarantees for the protection of complaints."
Yet, while the ILO office in Burma has developed a network to gather information on incidents of forced labour, the mechanism for victims of the abuse or their families to lodge complaints is far from perfect. "That people are getting arrested when complaining is still a concern," admits ILO’s Marshall. "Currently there are two people in jail for making complaints to the ILO. They have been charged under the Official Secrets Act." This law considers it an offence for any person to possess information deemed classified by the state.
Also coming in the way of the ILO’s forced labour-reporting mechanism is the junta preventing reader-friendly material about these human rights violations being printed in local languages and distributed across the country. Only the formal document, peppered with legal language, has been approved for distribution.
The junta’s resolve to stop the forced labour network being dismantled stems from how much the military culture depends on such abuse to achieve its military and development ends. The more pervasive forms of forced labour, some in almost slave-like conditions, include portering for the military, cleaning army camps, building military structures and even walking ahead of troops in areas infested with landmines.
"Forced labour and Burma is like the head and tail of a coin," states the Federation of Trade Unions – Burma, a network of Burmese labour rights activists operating in exile, including Thailand and the United States. "Millions of people of Burma have been used for state projects of railroad building, strategic road construction, army barrack building, army-run businesses and (for the) agro-economy. "
The Arakan state, where the ILO is hosting Sunday’s meeting, is notorious. The victims are the state’s Rohingyas, an ethnic Muslim minority in predominantly Buddhist Burma. They have been a victim of gross rights violations, including restrictions to get married unless the state gives approval. Familes are forced to work four days a week and have to plant crops that the military orders.
Forced labour the Rohingyas are subject to during the ongoing monsoon season has been documented in the paddy fields, planting physic nut trees and rubber saplings, for road repair, states a recent report by The Arakan Project, which monitors rights violations of the Rohingyas.
In addition, due to border tensions between Burma and Bangladesh, "the Burmese regime suddenly brought shiploads of building material in order to erect a border fence along the Bangladesh-Burma border," adds the Project report, ‘Large Increase in Forced Labour along the Bangladesh-Burma Border: Forced Labour Practices in North Arakan’. "By April large numbers of villagers were then recruited to raise an embankment."
"This year forced labour in North Arakan has significantly increased mainly due to the construction of the border fence along the Bangladesh-Burma border and the sudden increase of army battalions along the border," says Chris Lewa, author of the report and coordinator of the Project.
"Forced labour occurs throughout the year and usually follows a seasonal pattern. In the dry season, villagers are mostly recruited for construction work in military camps and repairing roads," she says.
Yet she doubts the ILO’s presence in the Arakan state will reduce the suffering endured by the persecuted Rohingya minority. "Most Rohingyas would not be aware of the ILO’s complaint mechanism, but even if they were and would be ready to take the risk of lodging a complaint, they would be unable to do so due to the restriction of movement imposed on them," Lewa reveals in an interview. "They need to obtain permission even to travel to a neighbouring village."
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