Flood hits in Bago

The floods hit Bago starting from 29/08/2010 and the water is still rising. Around 200 households, nearly 600 people are temporarily refuge at the Shwe Nant Thar monestry. The Sayadaw (Monk) said they had to give 15 bag of rice everyday and it’s possible that the flood victims might be increase.

http://www.bdcburma.org/ActivitiesDetails.asp?id=15001 Sep 2010

01/09/2010

US Press Briefing

August 25, 2010

BURMA

Elections

QUESTION: The Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has given a call to
boycott the elections on November 7 in Burma.

MR. TONER: To what the elections?

QUESTION: Boycott the election – general elections in Burma. Do you
support her appeal? What’s your stand on that?

MR. TONER: On her appeal for --

QUESTION: -- to boycott --

MR. TONER: I didn’t hear.

QUESTION: Boycott.

MR. TONER: Boycott. I apologize. I didn’t hear the word “boycott.”
Well, we’ve said many times that we don’t feel that credible elections
can be held in Burma at this point.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/08/146276.htm

Kachin majority rejects regime’s order to disarm

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – A majority of participants at a congress of ethnic Kachin groups has rejected disarming despite a Burmese military junta threat to end the ceasefire between the two sides, a spokesman said. Meanwhile, the main Kachin militia are gearing up for war, a soldier told Mizzima.


Women soldiers of the Kachin Independence Army parade in the ethnic group’s Sino-Burmese border stronghold of Laiza. The militia is gearing up for war with the Burmese Army as a junta-imposed deadline for it to disarm approaches next Wednesday, a KIA source said on Friday, August 27, 2010. Photo: Mizzima

The junta deadline for the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) to reply to its order for the group’s estimated 20,000 troops to disarm is September 1. The congress opened today in the Kachin stronghold of Laiza, a town near the Chinese border in Burma’s far north, and will end tomorrow (Saturday).

The 140 delegates from 18 districts who attended the congress all passed on their views that the KIO should retain its arms, one of the participants aid.

“The congress will continue tomorrow as we haven’t made a final decision. The aim of today’s meeting was just to collect the opinions from the delegates. From my point of view, we shouldn’t hand over our guns to the junta,” the KIO spokesman said.

Delegates from the KIO’s armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), were absent because they were preparing for war, a KIA soldier told Mizzima.

The deadline was delivered on Sunday at a meeting between the junta’s main negotiator with ethnic armed groups, Military Affairs Security chief Lieutenant General Ye Myint, and KIO delegates, at the Burmese Army’s Northern Command headquarters in Myitkyina, the state capital. He told the KIO that if the KIA failed to surrender its arms in the time allotted, the ceasefire would end.

Ye Myint went on to meet Zone Teet Yame from the junta’s Border Guard Force (BGF) and Lasang Aung Was from the people’s militia and told them to arrest former KIO staff from the beginning of next month, an officer from the militia, who attended the meeting, said on condition of anonymity.

The KIO had said it would neither contest nor disturb the forthcoming elections on November 7.

It held a meeting with Kachin leaders and Christian leaders to gain their input from August 14 to 16, views that will be taken into account while reaching the final decision at this weekend’s congress.

In the last month, Ye Myint has been touring the country, pressuring armed ethnic ceasefire groups to bring themselves under junta command within the Burmese Army’s BGF and imposed the same September 1 (next Wednesday) deadline on the New Mon State Party (NMSP).

Last Friday he told United Wa State Army leaders in Tangyang that the junta would send the army into four townships in Wa-controlled territory the same day as security for electoral commissioners. The Wa leaders said they would defy the move.
http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/4299-kachin-majority-rejects-regimes-order-to-disarm.html

Burma's ailing dictator resigns military post

Burma's reclusive and ailing dictator, Than Shwe, has resigned his military post, exiled Burmese media have reported, paving the way for him to become president in Burma's government after the elections.

Shwe, the despot who has brutally ruled south-east Asia's poorest country as commander-in-chief of the armed forces since 1992, yesterday handed control of the army to his adjutant general. However, the 77-year-old will remain head of the Burmese government.

More than a dozen other senior military officers also resigned, in an ominous sign for the country's forthcoming elections. Inside Burma, Shwe's resignation of his military role is being seen as a significant step towards ensuring he and his military cadres remain in charge after 7 November's national elections, the first to be held in Burma for two decades.

"I think this means only one thing – he wants to be president," a source inside Burma told the Guardian.

The country's new constitution says the presidency can only be held by a civilian, but it does insist the president and vice-president "shall be well acquainted with the affairs of the Union, such as … the military".

The junta's second-in-command, Maung Aye, also resigned, as did the regime's numbers three and four. It is understood they will stand as candidates for the junta's largest proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development party (USDP), in constituencies in the capital, Naypyidaw.

An unnamed military official said 15 senior army officials had resigned their posts, but did not confirm that the junta's leader was among them. But a second source told agencies the resignations went right to the top: "All top leaders have given up their military positions."

It is the second major reshuffle since April, when 27 senior military figures, including the prime minister, Thein Sein, resigned to lead the USDP.

Burma's last elections, in 1990, were won overwhelmingly by the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But the junta refused to recognise the result and Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades in detention.

Her party is boycotting the poll after she was excluded from participating by new election laws which forbid people in custody from running for office. She is due to be released less than a week after the 7 November election.

Supporters of the polls say any move towards democracy, however flawed, is an improvement on the current military rule. Thirty-seven non-regime parties have registered for the elections, but few have a national presence and none have the money or influence of the pro-regime party and its proxies.

But critics of Burma's "road map to democracy", including Britain, the US and the UN, have dismissed the election as a sham, saying the poll will only entrench and formalise military rule.

"We don't regard the forthcoming elections as being a legitimate expression of public opinion," Jeremy Browne, a Foreign Office minister, said in Bangkok last month. "We continue to have a very strong view the situation in Burma is unacceptable."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/27/burma-dictator-resigns-military-post

Suu Kyi Urges Supporters to Monitor Election Closely

In a message transmitted by her lawyer, Burma's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said that although her National League for Democracy (NLD) is boycotting the upcoming election NLD members should monitor it closely and watch for voting irregularities.

Nyan Win, who was allowed to meet Suu Kyi on Tuesday, said: “Daw Suu said we cannot ignore the election even though we boycott it. She said all must keep a watch on the election process.”

During a press conference on Wednesday, he quoted her as saying that the future civilian government would be incapable of reining in the role of the president of the parliament, who will hold broad-ranging powers under the junta-designed 2008 Constitution.

Nyan Win said that Suu Kyi said the Nov. 7 choice of an election date showed disrespect to the people, and she also denounced state-run newspapers for making threats against the people regarding election activities.

Suu Kyi, whose current detention sentence is due to expire a week after the election on Nov. 7, said all Burmese people, including NLD members, are responsible for a free and fair election.

Suu Kyi's meeting with her lawyer followed last week's official NLD announcement of an election boycott.

Suu Kyi has said the Burmese election is unlikely to be free and fair because political parties will not have enough time to campaign.

Nyan Win said he discussed with the Noble Peace Laureate the latest election developments. According to Nyan Win, Suu Kyi said that people should not vote in the upcoming election if they have no party to support in the absence of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

“This is Daw Suu's answer to the debates she heard on the radio about what people should do without the NLD in this election,” said Suu Kyi's lawyer, Nyan Win, who met with the detained pro-democracy leader on Tuesday.

Meanwhile NLD members led by veteran official Win Tin recently toured Burma reminding people of their legal right to avoid voting.

As Burma's largest opposition party, the NLD won a landslide victory in the 1990 election but the military regime never acknowledged the result.

Although NLD members opposed to a boycott formed an opposition party, the National Democratic Force,to contest the November election, no pro-democracy party has emerged strong enough to compete with the junta's own proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party.
Source: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=19296

Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for close watch on election: lawyer

YANGON (AFP) – Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi wants the Myanmar people to keep a close watch on upcoming elections and speak out if the vote is not free and fair, her lawyer said Tuesday.
"Our face should not be turned away from the election although the NLD... decided not to take part," Nyan Win, who is also the long-time spokesman of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), quoted the Nobel Peace laureate as saying during talks at her home.
"For it to become a fair election, people also have a duty, not just the government.
"People have to speak out if the process is not in accordance with the election law or if it is not balanced. People have to reveal it. The NLD has to reveal it," Suu Kyi was quoted as saying.
"She's very glad that people are interested in the political process. But she said the political process is not only the 2010 election. It's just a part of it," Nyan Win said.
"She said everyone should take interest in the election. NLD members should not turn their face from the election process just because they will not take part."
Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 20 years in detention, and as a serving prisoner is barred from standing in the November 7 election, which will be the military-ruled country's first in 20 years.
The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 but the junta never allowed it to take office.
The party is boycotting the upcoming vote, saying the rules are unfair. As a result, it was forcibly disbanded by the ruling generals.
So far 42 political parties have been given permission to stand in the polls, which have been widely condemned by activists and the West as a charade aimed at putting a civilian face on military rule.
Among them is the National Democracy Force (NDF), formed by former NLD members whose decision to participate in the vote put them at odds with Suu Kyi, who was in favour of a boycott.
"The NLD cannot support any party. If it supports one, it will become an enemy to another," Nyan Win quoted Suu Kyi as saying. "So she said to let them do their work."
Nyan Win said that Suu Kyi had told him more of her opinions on the election and Myanmar's political situation, and he would give details on Wednesday after discussing them with other senior NLD members.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100824/wl_afp/myanmarvotesuukyi_20100824171247

Burma Democratic Concern (BDC): What You BELIEVE Is What You ACHIEVE (6)