Burma

[1001]

Several killed in Myanmar explosions


Saturday 07 May 2005, 16:14 Makka Time, 13:14 GMT

Explosions rocked military-ruled Myanmar's capital, killing at least nine people and wounding dozens more.

The simultaneous blasts occurred at two crowded shopping malls and a trade centre in Yangon, government officials said, but they gave no further details.

"Nine people were killed and several dozen more were admitted with blast wounds," an official at Yangon General Hospital told Reuters.

One blast killed up to 3 people and wounded more than 10 others attending a Thai trade fair at the Yangon trade centre, a Thai Foreign Ministry official said in Bangkok.

Witnesses said traffic was jammed outside the shopping centres as rescue teams worked to evacuate the wounded. Other shopping centres in the capital were closed after the blasts.

Series of blasts

It was the latest in a series of explosions in the former Burma, ruled by the military in various guises since 1962.

Last month, a bomb blast at a busy market in the central city of Mandalay, 690km north of Yangon, killed 3 people and wounded another 15.

The military has blamed previous attacks on "destructive elements" - an expression often used to refer to political opponents and ethnic minority rebel groups fighting for autonomy.

A spokesman for the Karen National Union, a rebel group based along the Thai-Myanmar border, said on Saturday that his group was not responsible for the blasts.

Reuters
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D77FAD83-E768-4219-AF94-ADA9A84089CE.htm

[Petronas]

Dozens of people killed in four Myanmar bomb blasts
Monday, May 09, 2005

YANGOON: Several dozen people were killed Saturday when four near-simultaneous bomb explosions struck the Myanmar capital in Yangon’s deadliest bomb attack in years, witnesses at the blast sites and a Thai diplomat said. Hospital officials said up to 200 people were wounded in the blasts. “I counted as many as 20 people dead, some of them with their heads missing and their limbs missing,” a witness who survived the blast at the Dagon shopping centre in downtown Yangon told AFP. A witness at a second blast site, at Junction 8 shopping centre eight miles (13 kilometres) north of the city centre, said she counted “at least 40 bodies being brought out of the building” where two bombs exploded at about 3:00 pm (0830 GMT). An official in Myanmar’s military government confirmed four bombs were detonated Saturday but had no official word on the casualty count.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-5-2005_pg4_9

[NYC]

Is Myanmar predominantly muslim?

[1001]

The main religions of the country are Buddhism (89.5 % ), Christianity (4.9 % ), Muslims (3.8 % ), Hindus (0.05 % ), and Animism (1. 3 % ).

But the land is ruled by military dictatorship.

[NYC]

The main religions of the country are Buddhism (89.5 % ), Christianity (4.9 % ), Muslims (3.8 % ), Hindus (0.05 % ), and Animism (1 3 % ).

But the land is ruled by military dictatorship.

Thanks, I knew the military dictatorship part but didn't know the religion breakdown. Just wondering.

[Trinity]

OIC decries aggressions against Muslims in Myanmar
Regional-Myanmar, Religion, 6/19/2001

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) has denounced aggressions perpetrated by extremist Buddhists against Muslims in the Republic of Myanmar.

The OIC secretary general Abdelouahed Belkziz (Morocco) said in a statement he is following with great concern the aggressions against Muslims, nurtured by ethnic rifts, as well as the persecution, deportation and slaughter of Muslim women and children.

The statement, deploring the serious escalation of aggressions against Muslims these past days, said Buddhist extremists burnt down and destroyed eight historical mosques in the region of Tongo and sixteen others in Mandino and governmental authorities made no move to stop the barbarous aggressions.

These aggressions and acts of destruction threaten the very identity and existence of the Muslim community, the statement said, calling the international community and human rights organizations to endeavor with the Myanmar government to put an end to the destruction of historical mosques and places of worship, stop the aggressions against the Muslims, ensure the protection of the Muslim community and guarantee Muslims' political, social and cultural rights.

http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/010619/2001061928.html

[exitwound]

The idea of Buddhist extremist terrorism is incredible to me....I just can't wrap my mind around it. It's contrary to everything about Buddhism!

That's true, really, of Islam too but there's so much room in the Qur'an for interpretation, loopholes and exceptions. Buddhism seems at its core very simple.

Buddhist extremism usually comes in the form of people setting THEMSELVES on fire, not hurting anyone else. But I guess there's room in any large group for crazies to find an entering wedge....

[Petronas]

Myanmar (Country threat level - 4): ... Reports indicate that in response to the attacks, security has been increased throughout Yangon -- particularly at government offices and banks -- and all businesses are required to close by 1800 local time. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the Myanmar government has temporarily closed the country's borders. Government officials blamed the bombings on exiled opposition groups and on rebel groups such as the Karen National Union and the Shan State Army. These groups have denied involvement. As a result of the blasts, the Thai government evacuated more than 100 Thai nationals, most of whom attended the Thailand Trade Fair, via military and commercial aircraft. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra stated that the attack was not presumed to have targeted Thai interests.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 5/9/2005

[keith]

Inside Myanmar's secret capital
By Clive Parker

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar - One year after Myanmar's secretive ruling military junta suddenly relocated the national capital 320 kilometers north from Yangon to Naypyidaw, the motivations behind the dramatic move are still unclear.

Foreign access to the new capital is strictly forbidden. But this correspondent's recent travels through the area showed that the junta has quietly continued to build around the new capital's greenfield site, which is rapidly swallowing the old town formerly known as Pyinmana. And recent construction of key infrastructure in other parts of the country's heartland Mandalay division offers new clues to the junta's grand designs for the region.

Although on a smaller scale than in the new capital, Myanmar's government is concurrently developing military, communications and transport infrastructure in a corridor that runs directly north from Naypyidaw to Pyin Oo Lwin, the town where the army's Defense Services Academy (DSA) training facility is situated.

The regime is building a new military airport just outside of Pyin Oo Lwin in nearby Anikasan town. The single runway, a 3,000-meter-long airstrip, took nearly two years to complete and immediately came into service last October when the junta received India's army chief of staff J J Singh in Pyin Oo Lwin. The Indian official was subsequently taken on a tour of the DSA as well as the Defense Services Technological Academy.

Residents of Pyin Oo Lwin and nearby Mandalay say the new airstrip is more commonly used to ferry high-ranking military officials between Naypyidaw and a newly built luxury housing complex between Anikasan Airport and Pyin Oo Lwin, which reportedly includes a large mansion belonging to State Peace and Development Council chief General Than Shwe. Strictly off limits to visitors, the site was built with the help of Htoo Trading, owned by Tay Za, the military's preferred construction contractor and a renowned arms dealer.

In July, just outside of Pyin Oo Lwin, the junta began construction on the Yadanabon Silicon Village, a new cyber-city that promises to serve as an integral part of the new capital's communication network. Although construction has just commenced, architectural blueprints seen by this correspondent at the site's foreman's cabin show plans for a sprawling complex devoted to software incubation and information-technology hardware suites, along with a modern residential zone.

In August, builders had cleared a channel for a new access road to the site, though construction of the complex itself has not progressed beyond initial landscaping. Builders could be heard by this correspondent blasting the hillside as part of the land-clearing process. As with the new capital Naypyidaw, photographing the site is strictly forbidden.

Military industrial complex
The junta apparently has an eye on concentrating key industry around the region. Old and new military installations line the main road from Pyin Oo Lwin to Mandalay, including the Defense Services Mechanical and Electrical Engineering School, which was built more than a decade ago. The town is also home to the Defense Services Institute of Technology, the Defense Services Administration School and the Army Training Depot.

Also just outside Pyin Oo Lwin is Myanmar's only iron-and-steel factory, which produces about 30,000 tons of metal a year, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua. In a bid to improve access to this increasingly significant military town, the government in 2003 decided to upgrade drastically the notoriously poor Mandalay-Pyin Oo Lwin road with the help of the Asia World Co, another preferred contractor owned by Steven Law, who has widely alleged links to the narcotics trade. It now takes less than an hour by car to reach Mandalay from Pyin Oo Lwin.

Almost equidistant between Pyin Oo Lwin and Naypyidaw is the strategically significant town of Meiktila, home to the country's air force. Meiktila has also seen extensive development in recent years coincident with construction of the new capital. Since 2001, there have been reports that China and Russia have helped upgrade the Shante air base, the country's main military airstrip, a few kilometers northeast of Meiktila.

Reports that both countries have recently sold and delivered fighter jets to the base seem to be confirmed by satellite images downloaded using Google Earth, which clearly show a number of olive-green Chinese Chengdu F-7M Airguard and light-khaki NAMC A-5C military aircraft along with blue Russian MiG-29s - all recent additions to Myanmar's air force. At the nearby Meiktila Airfield, Google Earth images also show a number of what appear to be Russian Mi-17 helicopters.

In addition to supplying military hardware, media reports have suggested, Chinese and Russian aeronautical experts have in recent years made regular visits to the various air force training schools around Meiktila.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper in April 2004 confirmed that lectures were administered by "local and foreign experts" at the Myanmar Aerospace Engineering University in Meiktila, which at the time was still in the process of being completed. This "new and separate university", the report said, would "make the teaching programs more effective by sending teachers going to work at the university to foreign countries for further studies and inviting foreign technicians to the university to give lectures".

Highlighting the military significance of the new facility, Than Shwe said during a 2004 visit, "Only when the university produces future technicians in aerospace and engineering fields for the state will the nation be able to keep pace with others." The military has also relied on Chinese and Russian assistance to help build other significant military installations in and around Meiktila.

In April 2004, around the time construction on the new capital began, the junta signed a US$500 million deal with Ukrainian state arms company UkrspetsExport to build an APC (armored personnel carrier) factory. Between 12km and 15km outside of Meiktila, according to a former employee of the Ukrainian firm who worked on the deal, the facility is designed over a 10-year period to receive about 1,000 70%-assembled BTR-3U APCs.

At the factory, Meiktila-based Ukrainian technicians are geared to work hand-in-hand with their Myanmar counterparts to complete the assembly process and pass along knowledge about the vehicles' inner workings, the company's former employee said. Although the deal was designed to run until 2014, Myanmar's failure to meet payments on time has recently soured relations between the two sides.

In a bid to receive past-due payments, Sergiy Korostil, UkrspetsExport's chief representative in Yangon, wrote a letter to Myanmar's Ministry of Defense this year. This was, however, rebuffed when the Myanmar side accused the Ukrainians of violating their side of the agreement when their technicians were discovered to have left their designated military compound without authorization. Whether this tit-for-tat exchange has killed the deal is unclear. Korostil is reportedly still operating out of his office at the Nikko Hotel in Yangon with a small team of staff, and the executive has since made visits to Naypyidaw to meet with government officials.

The hiccup with UkrspetsExport has not dampened other foreign firms' appetite to ink deals with the junta. Many Asian companies have traveled to Naypyidaw to sign a host of state contracts to build communication, transport and perhaps even military infrastructure. In 1998, prior to the UkrspetsExports episode, Myanmar agreed to a deal with China to build a landmine factory just outside of Meiktila, which is reportedly still up and running.

The junta has also made efforts to significantly upgrade transport links to Meiktila. In August, workers could be seen opposite the town's train platform working on the beginnings of a construction project between the two main lines that run through Meiktila railway station. On July 16, the government held a ceremony to launch the new Naypyidaw-Meiktila express-train service, one of a number of recently added routes to the new capital. The project included construction of "13 small and big bridges ... along the railroad", the state-run press reported.

South of Meiktila, the road to Naypyidaw has undergone considerable renovation, at least by Myanmar's poor standards. Although many roads in the new capital remain unfinished, an expansive new highway that leads off the main Yangon-Mandalay road to the new Ministry of Defense compound is nearly complete.
A Western observer who in recent months caught a rare glimpse inside the new 35-square-kilometer defense zone to the north of the new capital noticed giant statues of past Burmese kings along the main parade ground. "Most notable was the four-lane concrete road that passes through the entire complex, [which] becomes six then eight lanes as you enter the military side. Reportedly, this is so it can serve as an airplane runway," said the Western observer, who requested anonymity.

Mysterious motivations
While commentators have offered a host of reasons for the junta's sudden move north, ranging from astrology to military strategy to fears of a possible US-led invasion, the larger field of development in Myanmar's central heartland lends credence to the simpler strategic notion that the junta regards the central heartland as an ideal site to consolidate its resources.

Whether or not the move to Naypyidaw offers strategic military advantages is debatable, according to Andrew Selth, an expert on Myanmar's armed forces. "Building Naypyidaw emphasizes and utilizes that corridor, but there have long been plans to upgrade these facilities, as they are also important for economic and political reasons," he said. "In purely strategic terms, it would have been more sensible to diversify these critical north-south links and build more routes on the western side of the Irrawaddy [River], or in the east of the country."

Selth said the increasing separation of Myanmar's ruling military generals from the civilian population would make it far easier for a potential foreign invader to target the junta through air strikes. Nevertheless, the argument previously put forward that the switch inland from the old coastal capital Yangon reduces the risk to the junta of a land invasion was probably taken into account by the military.

In the past, the junta felt most threatened through its vulnerability at the Bay of Bengal. In 1988, the US moved navy vessels into the area, apparently in the event of the state collapsing during the democratic uprisings. In 1992, junta abuses against Muslims in Arakan state prompted the wrath of Saudi Arabia, whose army chief Prince Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz called on the United Nations to intervene and help the minority Muslims.

Selth reasons that relocating inland does not put the military out of reach of advanced missiles and aircraft of its perceived primary threat - the United States. President George W Bush's administration has recently referred to Myanmar as an "outpost of tyranny", though few security experts reckon the US would ever attack, because of China's heavy influence in Myanmar. But "if the external threat was seen as real and imminent, the regime may well choose to consolidate its military strength in central [Myanmar], with a view to a conventional defense of the [Myanmar] heartland," he said.

Whether efforts to expand resources and facilities in the country's central heartland truly shore up national defenses given that the main insurgency threat lies in the surrounding areas controlled by Karen insurgents is debatable, Selth said. "Given its make-up, it is difficult to see the current government doing anything that does not include some consideration of military and strategic factors," he said.

While evidence of massive construction activity in Mandalay division suggests that the junta may well see central Myanmar as the key to its ultimate survival, as ever, only Than Shwe and his inner circle know the real reason behind their dramatic and expensive shift to Naypyidaw.

Clive Parker is a reporter at The Irrawaddy, an online news service and monthly magazine that focuses on Myanmar and Southeast Asia, based in Chiang Mai. He is possibly the first foreign journalist to report from Myanmar's new capital.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HJ28Ae01.html

[keith]

Misery Spirals in Burma As Junta Targets Minorities

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 17, 2006; A01

CAMP EITUTA, Burma -- In a burgeoning encampment here on Burma's eastern frontier, Hay Nay Tha, a 30-year-old mother of three, awakens in the darkness most nights to the sound of her children's screams.

"They keep having nightmares about our journey here," she said.

That journey, Hay recalled, began when she was four months pregnant and government soldiers torched her village and forced local farmers off their land. It ended four weeks later, after her husband died of malaria en route to this camp. She and her children arrived here this summer dehydrated and exhausted. Hay soon went into early labor with a stillborn son.

"To be honest," the copper-skinned woman said, shyly gazing down at her hands, "I am having nightmares, too."

Nightmares of all kinds are rife in this camp, where new clusters of villagers arrive almost daily, a consequence of Burma's largest military offensive against its own people in more than a decade, according to aid groups and Western diplomats. The offensive has targeted minorities such as Hay, a member of the restive Karen ethnic group, which has long maintained a measure of autonomy.

According to estimates by relief groups, Burmese forces have burned down more than 200 civilian villages here in Karen state, destroyed crops and placed land mines along key jungle passages to prevent refugees from returning to their home villages. Dozens of people have died, and at least 20,000 civilians have been displaced over the past eight to 10 months.

"What is now going on in Burma are crimes against humanity," said Sunai Phasuk, head Burma consultant for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "The military government has significantly stepped up their systemic policy of violence against the ethnic Karen with this offensive. We're talking about a mounting disaster."

Burma's military leaders have historically been secretive about their actions. But observers say they are attempting to build a broad security cordon around their new capital near the inland city of Pyinmana, located only a few miles from the border of Karen state. The result has been an extraordinary use of force to clear out existing villages in the area.

Since seizing control of the country in 1988, Burma's military junta has taken a series of harsh measures to secure its grip on power, and over the past several months, it has appeared to step up its arrests of opposition figures. Win Ko, a leading member of the National League for Democracy, was arrested last month and sentenced to three years in prison after staging a petition drive to free political prisoners. The party's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, remains under house arrest.

Observers say the junta has reserved its most brutal treatment for Burma's eastern ethnic groups, including the Karenni, the Shan and the Mon, as well as the Karen, the largest minority in the region.

A fiercely independent group of approximately 3 million people, the Karen speak a separate language from most Burmese, use their own ancient writing system and have traditionally opposed the military junta. Two decades of sporadic government campaigns have already driven hundreds of thousands of Karen and other refugees into neighboring Thailand, where at least 150,000 now live in official camps and an estimated 1.5 million dwell illegally.

Although the military has long fought the Karen National Liberation Army -- a seasoned militia of about 10,000, armed with aging assault rifles -- it has mostly seemed content to stage small, periodic sieges against mountain strongholds in Karen state's northwest. These sieges have typically taken place only during Southeast Asia's dry seasons.

But this year, the government's campaign has extended through the rainy season and assumed far larger dimensions, appearing to be a final assault aimed at smashing the resistance. Over the past 10 months, sources familiar with Burmese military actions say, its forces have pushed into major Karen strongholds, building 12 new permanent army bases.

Burmese government officials did not return phone calls seeking comment from their embassy in Washington. But observers say the campaign is almost certainly tied to a desire to extend security around the new capital, which is meant to serve as a protective jungle fortress for the junta. The Burmese have already begun moving government offices there from Rangoon, the old capital, and are finishing work on a sprawling military bunker.

Economic development appears to be another motivation for the offensive, according to observers. Burma, a country that was once one of Southeast Asia's richest nations and is now among its poorest, has sought to create revenue by signing a deal with Thailand to build multiple dams on the picturesque Salween River, which runs through Karen state. As the Burmese military attempts to exert its control over the river, it has moved into other Karen strongholds.

"The new capital and the dam projects have become an incredibly destructive pretext for the Burmese military to take control of Karen state using indiscriminate force," said Jack Dunford, executive director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), a U.S.-funded relief group based in Bangkok. "I fear this may be the beginning of the end there."

An increasing number of Karen civilians fleeing the violence have made their way here to Eituta, an emergency camp perched on a muddy hilltop overlooking Burma's border with Thailand. The rows of primitive bamboo huts are protected by a battalion of armed Karen soldiers.

With Eituta's population topping 1,500, and growing at a rate of about 10 percent a month, Karen authorities here are making plans for a second camp nearby.

Although the Thai government has adopted a more lenient policy on Burmese refugees in recent years, aid groups say the bureaucratic process of admitting new arrivals has been slowed by the sudden uptick in the number of Karen seeking asylum. With the new military offensive, the number of arrivals at the already over-crowded official Karen refugee camps in Thailand has jumped 60 percent, to almost 900 a month, according to the TBBC.

The situation has effectively created a precarious limbo for the displaced people at Eituta, located only two hours by foot from the nearest Burmese military outpost. Almost two-thirds of the refugees here are children younger than 12, many of whom are sick with malaria and dysentery.

Relief organizations have cut out a section of the dense jungle canopy to build a small medical clinic. But the wounds of many children here run deeper than any medicine can cure.

On a recent day at the camp, a foreign journalist with a video camera approached an ethnic Karen man and a smiling 2-year-old girl sitting on straw mats in their hut. Suddenly, the girl began screaming uncontrollably. "She thinks it's a gun," said her father, Saw Say Nay, pointing to the video camera.

Saw, a farmer, fled here with his family of four last month. Like many displaced Karen, they had been living in hiding in the jungle since the summer, when Burmese troops began constructing a base near their village of Sayztaing Gyi, about 40 miles from the new capital.

"They were going village by village, forcing men and women into labor," he said. "Then they started burning villages, so we packed what we could and escaped into the jungle. From the trees, we saw them set our homes on fire. They burned our crops. They left us with nothing."

Thin and languid from malaria, Saw said he found out there was no going back after one villager tried to return, only to lose his leg when he stepped on a freshly laid land mine.

"We don't know what to do," he said. "My heart wants to go back, but I know it is not safe for my family. I don't know if we can go to Thailand. I don't know if they will accept us. So we are here. We have nowhere else to go."

Travis Fox of washingtonpost.com contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601277.html

[Vancouver]

These news sites to be in Burma or in real contact with Burma:
http://ko-htike.blogspot.com/
http://www.mizzima.com/
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
(from the Telegraph)

[makeshiftpatriot]

Here is the latest report on the situation in Myanmar. This comes from the Daily Mail out of the UK. This article discribes the crack down on monks by the junta.

Warning: This article has come disturbing images.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=484903&in_page_id=1811&ct=5

Source: Daily Mail, UK

[makeshiftpatriot]

In Burma, junta steps up fear level

After crushing the democracy uprising with guns, Burma's junta stepped up its campaign to intimidate citizens yesterday, sending troops to drag people from their homes in the middle of the night and letting others know they were marked for retribution.

"We have photographs! We are going to make arrests!" soldiers yelled from speakers on military vehicles that patrolled the streets in Rangoon, Burma's biggest city.

People living near the Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma's most revered shrine and a flash point of unrest during the protests, reported that security forces swept through several dozen homes about 3 a.m., taking away many men and some women for questioning.

A UN Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband, brother-in-law, and driver were among those detained, the UN agency said.

Dozens of Buddhist monks jammed Rangoon's main train station after being ordered to vacate their monasteries - centers of the antigovernment demonstrations - and told to go back to their hometowns and villages.

It was not clear who ordered them out. Older abbots in charge of monasteries are seen as tied to the ruling military junta, while younger monks are more sympathetic to the democracy movement.

"People are terrified," said Shari Villarosa, the acting US ambassador in Burma. "People have been unhappy for a long time. Since the events of last week, there's now the unhappiness combined with anger, and fear."

In New York, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would meet with the Security Council tomorrow to discuss possible actions for addressing human rights abuses in Burma, calling the situation here a top international concern.

Ban said his special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, delivered "the strongest possible message" to Burma's military leaders during a four-day visit to this Southeast Asian nation, but added that he could not call the trip "a success." The junta has not commented on Gambari's visit.

Gambari called on the regime to stop repression of peaceful protests, release detainees and move more credibly toward democratic reform, the UN spokesman's office said.

Anti-junta demonstrations broke out in mid-August over a fuel price increase, then ballooned when monks took the lead last month. But the military crushed the protests a week ago with bullets, tear gas, and clubs. The government said 10 people were killed, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained.

New video broadcast on CNN showed police and soldiers rounding up demonstrators and beating them before loading them on trucks. In one view, about six young men squatted on the street, hands on their heads, cringing. One in a red shirt - the color adopted by the protest movement - is singled out for particular abuse.

The footage appeared to have been made three or four days ago in downtown Rangoon.

The atmosphere remained tense, but Rangoon inched back toward a normal routine yesterday. Traffic returned and some shops reopened.

While troops rounded up people in Rangoon, some arrested protesters were let go elsewhere. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway, said authorities freed 90 of some 400 monks who were detained in Kachin state's capital, Myitkyina, during a raid on monasteries Sept. 25.

In Brussels, European Union nations agreed to expand sanctions on Burma's military regime. Diplomats said new sanctions included an expanded visa ban for junta members, a wider ban on investment in Burma, and a ban on trade in the country's metals, timber and gemstones.

Source: AP