A glimmer of light for Myanmar

Simon Tisdall (Today,28Oct2009)
CAUTIOUS optimism expressed by Asian leaders at the weekend that the situation of isolated, benighted Myanmar is taking a turn for the better may prove to be more than the usual diplomatic doublespeak.
Recent, relatively positive signals from the ruling military government do not amount to a change of heart. But out of darkness, a glimmer of light shows.
One hopeful indication came when detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was temporarily released from house arrest to meet foreign diplomats and junta functionaries. The regime is also tentatively re-engaging with western governments, including the United States, which is due to send a
high-level delegation soon. Last month, Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein promised the United Nations that presidential and legislative elections due 2010 would be “free and fair”.
Despite Ms Suu Kyi’s sentencing in August to a further 18 months’ detention, Mr Thein Sein reportedly told leaders at last weekend’s 16-nation Asia-Pacific summit in Hua Hin that he was “confident she can contribute
to the process of national reconciliation”. Mr Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister, said: “There was an atmosphere of hope that the leadership is moving towards normalising its relationship with the US (and) that next year’s election should see a reconciliation of the various segments of Myanmar society.”
There are several reasons for the regime’s shifting stance, western observers say. One is that the junta has begun to recognise it needs the legitimacy that only a relatively transparent poll process can bring. Domestically,
the creation of regional legislatures may defuse ongoing, historically violent tensions with the country’s 16
ethnic groups. Internationally, a respectable election could trigger an easing of sanctions and additional aid and investment.
Senior General Than Shwe,76, head of the junta, is said to be hoping to stand down next year, for reasons of age and possible infirmity. He was committed to the regime’s so called “road map” to democracy and felt he had done “a good job” in holding the country together, one analyst said. Now Gen Than Shwe wanted to secure his legacy and the future safety of himself and his family by regularising, within defined limits, Myanmar’s relations
with the West.
Another reason for taking advantage of US President Barack Obama’s willingness to reopen dialogue is said to be a desire to counter China’s growing influence. Harsh words from Beijing over the recent forced exodus of 30,000 mostly ethnic Chinese Burmese from Kokang into Yunnan province
came as a sharp reminder that China, historically, was Myanmar’s “No 1 enemy”, and its security and commercial interests do not necessarily coincide with Yangon’s.
US officials stress that Mr Obama is not offering the generals an easy option; sanctions would remain in place
until there was a quantifiable improvement in the regime’s behaviour, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month.
But even circumscribed interaction with the US, underpinned by joint demonstrations of mutual interest
over issues such as North Korea, would give the junta a strategic alternative to China and its other overbearing
neighbour, India.
Scepticism that this apparent shift will lead to anything more than a sham election, decked out with democratic
window-dressing to deflect western critics and hoodwink international opinion, is natural, given the junta’s record since it stole the 1990 polls. The evident risk for Mr Obama, the UN, and others is that they will be suckered into supporting the insupportable.
There’s no doubt the 2010 election project is highly problematic. Myanmar’s new constitution guarantees the continuing ascendancy of the military. New political candidates and parties will be vetted, Iranstyle. Lack of free media, the absence of independent scrutiny, and intolerance of open debate do not sit well with the holding of “free and fair” polls. And one deliberate side-effect may be the sidelining of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), the winners in 1990, whose ageing leadership now faces a cruel dilemma: either participate in the elections, thereby lending credibility to a possible political travesty, or hold back and risk irrelevance.
In other words, a careful balance must be struck. Any western policy aimed at bringing the generals in from
the cold should be carefully calibrated to strengthen, not undermine, the legitimate aspirations of Myanmar’s people. Getting the balance wrong will risk prolonged darkness in a land where, as British writer Rudyard Kipling might have put it, it was the light that failed.

Asia lets Myanmar off hook over Suu Kyi again

HUA HIN, Thailand - Asian leaders barely mentioned Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi at a weekend summit, making a mockery of the region's grand claims for its new rights body, analysts said.
Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Myanmar, devoted just three lines to the military-ruled nation's political situation in the nine pages of their final declaration.
While the statement called for elections promised by the junta in 2010 to be "fair, free, inclusive and transparent", it made no mention of the opposition leader, who has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.
The summit at the Thai resort of Hua Hin opened with the inauguration of ASEAN's first human rights body, hailed by members as "historic" but widely derided by activists, given the lack of action on Myanmar.
"The whole thing is a bit of a farce," David Mathieson, a Myanmar expert at Human Rights Watch, told AFP.
"There were pretty low expectations for the human rights commission and ASEAN has probably fulfilled these expectations. There's no way ASEAN can maintain any credibility while kowtowing to the Burmese leaders," he added.
Burma is Myanmar's former name.
Suu Kyi had her house arrest extended in August for 18 months after she was convicted over an incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her home. It effectively keeps her out of the way for next year's elections.
A senior Southeast Asian diplomat confirmed to AFP that Myanmar and Suu Kyi were not discussed at the ASEAN leaders' retreat, although they did come up when the bloc met with leaders from China, Japan and South Korea on Saturday.
Myanmar's Prime Minister Thein Sein told his counterparts that the junta could relax the conditions of Suu Kyi's detention, a Japanese official said - but this possibility was earlier raised by the junta at her conviction.
The rights commission's launch was also marred by a row over the barring of rights activists from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Singapore, who were meant to meet ASEAN leaders at Hua Hin to discuss the new watchdog.
The Myanmar representative, Khin Ohmar, said their exclusion was an "extreme disappointment", but not a surprise.
"Now the trial is done and Aung San Suu Kyi is back in house arrest, ASEAN is coming back to avoiding the whole Burma issue again," she added.
Khin Ohmar said ASEAN was prevented from applying any real pressure on the military regime because of its long-standing policy of non-interference in members' internal affairs.
"As long as they have that they will not be able to solve the Burma problem", she added.
Myanmar's ruling generals did allow Suu Kyi two meetings with a minister this month after she wrote a letter to junta chief Than Shwe offering suggestions for getting Western sanctions against Myanmar lifted.
The move coincided with a recent shift in US policy to re-engage the isolated regime, after decades of hostility.
"These are positive developments and I think Myanmar authorities have promised their commitment to the... roadmap (to democracy)", Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya told reporters in Hua Hin.
The positions of ASEAN and the international community "remain firm", he said, reiterating the call for free and fair elections and the release of all political prisoners.
But ASEAN nations have been reluctant to admonish Myanmar when they face their own rights issues, especially in communist Vietnam and Laos but also in Thailand, which has been under fire for its treatment of ethnic minorities.
"The change in the US approach reduces the pressure on ASEAN to push for reform in Myanmar," said Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia expert at the Singapore Management University.
"ASEAN has usually had limited impact on reforms in Myanmar, and this pattern is likely to continue," she added.

Myanmar sees role for Suu Kyi in political process

HUA HIN, Thailand (AFP) - Myanmar's prime minister told Asian leaders Sunday that the ruling junta sees a role for democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in fostering reconciliation ahead of elections in 2010, Thailand said.
Premier Thein Sein's comments to a regional summit in Thailand came after the government allowed the detained Suu Kyi to have a rare meeting with a minister, and as the United States sought to engage the regime.
Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, 64, was placed under a further 18 months' house arrest in August, effectively barring her from taking part in elections promised by the ruling generals in 2010.
But Thein Sein "feels optimistic that she can also contribute to the process of national reconciliation," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva quoted his Myanmar counterpart as saying at a briefing to Asian leaders.
He did not say if Thein Sein indicated whether this meant she would be allowed to take part in the electoral process.
Thein Sein was quoted by Japanese officials as saying on Saturday that the conditions of Suu Kyi's detention could be relaxed if she behaves.
She was convicted in August over an incident in which an American man swam to her lakeside house.
Abhisit said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was pleased that the United States, which maintains strict sanctions against Myanmar, was now following its lead in trying to engage the junta.
"The one thing we all agreed on is that we welcome signs of further engagement in response to some developments in Myanmar. ASEAN has always argued that engagement is the right approach," Abhisit said.
Rights groups earlier criticised ASEAN for failing to mention Suu Kyi in their final summit declaration and for devoting just three lines to the military-ruled nation's political situation in the nine-page document.
But Abhisit denied that the group had softened its stance on Myanmar, having previously issued direct appeals for her release. The group has long faced western criticism for failing to take on the junta.
"It is not true. It was discussed. Everybody agrees that we should help Myanmar move forward in completing their roadmap so that it will lead to democracy," Abhisit said.
Myanmar announced a "roadmap to democracy" in 2008, starting with a controversial constitution that was forced through just days after a deadly cyclone and culminating in the elections.
"During the meeting (with Myanmar), there was a report that several detainees had been released. Everyone wants to see Myanmar's success," Abhisit said.
Indian premier Manmohan Singh, whose government makes few comments on its smaller neighbour, said that recent engagement between Washington and Myanmar's ruling generals was encouraging.
"There was an atmosphere of hope that the Myanmar leadership is moving towards normalising relations with the United States, that they are working towards national reconciliation," Singh told a news conference.
"That's what we all welcome, that the next year's elections should see the reconciliation of the various segments of Myanmar society."
A US delegation is set to make a rare "fact-finding" mission to Myanmar later this month after the administration of President Barack Obama announced recently that it would pursue engagement with the junta.
But it said that it would not look at changing sanctions until there had been progress on democracy.
Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years since her party won a landslide victory in Myanmar's last democratic elections. The regime refused to recognise the victory.

Dec 21, 2012: End of the World?

Next apocalypse? Mayan year 2012 stirs doomsayers

By MARK STEVENSON,Associated Press Writer - Sunday, October 11
MEXICO CITY – Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades _ the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.
However _ shades of Indiana Jones _ erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."
Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 _ including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.
"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.
Another spooky coincidence?
"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.
"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.
But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.
"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.
As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.
Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity _ a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."
While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."
Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."
"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."
The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.
Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.
While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.
"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."

Suu Kyi lawyers hopeful for Myanmar appeal

YANGON: Lawyers for Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday that they were "hoping for the best" as they braced for a court ruling on the Nobel laureate's appeal against her extended house arrest.

Judges are set to announce on Friday whether they will uphold the pro-democracy leader's conviction over an incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her house, earning her an extra 18 months in detention.

"Of course we are hoping for the best," said Nyan Win, her lawyer and spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

"We have prepared what we need. The result will depend on the court and we are hoping for the immediate release of Daw Suu," he told AFP. Daw is a term of respect in Myanmar.

The military-ruled country faces intense international pressure to free the 64-year-old Suu Kyi, especially from the United States, which Wednesday held the highest-level talks with Myanmar in nearly a decade.

The Obama administration's decision to re-engage with Myanmar comes after years of stalemate proved unproductive but Washington has warned against lifting sanctions until the junta moves on democracy.

"Lifting or easing sanctions at the outset of a dialogue without meaningful progress on our concerns would be a mistake," said Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs, who met the Myanmar delegation.

He said that the US side laid out clear demands for the regime, including freeing political prisoners such as Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest.

Her NLD won the country's last elections in 1990, which the ruling generals refused to acknowledge, and her extended house arrest now keeps her off the scene for elections promised by the regime for 2010.

This has added to widespread criticism that the polls are a sham designed to legitimise the junta's grip on power.

In August a court at Yangon's notorious Insein prison originally sentenced her to three years' hard labour but junta chief Than Shwe reduced the sentence to 18 months house arrest.

Two female assistants living with Suu Kyi received the same sentence and have also appealed.

John Yettaw, the eccentric American who triggered the debacle by swimming to her lakeside mansion in May, was sentenced to seven years' hard labour but the regime freed him following a visit by US Senator Jim Webb.
By Channel News Asia

Posted: 01 October 2009 1828 hrs/(AFP/sc)

NS and benefits enjoyed by PRs top dialogue with PM Lee

SINGAPORE : National service for new arrivals and ideas to help integrate permanent residents and new citizens with Singaporeans were some of the issues discussed with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during his hour-long dialogue with women professionals on Thursday.

The dialogue was attended by representatives from 25 women's organisations.

Besides raising several issues, they also spoke of their experiences. These concerned Singapore's education system, national service for new citizens, and benefits enjoyed by citizens and permanent residents.

Mr Lee said: "I have to have a clear distinction between citizens, and non-citizens and between citizens who do NS and citizens who have not done NS. And that is what we have tried to do. That is why every few years we have a RECORD Committee, and we have to make a clearer distinction between the citizens and the PRs.

"When it comes to education fees, we have widened the difference between citizens and PRs and we will continue to widen (it). Similarly healthcare, in our hospitals, PRs pay significantly more than citizens in all classes of wards, and that also gradually we will widen.

"And then between the PRs and the foreigners, we have another clear differentiation in treatment. So I cannot make it completely flat because intrinsically it is not comparable.

"But I can redress some of this sense of 'not quite fair', and we can do more of these measures. But I cannot stop people bringing the people in, and unfortunately I cannot do away with NS."

Some mothers suggested that national service be broken up, instead of two years at a go.

Mr Lee responded: "It is better to have the two years as one block and compact it. From the SAF point of view, it is better because two years as one block, I am genuinely making full use of the soldier... train, go on course, become a specialist or officer, posted to a unit, train to operate a unit and become a proper operational which can actually deploy and fight and then ORD. If I do it three months here, six months there, I am just pretending to have a battalion."

Mr Lee stressed that the challenges faced by Singapore - be it the economic crisis or population shortfall - cannot be solved by the government alone. All Singaporeans must unite to tackle them together. - CNA/ms
By S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia Posted: 01 October 2009 2346 hrs