Concerns over Thai plans to return Burmese asylum seekers
Liam Cochrane
Last Updated: Wed, 6 Oct 2010 17:06:00 +1100
Human rights groups have expressed concern over Thailand's plan to repatriate Burmese asylum seekers to Burma after the country's November 7 elections.
Thailand's foreign minister, Kasit Piromya, who made the announcement in New York, says repatriating Burmese asylum seekers is a priority for his government.
"I am going back to Bangkok, and one of the first things I will be doing is to launch a more comprehensive program for the Myanmar (Burmese) people in the camps."
"The displaced persons, the intellectuals that run around the streets of Bangkok and Chiang Mai province, to prepare them to return to Myanmar (Burma) after the elections," he said.
More than 140,000 Burmese asylum seekers live in nine camps spread along the Thai-Burma border.
Most of them have fled conflict, and persecution along ethnic or political lines.
David Mathieson, senior researcher on Burma for Human Rights Watch, says the idea of making those Burmese return is "absurd".
"It's simply not safe for them to go back. Just because Burma's holding elections in November doesn't mean the conditions have changed at all."
Rights groups, as well as the United Nations, have expressed concern about the credibility of the election system, which reserves a quarter of all seats for the army and will take place without the main opposition party.
The National League for Democracy chose to not take part because its leader Aung San Suu Kyi wasn't allowed to be involved and remains under house arrest.
Thailand's foreign minister, Mr Kasit says it is unlikely Burma�s elections will be completely free or fair, but he says it is the first step on the road back to an open and democratic Burma.
"We are going to prepare the Myanmar (Burma) people in Thailand for an eventual return to a new Myanmar (Burma), maybe half-democratic, but I think it is a beginning."
But David Mathieson says the vote next month is merely a mirage of democracy.
"This is one of the negative sides of the Burmese elections, this kind of phoney optimism that people have that the Burmese elections are a serious process - and they're just not."
Despite the comments from Thailand's Foreign Minister, groups involved with refugee resettlement say they have seen no changes to policy about Burmese asylum seekers.
Kitty McKinsey is the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Asia.
"The UN refugee agency has no reason to believe that the Thai government intends to force refugees to return to Myanmar," she said.
David Mathieson from Human Rights Watch says that while forced repatriation would be frowned upon by the Western world, Thailand has done it recently.
"It's very unlikely they would force refugees back after the elections. However, Thailand did do that over Christmas with the Hmong refugees in the north. They forced them back and there was very little Western countries could do to stop that."
In addition to the asylum seekers in camps on the border, Thailand is also home to an estimated two million Burmese economic migrants, most of them working without proper visas.
Chris Lom, information officer at the International Organisation for Migration, says many of those migrants need the Burmese economy to strengthen and provide them with the chance of work.
"For the vast majority of those two million irregular migrants here, and also registered migrants working here in Thailand, they are here for economic reasons," he said.
"But there are very large numbers of people from Myanmar (Burma) who would go back if the economic situation allowed them to and they could find jobs there."
Thailand's Foreign Minister, Kasit Piromya, says the elections in Burma next month will be a test, not just of Burma but also of the regional bloc, ASEAN.
"The credibility of the election is not only on the credibility and respectability for Myanmar (Burma) but for ASEAN as a whole. It's our credibility and respectability and also on the notion of ASEAN centrality to the whole Asia Pacific."
Concerns over Thai plans to return Burmese asylum seekers
Top US officials meet Myanmar junta, Suu Kyi
Top US officials meet Myanmar junta, Suu Kyi
YANGON, Myanmar – The U.S. wants better relations with military-ruled Myanmar if it makes concrete steps toward democracy, a senior American diplomat said Wednesday after holding the highest-level talks with the junta and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 14 years.
Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said he explained Washington's new policy, which reverses the Bush administration's isolation of Myanmar, also known as Burma, in favor of dialogue with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.
The goals of the new policy are "strong support for human rights, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners and the promotion of democratic reform," Campbell said in a statement at the end of his two-day visit.
Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level Americans to visit Myanmar since 1995.
Earlier Wednesday, Campbell, the top State Department official for East Asia, greeted Suu Kyi with a handshake after she was driven to his lakeside hotel in Yangon where they met privately for two hours, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Mei said. The content of the talks was not immediately known.
Suu Kyi, 64, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years. Dressed in a pink traditional Burmese jacket, she was upbeat as she emerged from the hotel.
"Hello to you all," she said to photographers before getting into the car that whisked her back to her tightly guarded home.
Myanmar's junta has praised the new U.S. policy, but shown no sign it intends to release Suu Kyi or initiate democratic and electoral reforms demanded by Suu Kyi's party ahead of elections planned for next year.
But the military government has made some gestures, such as loosening the terms of Suu Kyi's house arrest and allowing her more meeting with visitors such as Campbell, in hopes that the U.S. will ease political and economic sanctions.
Campbell said he told junta officials that the U.S. "is prepared to take steps to improve the relationship but that process must be based on reciprocal and concrete efforts by the Burmese government."
Campbell was continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, which were the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade. He met Wednesday morning with Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein, Mei said.
Campbell said he emphasized that Myanmar "should abide by U.N. resolutions with regards to proliferation." He did not elaborate, but was apparently referring to arms purchases from North Korea. There is also some speculation, though no evidence has been made public, that Myanmar is seeking to develop nuclear weapons with North Korea's help.
State television, which on Tuesday ignored the Americans' visit, broadcast footage of Campbell's meetings with both Suu Kyi and the prime minister.
Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. The sentence means she will not be able to participate in next year's elections, which will be the first in two decades.
U.S. sanctions, first imposed more than a decade ago, failed to force the generals to respect human rights, release jailed political activists and make democratic reforms. The Obama administration decided recently to step up engagement as a way of promoting reforms.
Washington has said it will maintain the sanctions until talks with Myanmar's generals result in change.
Campbell is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Myanmar since a September 1995 trip by then-U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright.
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Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung
Endangering the Next Kim Dae-jung
Washington sends confusing signals to the people who could bring change from within.
By MICHAEL J. GREEN
Since taking office President Barack Obama has used strong words to describe the importance he places on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In July, he told China's high-powered delegation to the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that "support for human rights and human dignity is ingrained in America" and that the "religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds." In his September 24 address to the United Nations General Assembly, he promised "that America will always stand with those who stand up for their dignity and their rights." As the president prepares to travel to Asia this month, should anyone in the region doubt the United States' commitment to these values?
Unfortunately, there is doubt. Despite Mr. Obama's statements, the administration' s specific actions on issues ranging from Burma to Tibet are creating the impression that Washington has a growing list of concerns that trump human rights and democracy. The president and his team deserve support for attempting new approaches to intractable problems. It makes sense to talk directly to the junta in Burma and to broaden the agenda for cooperation with China. The problem is that the administration' s emphasis on engagement is leading the region's autocrats and dictators to see an opening for further repression at home.
The most obvious case is Tibet. The Dalai Lama has met with the American president at the White House during every visit to Washington since 1991. Initially, the Obama administration signaled it would continue this tradition during the Tibetan spiritual leader's planned visit in October, but later changed its mind. The White House may have hoped a subtler approach to the Tibet problem would pave the way for a successful presidential visit to China and yield quiet results for Tibet. Fair enough—but the opposite is happening. The Chinese are raising the ante on the Tibetans, demanding that the Dalai Lama cease all foreign travel and meetings with other international leaders as a precondition for resuming stalled Sino-Tibetan talks. Beijing is also putting pressure on other nations to follow the U.S. example, including India, which politely gave Beijing a firm "no" to its demand that Delhi stop the Dalai Lama from visiting his followers in disputed Arunachal Pradesh.
Rather than viewing gestures on Tibet as evidence of goodwill to be rewarded, the Chinese reaction has been to pocket the concessions and demand more—steadily asserting its position that regime behavior and internal affairs are not the business of the international community. In the long run, this will only complicate efforts to encourage China to use its increasing power as a responsible stakeholder.
There are also confusing signals on Burma. After a "Burma policy review," the administration reasonably concluded that neither sanctions nor engagement alone were likely to change the behavior of the regime and announced that the U.S. was going to try a new approach that employed both. In September Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell testified to the Senate that the U.S. would not ease sanctions without meaningful steps by the junta and reserved the right to strengthen sanctions if there is not progress. This was the right basis for beginning the dialogue. But the administration has also stated that engagement will be a sustained and long-term process, implying it would not necessarily hinge on the regime's short-term behavior.
In response, Burma's prime minister, General Thein Sein, announced in late October that the U.S. had "softened its approach." The junta also symbolically allowed international diplomats to have access to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, the junta has concurrently increased its internal suppression of ethnic minorities and democracy activists since the administration' s policy review and engagement strategy began. In June the Burmese military drove 5,000 members of the Karen minority across the border into Thailand, the largest exodus of Karen in a decade. In August the junta sentenced Ms. Suu Kyi to an additional 18 months of house imprisonment. In August and September the junta began a major military offensive against the Kokang people in northern Burma, driving over 30,000 refugees into China. Just last week the regime arrested 50 students, journalists and political activists, even as the U.S. prepared to send its first senior-level delegation to Burma this week for high-level talks with the junta.
Tibet and Burma illustrate the administration' s serious dilemma: how to prevent its commitment to engagement from being perceived as a sign of shifting U.S. priorities and a greater tolerance for repression. It is damaging enough that Beijing and Naypyidaw are receiving this signal, but even minor adjustments in U.S. policy have a major ripple effect among friendly states also grappling with how to encourage greater democracy and human rights in the region. The European Union was poised to activate stronger sanctions against Burma but is now hesitating. Members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations were engaging in a painful but important internal debate about how to implement the human-rights and democracy principles in their new charter with respect to Burma, but at their most recent summit in Thailand the focus was entirely on what the U.S. would do to help solve the problem.
The president should use his visit to Asia to correct the confusing signals Washington is sending about the U.S. commitment to human rights and democracy. The administration does not need to abandon its aim of seeking results through direct dialogue with Burma's leadership nor curtail its ambitious agenda for cooperation with China. But the administration should not be afraid that a clear stand on human rights and democracy will jeopardize those goals.
President Obama can begin by announcing his clear intention to meet with the Dalai Lama early next year and pressing Chinese President Hu Jintao to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives without preconditions. Mr. Obama can use the trip to clarify, in his meetings with Southeast Asian leaders on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, that the U.S. will increase targeted financial sanctions on Burma if repression continues to escalate. The U.S. should also re-engage Burma's neighbors to pressure the regime for change by stating that the U.S. will continue its new approach only if Ms. Suu Kyi is released and there are real opportunities for the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities to participate in a fair political process.
Finally, he should use his public addresses to single out and demonstrate support for those dissidents and prisoners of conscience who will someday emerge as the future Kim Dae-jungs and Vaclav Havels of Asia. For it is they who face the greatest uncertainty if America's intentions remain unclear.
Mr. Green is senior advisor and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and associate professor at Georgetown University. This is the first article in an occasional series on the Obama administration' s human-rights record. http://online. wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748 7039329045745101 92259822258. html?mod= googlenews_ wsj
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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.”
US presses Myanmar on NKorea, Suu Kyi at rare talks
US officials urged Myanmar to obey UN sanctions on North Korea and to review its treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi in a rare meeting between the two countries, a US official said on Thursday.
The talks happened late on Wednesday on the eve of Asia’s biggest security conference in the Thai resort island of Phuket, which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is attending, a senior State Department official said.
Clinton did not attend the meeting with the representatives from the reclusive, junta-ruled nation. The State Department said the US officials urged Myanmar to implement the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1874, which imposed sanctions on North Korea over its recent missile and nuclear tests.
Clinton had raised concerns earlier on Wednesday over the possible transfer of nuclear technology from Kim Jong-Il’s communist regime to military-ruled Myanmar.
The US officials also “noted that the outcome of the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi would affect our willingness and ability to take positive steps in our bilateral relationship.”
Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is currently on trial for breaching the terms of her house arrest after an incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside house in Yangon in May.
She faces up to five years in jail and is being held in the city’s notorious Insein prison.
Clinton said on Wednesday that if Myanmar frees Aung San Suu Kyi “that would open up opportunities at least for my country to expand our relationship with Burma, including investments in Burma,” she said, referring to Myanmar by its former name.
Japanese officials said that Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win had pledged that his country would oblige by the UN sanctions on North Korea when he met his Japanese counterpart Hirofumi Nakasone on Wednesday.
“The Myanmar foreign minister mentioned very clearly that Myanmar is a member of the United Nations, Myanmar also is obliged to fully comply with any UN Security council resolutions, including 1874,” said Kazuo Kodama, the Japanese minister’s press secretary. “That is I think a very reassuring message from the Myanmar foreign minister,” Kodama said.
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