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Burma's Dramatic Year: Harbingers of Transition?

Political transition anywhere in the world is marked by dramatic, often painful events, both man-made and natural. After a year of almost unremitting drama in Burma, it is instructive to examine the net effect of these events on the country's political climate and whether they may, in fact, be early signs that transition is underway.(Priscilla Clapp, September 23 2008)

http://www.eastwestcenter.org/fileadmin/stored/pdfs/apb023_2.pdf

(Added: Fri Oct 03 2008   Hits: 15)

Monks with guns? Burma's younger activists get bolder.

One year after monks led thousands in Burma's largest antigovernment protests in 19 years, many activists say they are losing patience with the slow pace of change. (Christian Science Monitor, September 2008)

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0919/p01s01-wosc.html

(Added: Mon Sep 22 2008   Hits: 5)

Vote to Nowhere: The May 2008 Constitutional Referendum in Burma [pdf]

This 61-page report shows that the May 10 referendum in Burma is being carried out in an environment of severe restrictions on access to information, repressive media restrictions, an almost total ban on freedom of expression, assembly, and association, and the continuing widespread detention of political activists. It highlights recent government arrests, harassment and attacks on activists opposed to the draft constitution (Human Rights Watch, 1 May 2008).

http://hrw.org/reports/2008/burma0508/burma0508web.pdf

(Added: Fri May 02 2008   Hits: 13)

Crackdown in Burma: Targeted Sanctions Needed

In August and September 2007, Burmese democracy activists, monks and ordinary people took to the streets of Rangoon and elsewhere to peacefully challenge nearly two decades of dictatorial rule and economic mismanagement by Burma's ruling generals. While opposition to the military government is widespread in Burma, and small acts of resistance are an everyday occurrence, military repression is so systematic that such sentiment rarely is able to burst into public view; the last comparable public uprising was in August 1988. As in 1988, the generals responded this time with a brutal and bloody crackdown, leaving Burma's population once again struggling for a voice (Human Rights Watch, December 2007).

http://hrw.org/reports/2007/burma1207/burma1207webwcover.pdf

(Added: Tue Jan 29 2008   Hits: 77)

Burma's "Saffron Revolution" is not over: Time for the international community to act

The ITUC and the FIDH's new report is based on the findings of a joint international mission to the Thai-Burma border and interviews with participants in last October's protest movement and victims of its repression by the military, the 50-page report includes detailed policy proposals and recommendations to the international community (International Federation for Human Rights, December 2007).

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/burmamyanmar/2007/1207fidh.pdf

(Added: Thu Dec 20 2007   Hits: 60)

Burma: The Changing Nature of Displacement Crises

Burma gained independence in 1948. Since then, it has seen communist insurgency, a series of ethnic rebellions, a coup d'etat, years of authoritarian military rule, numerous cease-fires and continuing armed conflict in its eastern border zones. More than two million Burmese people are now displaced and living outside the country. (Refugees Studies Centre, February 2007)

http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/WP39%20Burma%20AS.pdf

(Added: Tue Dec 18 2007   Hits: 21)

Burma- Global Policy Forum

Pages on the Global Policy Forum website about the situation in Burma, includes a short history and analysis.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/myanmaridx.htm

(Added: Mon Nov 26 2007   Hits: 67)

UN Security Council rebukes Burma

Article by the BBC about the recent UN Security Council statement deploring Burma's military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. It is the first time the 15-nation body has taken any formal action over Burma. (BBC, 11 October 2007)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7040371.stm

(Added: Fri Oct 12 2007   Hits: 42)

Monks' Protest Is Challenging Burmese Junta

The largest street protests in two decades against Myanmar's military rulers gained momentum Sunday as thousands of onlookers cheered huge columns of Buddhist monks and shouted support for the detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (NY Times, 24 September).

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/world/asia/24myanmar.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

(Added: Tue Sep 25 2007   Hits: 67)

Burma or Myanmar? Sanctions or not?

As part of its new strategic dialogue, Foreign Policy In Focus asked David Steinberg and Kyi May Kaung the following questions: "Which is the best way to effect change in Burma/Myanmar -- through sanctions against the government, by engaging the leadership, or some combination of the two? David I. Steinberg argues that sanctions have failed their stated goal-regime change. The international community should try diplomacy instead: http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3916 . Kyi May Kaung argues the contrary: the human rights situation is worsening inside Burma, and pressure on the regime should not lessen: http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3917 And in the third part of the dialogue, Kaung and Steinberg rebut each other's arguments: http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3919 (FPIF, 18 January 2007)

http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3916

(Added: Fri Jan 26 2007   Hits: 61)

UN vetoes prolong Burma agony

Burma's military junta has been crowing this week over the defeat of a US- and British-backed United Nations security council resolution condemning the regime's egregious human rights abuses. It is a sickening sound for millions of oppressed Burmese effectively imprisoned in their own homeland. And the decisive UN vetoes cast by China and Russia, supported by South Africa of all countries, have dealt another Darfur-scale setback to the international community's newly proclaimed "responsibility to protect". (Simon Tisdall, Guardian, 17 January 2007)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1992055,00.html

(Added: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 65)

Myanmar: New Threats to Humanitarian Aid

The delivery of humanitarian assistance in Burma/Myanmar is facing new threats. After a period in which humanitarian space expanded, aid agencies have come under renewed pressure, most seriously from the military government but also from pro-democracy activists overseas who seek to curtail or control assistance programs. With growing signs of a humanitarian crisis in-the-making in Myanmar, the international community needs to get beyond debates about the country's highly repressive political system. (International Crisis Group, 8 December 2006)

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=4565

(Added: Mon Dec 11 2006   Hits: 49)

Burma: Human Rights Overview 2006

Despite promises of political reform and national reconciliation, Burma's authoritarian military government, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), continues to operate a strict police state and drastically restricts basic rights and freedoms. It has suppressed the democratic movement represented by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, under detention since May 30, 2003, and has used internationally outlawed tactics in ongoing conflicts with ethnic minority groups. Hundreds of thousands of people, most of them from ethnic minority groups, continue to live precariously as internally displaced people. More than two million have fled to neighboring countries, in particular Thailand, where they face difficult circumstances as asylum seekers or illegal immigrants. The removal of Prime Minister General Khin Nyunt in October 2004 has reinforced hard-line elements within the SPDC and resulted in increasing hostility directed at democracy movements, ethnic minority groups, and international agencies. (Human Rights Watch, January 2006)

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/burma12268.htm

(Added: Thu Nov 02 2006   Hits: 103)

Supply and command: natural gas in Burma set to entrench military rule

This paper highlights the need for democracy and justice in natural gas sector in the Arakan region of Western Burma. It focuses on the so-called Shwe project, a project led by Indian and Korean corporations in partnership with the Burmese dictatorship, which exploits gas field off the coast of the Arakan State. The paper gives a detailed overview of Burma's history since the discovery of natural gas, and also assesses the extractive industries' role in entrenching Burma's military dictatorship. The paper shows how the export of natural gas from Western Burma provides the dictatorship with its single largest source of income, thereby allowing it to insulate itself from international pressure to stop its human rights abuses. (SHWE Gas Movement, 2006)

http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/reports/shwe_gas.pdf

(Added: Wed Oct 04 2006   Modified: Fri Jan 12 2007   Hits: 73)

Ending the Waiting Game: Strategies for Responding to Internally Displaced People in Burma

Burma is experiencing one of the most neglected humanitarian and human rights crises in the world. No less than half a million people are internally displaced in the eastern part of the country and at least one million more have fled to neighboring nations. This report provides an in-depth look at the causes of displacement in Burma, the acute needs of the internally displaced population and the current response to those needs. (Refugees International, 2006)

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/publication/detail/8705/

(Added: Wed Sep 13 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 198)

No Safe Place: Burma's Army and the Rape of Ethnic Women [pdf]

"I have waited many years to tell you this story," one Karenni woman lamented as she told of witnessing her thirteen-yearold sister's rape and then described how the Burmese soldiers beat and attempted to rape her. She is just one of countless women from Burma's ethnic minority groups, sometimes known as ethnic nationalities, with a chilling tale of abuse at the hands of her country's army. (Refugeees International, 2003)

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/files/3023_file_no_safe_place.pdf

(Added: Wed Sep 13 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 231)

AIDS: Burma's Shadowy Mass Export

In 2005 an estimated 360,000 people in Burma were living with HIV, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. These are hardly African levels yet, but rates are increasing dramatically and Burma's generals are doing nothing to stop them. Among ethnic minorities such as the Shan, an estimated 9 percent of men are HIV-positive; so, in some areas, are a staggering 96 percent of injecting drug-users. These rates are exacerbated by public ignorance, widespread poverty, burgeoning prostitution and drug abuse, lack of medicines, and the collapse of a once-respectable healthcare system under military misrule. "You essentially have the perfect storm, the perfect set of conditions for an explosive and sustained HIV epidemic," says Chris Beyrer, director of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School's Center for Public Health and Human Rights in the US, and co-author of a recent report on the spread of serious infectious diseases in Burma. (Andrew Marshall, Irrawaddy, July 2006)

http://www.burmanet.org/news/2006/07/06/irrawaddy-aids-burma%E2%80%99s-shadowy-mass-export-andrew-marshall/

(Added: Tue Sep 12 2006   Modified: Mon Jul 02 2007   Hits: 146)

Action Against the Salween Dams in Burma

Stand up in solidarity with Burma's victims of severe and systematic human rights violations and environmental destruction. Protest against the Thai government's plans with the Burmese military dictatorship to dam the Salween River in Burma. Civil War is raging in the area around the dam sites and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced at gunpoint. Dams are being used as a military strategy against the ethnic peoples of Burma. Torture, rape, and killings of villagers are continuing as more soldiers are being deployed and more landmines laid. Dams will provide financial support to the military junta. Massive corruption is inevitable given the complete lack of transparency. The dams will permanently degrade Southeast Asia's longest free flowing river's fisheries, floodplains, teak forests and wildlife habitats, and flood villages and fertile agricultural land. What Can You Do? Demonstrate in front of your local Thai Embassy/Consulate on September 21, 2006 Contact your Thai embassy and share your concerns. Sign the petition letter attached. Encourage others to sign the petition and participate in the action. Hold roundtable talks, meetings, documentary showings, and other events to raise awareness about this issue.

http://www.petitiononline.com/9202006/petition.html

(Added: Mon Sep 11 2006   Hits: 295)

Burma's struggle, Aung San Suu Kyi's role

The eighteenth anniversary of the "8-8-88" massacre in Rangoon is a moment to reaffirm the core principles of Burmese people's long march to democracy, says Kyi May Kaung. (Open Democracy, 8 August 2006)

http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/rangoon_3805.jsp

(Added: Mon Aug 21 2006   Hits: 66)

Internet Filtering in Burma in 2005

Legal, technical, and political research finds Burma uses Internet filtering technology to conduct surveillance of communication methods such as e-mail, and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups, organizations working for democratic change in Burma, and pornographic material. Burma's on-line restrictions mirror off-line regulations implemented by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), a group of authoritarian military officials who run the state. (Open Net Initiative, October 2005)

http://opennet.net/studies/burma

(Added: Wed Jun 07 2006   Modified: Wed Oct 01 2008   Hits: 120)

The Burmese people can't wait much longer

In this article, a Burmese former policial prisoner writes about his country, an 'aborted democracy' that the military regime call Myanmar. Tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS have reached their highest levels ever. The education system is a shambles. Inflation is rampant. To unblock the stalemate over humanitarian aid caused by the regime's pariah status, the only opposition has made overtures to the regime, only to be dismissed as 'terrorists.' The article outlines ways the international community can help. (Ludu Sein Win, International Herald Tribune, 23 May 2006)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/23/opinion/edludu.php

(Added: Thu May 25 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 220)

Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma [PDF]

Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, and Desmond M. Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, issued a groundbreaking report calling for an urgent, new, and multilateral diplomatic initiative at the UN Security Council to bring change to Burma. The 70-page report, prepared by global law firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, compares the situation in Burma to seven other countries in which the Security Council has previously intervened in internal conflicts because of the transnational issues implicated, including Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Haiti - and determines that many of the factors which trigger Security Council intervention are far worse in Burma than in other countries where the Council had previously decided to act. September 20, 2005.

http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/reports/Burmaunscreport.pdf

(Added: Thu Feb 16 2006   Modified: Thu Jul 13 2006   Hits: 90)

SHWE Gas Movement

In cooperation with Burma's military junta, a consortium of Indian and Korean corporations are currently exploring gas fields off the coast of Arakan State in Western Burma. Discovered in December 2003, these fields--labeled A-1, or "Shwe" (the Burmese word for gold)--are expected to hold one of the largest gas yields in Southeast Asia. These Shwe fields are destined to become the Burmese military government's largest single source of foreign income. However, for the people of Burma this project will likely bring more suffering than benefits. Key concerns are the exploitation of the voiceless, human rights abuses, destruction of environment and culture, and the entrenchment of the dictatorship. Learn more and take action via this website.

http://www.shwe.org/take-action

(Added: Sat Mar 12 2005   Modified: Fri Feb 09 2007   Hits: 259)

Burma/Myanmar: Reconciliation without Capitulation (A Critique of the NBR Report)

The recent report by the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), Badgley, J.H. (2004) "Reconciling Burma/Myanmar: Essays on U.S. Relations with Burma" , presented a shamelessly one-sided set of arguments for changing United States policy towards Myanmar. This paper tries to redress the balance, and to present both sides of the argument concerning what is, after all, a complex and heated issue. Two "core arguments" of the NBR report are identified and discussed, and in contrast the author develops two "core counter-arguments" for maintaining, with modifications, the existing U.S. policies with respect to Myanmar.

http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/NBR-reply.htm

(Added: Thu Apr 08 2004   Modified: Thu Feb 08 2007   Hits: 103)

The Online Burma/Myanmar Library

The Online Burma/Myanmar Library is a database which functions as an annotated, classified and hyperlinked index to full texts of individual Burma documents on the Internet. It also houses a growing collection of articles, conference papers, theses, books, reports, archives and directories on-site (e.g. the 17MB archive of the Burma Press Summary). The Librarian requests help from specialists to refine the structure and add content. Launched in October 2001, it is organised on a database (using MySQL software, in combination with PHP) into 60 top-level categories based on traditional library classifications, with a hierarchy of some 850 sub-categories. These hold approximately 4000 links (mostly annotated, with keywords and descriptions) to individual documents, and about 400 links to websites which in turn give access to another 100,000 or so documents.

http://www.burmalibrary.org/

(Added: Thu Jan 22 2004   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 251)

Burma: Grace Under Pressure

A superbly done flash movie by Geoffrey Hiller outlining Burma's recent history, politics and social climate.

http://www.hillerphoto.com/burma

(Added: Thu Oct 16 2003   Modified: Thu Jun 01 2006   Hits: 108)

A Conflict Of Interest: The Uncertain Future of Burma's Forests

A Briefing Document by Global Witness, October 2003

http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/113/en/a_conflict_of_interest_english

(Added: Fri Oct 10 2003   Modified: Thu Feb 08 2007   Hits: 173)

The Irrawaddy Newsmagazine - Interactive Edition

The Irrawaddy, an independent news publication, raises awareness about Burma-related issues through unbiased reporting from a Burmese perspective.

http://www.irrawaddy.org

(Added: Sat Jun 02 2001   Modified: Thu Jun 01 2006   Hits: 122)

DPRK - North Korea

This site is a contribution to the understanding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and to peace and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula via the provision of information from various viewpoints.

http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~caplabtb/dprk/

(Added: Sat May 26 2001   Modified: Thu Jun 01 2006   Hits: 135)