Peacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
IN THE LATEST, and very timely, biography of Aung San Suu Kyi, Peter Popham ably chronicles the incredible story of her life.
By Emma Larkin
The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi
By Peter Popham
(The Experiment, 448 pp., $27.50)
Aung San Suu Kyi mania is sweeping Rangoon. The paraphernalia for sale on the streets of Rangoon now includes the hitherto banned image of Aung San Suu Kyi on posters, stickers, key rings, and baseball caps. At one store, staff are hurriedly screen-printing new t-shirts with line drawings of her face while hundreds of freshly stamped flags bearing the peacock and star logo of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), are being hung up to dry—the shop owner is expecting a rush on sales after the NLD’s landslide victory in Burma’s by-elections earlier this month. The party won forty-three out of the forty-four seats it contested, and even snatched up all four seats available in the new capital and government stronghold of Naypyitaw. It was a staggering victory, and most people I spoke to in Rangoon attributed it to the powerful allure of the party’s world-famous chairperson, Aung San Suu Kyi.
GENEVA – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday offered her encouragement to ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) in drafting a regional human rights declaration, but called for a meaningful consultation on the draft with the widest spectrum of people in the region before it is presented to ASEAN’s foreign ministers in July.
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 07:43 PDT
News source:
30 April 2012
680 News
By AP
YANGON, Myanmar – Aung San Suu Kyi said she and other lawmakers in her opposition party will attend Myanmar’s parliament on Wednesday for the first time and will take the oath of office though they still fiercely dispute its wording.
Suu Kyi said she was not backing down on the issue, however, and that her party would continue to seek constitutional change through legislative actions. The oath is part of the constitution, and her party also seeks to change other statutes it considers undemocratic.
“Politics is an issue of give and take,” she told reporters in the main city, Yangon, on Monday. “We are not giving up, we are just yielding to the aspirations of the people.”
Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy object to phrasing in the oath that obligates them to “safeguard the constitution,” which was drafted under military rule and ensures the army inordinate power.
The party wants “safeguard” replaced with “respect,” a change made in other laws including electoral legislation that enabled Suu Kyi’s party to officially enter politics for the first time in decades.
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 07:37 PDT
News source:
30 April 2012
Reuters
By Martin Petty
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar, April 30 – Myanmar will choose a team of 50 peace negotiators led by a vice-president to settle a conflict in Kachin State and bring all ethnic groups into the political fold ahead of 2015 elections, the main government peace envoy said on Monday.
Since he took office a little more than a year ago, the President of Burma, U Thein Sein, has proved himself the architect of one of the most unlikely democratic transitions anywhere in the world…
And whether or not he succeeds will be important not just for Burma’s 55 million people but for all of Asia.
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 08:00 PDT
News source:
13 April 2012
Asia Times Online
By David I Steinberg
The successful completion of the by-elections of April 1 provides grounds for renewed hope for future developments in Myanmar. In spite of dire predictions of manipulation, the results indicate that the government of President Thein Sein has essentially fulfilled its promise of a fair set of by-elections – ones that were swept by the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), which won 43 of 45 seats.
The government-supported political organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which had previously held those seats, lost.
Now, however, if Myanmar is to evolve into a state that begins to approach its political, social and economic potential, the delicate process begins – the building of multiple levels and layers of trust between and among the various forces in the complex maze of societies that comprise Myanmar.
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 07:59 PDT
News source:
13 April 2012
Asia Times Online
By Brian McCartan
Myanmar’s highly anticipated by-elections, held on April 1 for some 45 parliamentary seats, has borne its first diplomatic fruit. The United States announced a relaxation of certain economic sanctions and movement on the resumption of full diplomatic relations with Naypyidaw in reward for the country’s recent democratic progress.
However, the opposition National League for Democracy’s landslide victory of 43 out of the 45 seats may be somewhat overstated and questions remain about the sincerity of President Thein Sein’s government’s commitment to sustainable reform.
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 21:44 PDT
News source:
11 April 2012
ICG
Asia Briefing N°136
One year into the new semi-civilian government, Myanmar has implemented a wide-ranging set of reforms as it embarks on a remarkable top-down transition from five decades of authoritarian rule. In an address to the nation on 1 March 2012 marking his first year in office, President Thein Sein made clear that the goal was to introduce “genuine democracy” and that there was still much more to be done. This ambitious agenda includes further democratic reform, healing bitter wounds of the past, rebuilding the economy and ensuring the rule of law, as well as respecting ethnic diversity and equality. The changes are real, but the challenges are complex and numerous. To consolidate and build on what has been achieved and increase the likelihood that benefits flow to all its citizens, Myanmar needs the international community to come closer, seeking opportunities for greater engagement rather than more reasons why sanctions should be sustained.
CHIANG MAI – A mass movement is spreading across Myanmar on a scale not seen since tens of thousands of Buddhist monks led anti-government demonstrations in 2007 and the massive nationwide pro-democracy uprising against the old military regime in 1988. This time the mobilizing force is a by-election contested by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party to fill 48 seats in parliamentary bodies currently dominated by military aligned representatives.
Wherever Suu Kyi appears on the campaign trail thousands of people of all ages have shown up to listen to her speeches, or just to line the roads and cheer along the routes of her motorcade. Big screen televisions, expensive sound systems and other sophisticated paraphernalia at her rallies are clear indications of support from sections of the private business community, which until recently had links almost exclusively with the traditional military establishment.
Until a year ago many Western observers, including prominent European Union diplomats in Bangkok who cover Myanmar, asserted that Suu Kyi was a spent political force, that many young people didn’t even know who she was because she had spent years under house arrest. Instead they felt that a new “Third Force” was emerging, one that challenged the supposed uncompromising stands of both Suu Kyi and the NLD, and the military-dominated government.
The present mass movement shows clearly how wrong they were…
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 19:40 PDT
News source:
14 February 2012
Associated Press
By Khin Maung Win
DAWEI, Myanmar — When 200 activists in green T-Shirts marched along a pristine Myanmar beach to protest plans for a coal plant, they expected a long, tough struggle against the powers that be. But then, something bizarre happened.
A deputy Cabinet minister asked for a meeting. He listened patiently to their concerns about pollution. And then he told them the government agreed: It would halt construction of the controversial 4,000-megawatt plant on Myanmar’s southern panhandle.
In a long-repressed country whose people have grown accustomed to living in fear of government authority, it all seemed too good to be true. Just last year, anyone who dared even demonstrate in public would have likely have been beaten or detained by security forces.
“We were shocked,” said Aung Zaw Hein of the activist group, the Dawei Development Association, which staged the protest last month. “He asked us, ‘do you love your region?’ Then he said, ‘We love it, too. We just need to work together.’”
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 10:10 PDT
News source:
8 February 2012
The Asahi Shimbun
By Yuki Akimoto
These days, the media is full of upbeat reports about all the changes taking place in Myanmar (Burma). It is true that the government in Burma has undertaken certain reforms.
Myanmar’s reform process is in the balance as the hardliners and liberals in government are locked in a bitter power struggle. Change in Myanmar remains fragile, despite encouraging signs and growing goodwill towards President Thein Sein internationally. So far there have been a lot of good intentions, but this has only produced limited practical change, according to analysts.
The reason is that the liberal-minded ministers who support Thein Sein and the reform agenda are being cramped by the persistent pressure from the hardliners, led by the Vice President Tin Aung Myint Oo, who are intent on derailing the reform process.
The case of the release of political prisoners highlights the bitter battle being waged behind the scenes…
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 20:51 PDT
News source:
24 January 2012
Bloomberg Businessweek
By Thomas Penny and Daniel Ten Kate
The European Union lifted travel restrictions on Myanmar’s top leaders after they freed political prisoners, easing some sanctions before an April by-election in which Aung San Suu Kyi will participate.
Filed under: Myanmar files — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 20:50 PDT
News source:
23 January 2012
AlertNet
BANGKOK – Myanmar and its army are continuing a “systematic repression” of citizens, namely in ethnic areas with ongoing conflicts, despite the government’s promise of reform and its ceasefire agreements with some ethnic armed groups, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.
... only 0.6 per cent of gross domestic product was spent on education compared to the 80 per cent spent on the military and State-owned enterprises
The Committee on the Rights of the Child today considered the combined third and fourth periodic report of Myanmar on its implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child…
Just two days ago the Government of Myanmar had ratified the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography… [T]he National Committee on the Rights of the Child was reconstituted in May 2011. Reforms had been carried out in healthcare, with maternal, newborn and child health at the centre, and free and compulsory primary education had been introduced. The Government placed high priority on the prevention of child labour, particularly child recruitment into the military, and was taking punitive action against perpetrators from the armed forces…
Kamla Varmah, Committee Expert acting as Co-Rapporteur for the report of Myanmar, expressed concern that the age of criminal responsibility was seven [7] years old, that the employment age was 13, and that there was no minimum age for marriage for boys while girls as young as 14 could be married with parental consent. Ms. Varmah raised issues including adoption, birth registration, the high infant and under five mortality rate, chronic malnutrition of children and the right of children to be heard. She noted that only 1.3 per cent of the national budget was spent on health services and 2009 figures showed that only 0.6 per cent of gross domestic product was spent on education compared to the 80 per cent spent on the military and State-owned enterprises.
By Aung San Suu Kyi | event hosted by Initiatives of Change, India and Initiatives of Change Centre for Governance
This is a video address sent by Aung San Suu Kyi to the ‘Democracy Dialogue’. An initiative jointly hosted by Initiatives of Change, India and Initiatives of Change Centre for Governance.
Pol Pot, Kim Jong IL and Than Shwe: The common denominator of these three men is cruelty, brutality, ruthlessness, and secrecy in a tyranny which simultaneously oppressed and starved its people to an almost unique degree to sustain their regimes. All of them have directly or indirectly killed from 1.5 to 2 million of their own citizens.
“…[Than Shwe's] human right violations have been so numerous and consistent over the past years as to suggest that they are not simply isolated or the acts of individual misbehaviour by middle and lower-rank officers but are rather the result of policy at the highest level, entailing political and legal responsibility.” was the remark given by United Nations Special Reporter Rajsoomer Lallah, on the situation of human rights in Burma…
He has conscripted tens of thousands of child soldiers some as young as age 10 were forcibly recruited into the army making Burma the largest child army in the world.
What conflict situations are most at risk of deteriorating further in 2012? When Foreign Policy asked the International Crisis Group to evaluate which manmade disasters could explode in the coming year, we put our heads together and came up with 10 crisis areas that warrant particular concern.
"Avoiding strong stands and pandering to your political base is in" among world leaders, author says.
New York, NY – When John F Kennedy was running for office, he wrote a book with the help of a prominent historian and political adviser. That volume, Profiles in Courage, became a bestseller because the public wanted – and still wants – leaders they can admire.
The problem is that in an age of big money politics, polls and political consultants, courage among our politicians is dwindling fast. The courageous politician appears to be an endangered species that “lives” only in history books, but not in the present era.
Former CBS newscaster Dan Rather used the term “courage!” to end his newscasts. When he showed real courage in exposing President Bush’s non-existent war record, he was pushed out of his anchor chair for his bravery.
There are some – though few – exceptions. The recently departed Czech leader Vaclav Havel was one, perhaps because he was an outspoken human rights activist and playwright. A book about his work in theatre is entitled Acts of Courage. Havel wrote that when “courage to act against unfreedom is boiled down to mere calculations of risk, then courage ceases to be courage”.
Nelson Mandela also showed courage, as did FW DeKlerk when he finally let him out of prison. Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi is on the courage list along with a small minority of others.
On 8 December, 2011, the UCDP released its latest addition to its vast number of datasets; the UCDP GED version 1.0-2011. The UCDP GED is an event-based and georeferenced dataset on organized violence, detailing all of the UCDP’s categories of violence (state-based conflict, non-state conflict and one-sided violence) in Africa between 1989 and 2010 at the level of the individual event of violence.
