In June of 2015, though the global media was riveted to the sight of Syrian refugees crossing by boat into Europe, for a few days its attention shifted to a solitary boat adrift in the Andaman Sea. Its deck too was packed with refugees, members of the Rohingya community attempting to escape Myanmar and find asylum anywhere else in South East Asia.
For a few days, the world was aware of a different kind of stranded people – not ones escaping the country of their citizenship, but ones who have been denied the citizenship of any country. The stateless are treated as illegal aliens in the places they live, but refused passports or papers that allow them to leave (so they rarely do). The most basic documents of modern life, like marriage certificates and drivers licences, are kept beyond their reach.
It’s a global tragedy, Greg Constantine writes in the foreword to Nowhere People, his book of photographs of stateless communities across the world. Statelessness can have many origins – shifting borders, changing laws, the collapse and creation of states – but in every case, ethnic difference “leads governments and people in power to use citizenship as a weapon to disenfranchise those who they feel threaten their political, ethnic or personal interests.” (Courtesy of The Wire)
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Myanmar’s military and its proxy armies
Karl Marx’s celebrated reflection over the twists of 19th century French politics had it that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce.
Had he had the chance to consider recent events in Myanmar he might have been surprised to learn that sometimes history repeats itself as both forms of drama at the same time.
The latest act in the long-running tragedy of Myanmar’s ethnic conflict features the intervention of a major armed group, which only last October committed to a so-called Nation-wide Cease-fire Agreement (NCA), in what’s looking remarkably like a new war. Only now the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) is not fighting the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, but rather alongside it against another ethnic faction which declined to join the NCA. (Courtesy of Bangkok Post: Opinion)
Had he had the chance to consider recent events in Myanmar he might have been surprised to learn that sometimes history repeats itself as both forms of drama at the same time.
The latest act in the long-running tragedy of Myanmar’s ethnic conflict features the intervention of a major armed group, which only last October committed to a so-called Nation-wide Cease-fire Agreement (NCA), in what’s looking remarkably like a new war. Only now the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) is not fighting the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, but rather alongside it against another ethnic faction which declined to join the NCA. (Courtesy of Bangkok Post: Opinion)
Myanmar’s parliament opens next Monday
Myanmar’s newly-elected Union Parliament made up of House of Representatives (Lower House) and House of Nationalities (Upper House) is due to begin its first session in Nay Pyi Taw next Monday, a week after the two houses began, parliament sources confirmed Friday.
Sessions of regional or state parliament will be held separately in 14 respective regions or states on the same day.
During the session, the Union Parliament will also set the announcement date of presidential nomination list to elect the country’s president and vice presidents.
The new parliaments started their first sessions with electing the speakers and deputy speakers of the House of Representatives and the House of Nationalities. (Courtesy of The Manila Times Online)
Sessions of regional or state parliament will be held separately in 14 respective regions or states on the same day.
During the session, the Union Parliament will also set the announcement date of presidential nomination list to elect the country’s president and vice presidents.
The new parliaments started their first sessions with electing the speakers and deputy speakers of the House of Representatives and the House of Nationalities. (Courtesy of The Manila Times Online)
Myanmar: Lawsuit to be filed over Suu Kyi death threat
Myanmar’s election-winning National League for Democracy (NLD) party revealed Saturday its plans to file a lawsuit against a pro-military man who threatened online to assassinate its leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
A Facebook comment posted under the name of Ye Lwin Myint this week warned that if a constitutional article barring Suu Kyi from the presidency were suspended, “I’ll just need an AWM [a sniper rifle] or an AS 50 gun and a month of training”.
“I will surely kill her. I am serious,” the poster said.
He also revealed that he was planning to launch a Facebook group called “Those dying to assassinate Daw Suu,” using a local honorific that means “aunt”, and that he had been sleeping with a rifle since age 10.
The post included a photo of two men posing with assault rifles, one said to be Ye Lwin Myint. (Courtesy of aa.com.tr)
A Facebook comment posted under the name of Ye Lwin Myint this week warned that if a constitutional article barring Suu Kyi from the presidency were suspended, “I’ll just need an AWM [a sniper rifle] or an AS 50 gun and a month of training”.
“I will surely kill her. I am serious,” the poster said.
He also revealed that he was planning to launch a Facebook group called “Those dying to assassinate Daw Suu,” using a local honorific that means “aunt”, and that he had been sleeping with a rifle since age 10.
The post included a photo of two men posing with assault rifles, one said to be Ye Lwin Myint. (Courtesy of aa.com.tr)
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Can Suu Kyi fix Myanmar?
As Yangon Circular Railway makes its way around Myanmar’s biggest city a boy is dancing in the aisle while another plays a toy electric guitar. Commuters smile benignly. A young vendor, her face painted with thanaka, a paste made from bark, pauses with her basket of freshly cut pineapple to watch him dance, and the teeming, chaotic city drifts past outside the open windows.
Along the 46km loop, which takes in 39 stations, shanties’ rusty corrugated roofs lean against the track, lush paddy fields and faded colonial houses pass by, skyscraper building sites look busy, and groups of cheerful boys play volleyball on makeshift courts behind the railside houses.
For less than €1 you can take this train for a three-hour journey that shows you the optimism that has pervaded Myanmar (which used to be known as Burma) since Aung San Suu Kyi took her seat in parliament on Monday, after a landslide election win in November for her party, the National League of Democracy. (Courtesy of Irish Times)
Along the 46km loop, which takes in 39 stations, shanties’ rusty corrugated roofs lean against the track, lush paddy fields and faded colonial houses pass by, skyscraper building sites look busy, and groups of cheerful boys play volleyball on makeshift courts behind the railside houses.
For less than €1 you can take this train for a three-hour journey that shows you the optimism that has pervaded Myanmar (which used to be known as Burma) since Aung San Suu Kyi took her seat in parliament on Monday, after a landslide election win in November for her party, the National League of Democracy. (Courtesy of Irish Times)
The Europe I want to live in
In his opinion ‘Storm in a teacup‘ published on 3 February, Carmel Vassallo boldly claimed that Muslims are granted “too much” tolerance in Europe.
Is Vassallo implying that granting and safeguarding people’s human rights is excessive? Is he suggesting that some Muslims should be stripped of their rights?
He makes no difference between Muslim migrants and European Muslims, so is he suggesting that refugees should be sent back to a Syria destroyed by Assad’s bombs and Islamic State’s tyranny? What about the millions of Muslims born and bred in Europe… should they convert to Christianity? (Courtesy of MaltaToday.com.mt)
Is Vassallo implying that granting and safeguarding people’s human rights is excessive? Is he suggesting that some Muslims should be stripped of their rights?
He makes no difference between Muslim migrants and European Muslims, so is he suggesting that refugees should be sent back to a Syria destroyed by Assad’s bombs and Islamic State’s tyranny? What about the millions of Muslims born and bred in Europe… should they convert to Christianity? (Courtesy of MaltaToday.com.mt)
New dawn in Myanmar
At long last conceding electoral victory to Aung San Suu Kyi the military regime has handed over government to people's elected representatives who were sworn in as members of Myanmar's bicameral parliament. Some 600 members, including about a hundred former political prisoners, took oath of office on Monday amidst an air of hope and despair - hope that they would introduce institutional reforms to strengthen democracy and despair that they won't be able to elect Suu Kyi as president of the country. Under a Suu Kyi specific constitutional mandate anyone having foreign husband and/or children cannot be elected president of Myanmar. Reports that she was in touch with military to remove this ban have been quashed, proving right her premonition and hence her oft-quoted decision to govern from behind the scene. And that she will, given it is she who won her National League for Democracy 80 percent of the contested seats, with overwhelming support of Myanmar's ethnic minorities who constitute 40 percent of country's 51 million populations. The sitting president, Thein Sein, a general-turned-politician, will step down in March and NLD nominee will take over. But, as Washington said in its congratulatory message, 'impediments remain to realisation of a full democratic and civilian government'. The military will not only retain 25 percent of seats in the newly-elected parliament - just as ex-president Suharto had Golkar party in the Indonesian parliament - but also some key ministries. But expectation is that finding itself increasingly a pariah in the emerging democratic ambience world over the military rulers would like to keep a low profile, just as they have over the last few years. (Courtesy of Business Recorder)
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