TNI-BCN Project on Ethnic Conflict in Burma

Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centrum Nederland (BCN)... This joint TNI-BCN project aims to stimulate strategic thinking on addressing ethnic conflict in Burma and to give a voice to ethnic nationality groups who have until now been ignored and isolated in the international debate on the country.
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Websites/Multiple Documents

Description: Various documents on drugs and Burma, the region, global
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-26
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "What rural dwellers in the Global South experience as land grabbing, tends to be seen in the Global North as ?agricultural investment?. The World Bank has been at the forefront of a drive to legitimate these investments, convening to win support for a code of conduct based on Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) principles. Many key civil society groups reject the proposal for a code of conduct, objecting to the top-down process by which it was formulated and arguing that it was more likely to legitimate than prevent land grabbing. Instead, these groups stood behind the FAO?s Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Land Investment, which had been under development since the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in 2009 and had proved a much more inclusive process..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute
2012-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-05-05
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: This joint TNI-BCN project aims to stimulate strategic thinking on addressing ethnic conflict in Burma and to give a voice to ethnic nationality groups who have until now been ignored and isolated in the international debate on the country.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centrum Nederland (BCN)
Date of entry/update: 2012-08-23
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Important papers on Burma/Myanmar including: Financing Dispossession; Ending Burma?s Conflict Cycle?; Conflict or Peace? Ethnic Unrest Intensifies in Burma; Burma?s Longest War: Anatomy of the Karen Conflict; Ethnic Politics in Burma: The Time for Solutions; A Changing Ethnic Landscape: Analysis of Burma?s 2010 Polls; Unlevel Playing Field: Burma?s Election Landscape; Burma?s 2010 Elections: Challenges and Opportunities; Burma in 2010: A Critical Year in Ethnic Politics...
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-09
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Useful set of links on drugs - global, regional and Burma
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute
Date of entry/update: 2009-07-19
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Sub-title: Promoting Ethnic Peace or Strengthening State Control?
Description: "The ethnic ‘peace process’ in Myanmar is one of the most labyrinthine in the modern world. Dating back to 1989, a variety of bilateral, multilateral and unilateral initiatives have been underway. In recent years, they were linked by the aspirations of a Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement and 21st Century Panglong Conference. None of these processes have led to inclusive political dialogue or sustainable peace, and both came to a halt with the military coup on 1 February 2021. Since this time, national breakdown has further ensued, and a new cycle of armed conflicts has begun, including in both rural and urban areas that have not seen fighting and displacement in many years. Myanmar today is among the most war-torn lands in both Asia and the world. Using the NCA as a spectrum, this new report by TNI seeks to analyse the most significant attempt to resolve ethnic conflict by negotiation since independence in 1948. Critical issues include the challenges in the negotiation of ceasefires; the failure to implement the NCA, including military violations; endeavours to overcome peace obstacles while the National League for Democracy was in government office; and analysis of how conflict parameters have changed in the fall-out from the 2021 coup. The NCA, though, did not occur in a vacuum. Over the years, a host of other challenges came to overshadow implementation and focus, undermining peace progress on the ground. Key issues include conflict regression in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States, people’s militia and Border Guard Forces, economic opportunism and exploitation in the ethnic borderlands, and the divergent and ineffective responses by different international actors. Such factors are integral elements in Myanmar’s conflict landscape. Ultimately, there was no single reason why the NCA failed. The lack of inclusion, implementation, political will and political accomplishment are outstanding. Positioned at the heart of these failures is the Tatmadaw or Sit-Tat. After decades in government, the country’s military leaders sought to use the NCA as a mechanism for state control rather than a gateway to ethnic peace and reform. Myanmar was never at peace following the NCA’s 2015 inception. Myanmar is currently in its deepest state of civil war in several decades. Repression, political violence and humanitarian emergency are sweeping every state and region. All the peoples are suffering. It is thus vital that lessons are learned from the bitter experiences of peace failure in the past in order to build a better path to reform and reconciliation in the future. Any new process to address such challenges must be equitable, inclusive, just and sincere among all parties in order to contribute to this essential task..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute ( Amsterdam)
2023-04-20
Date of entry/update: 2023-04-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 8.27 MB (160 pages) - Original version
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Description: "Following the February coup, the violence used by the security forces against civilian protestors in Myanmar’s towns and cities has shocked public opinion around the world. But, as Naw Hsa Moo and Dominique Dillabough-Lefebvre explain in this commentary, such tactics have long been used by the Myanmar armed forces in military operations in the country’s ethnic states and regions. Awareness is now building and, as they argue, the military coup has brought new understanding and sympathy between pro-democracy and ethnic nationality movements. Since the seizure of power by the military State Administration Council (SAC) on 1 February, mass protests have swept towns and cities in every state and region in Myanmar. As the days have passed by, civilians have faced the brunt of an increasingly aggressive response from the national armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, whose indiscriminate use of force has now led to over 70 killed, countless injured, and more than 2000 people detained. And yet, despite the heightened use of military force, the general public throughout the country continue to stand in defiance, leading creative protests, with people of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds joining strikes and the civil disobedience movement. All nationality peoples are being impacted. For lowland Bamar (Burman) people, the majority ethnic group, the current repression against civilians carries terrifying reverberations of past violent state-led responses towards demonstrators, most notably during the 1988 pro-democracy protests. However, for those living in many non-Bamar areas, the militarisation and pervasive sense of fear accompanying current events are sadly all too familiar. For many decades, they have been regular features of daily life, notably in the Kachin, Karen, Kayah (Karenni), Mon, Rakhine (Arakan) and Shan States. Karen State in Myanmar’s Southeast is a poignant example of such struggles. Home to what is often considered the world’s longest-running civil war, conflict has escalated between the Tatmadaw and the armed opposition Karen National Union (KNU), with over 6,000 civilians displaced from their villages since the Tatmadaw intensified military operations in December 2020. The majority people living here identify as Karen, one of the country’s largest nationality groups, and are largely farming communities living in forested hills and winding valleys that run down the Thailand border. In response to the twin threats of military incursions and the SAC coup, villagers across Kler Lwee Htu (Nyaunglebin) and Mutraw (Hpapun) Districts have been regularly demonstrating, demanding the removal of the Tatmadaw from their lands and expressing solidarity with the protest movement across the country. Whether in conditions of war or peace, Karen communities have faced the same challenges in every era of government since the country’s independence in 1948. A ceasefire was agreed between the government and the KNU in 2012 but, to date, this has not brought about a significant reduction in militarisation in many areas. Rather, the patterns of conflict and Tatmadaw encroachment have continued. In particular, the recent increase in Tatmadaw activity is linked to road-building, the expansion of a network of military roads in northern Karen State that first began during offensives in the 1990s. The detrimental consequences for local villagers are profound. Naw Ghay Hai is the principal of Keh Der school in Kler Lwee Htu District in the KNU 3rd Brigade area. But, as she explained, there is no benefit to the local population: only an increase in land loss and fear: “The road being built crosses through the paddy fields of local farmers, destroying the irrigation systems in the fields, seriously affecting the livelihoods of local people. They [Tatmadaw troops] build camps nearby that are causing the displacement of local villagers, and they are shelling around nearby villages. When local people hear the sound of guns and mortars, they obviously flee out of fear, and don’t dare to return.” The latest military incursions are now compounding a worsening pattern of land loss and displacement that has built up among the local population over several decades. According to the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People, approximately 30,000 people have been displaced in the local area since Tatmadaw “regional clearance” operations were initiated in the 1990s. Military offensives and continuing clashes have caused a loss of shelter, a lack of access to healthcare and difficulties in delivering food supplies to displaced villagers, putting children and elderly people especially at risk. Displaced villagers now live scattered in different locations in several townships across northern Karen State. For many communities, this is not their first experience of flight. Villagers in Keh Der village tract recently explained to staff members from KESAN, a Karen civil society organisation, that they had started to hear the distant sound of gunshots and shelling from 12 December last year. Although this initially appeared to be occurring some way from their village, everyone was worried. Then, on 11 February – ten days after the coup, Tatmadaw forces moved closer to the village and people started to flee. As the troops moved in, they destroyed the food stores of displaced farmers, seized their livestock, burnt down their houses and, in nearby areas, forced villagers to act as porters to carry supplies for them as they continued their military sweep. For the local peoples, this latest displacement brought back many memories of sufferings in the past. Constant insecurity and the arbitrary use of force have long been a mainstay in the lives of local people in this region. Saw Lo Wah, head of Keh Der village tract, remembered first fleeing from the Tatmadaw as a child in the 1960s. Those who were captured were forced by the soldiers to work as porters, an especially pervasive and egregious abuse of human rights. As he explained: “Many people were injured or killed when they worked as porters for the military. For example, my father stepped on a landmine when he was a porter for the Tatmadaw. This was the case for many people as the Tatmadaw used Karen villagers to sweep the area for landmines, usually at gunpoint.” Such experiences continued into adulthood, with Saw Lo Wah describing the situation as having grown “increasingly worse” during the late 1990s: “When the military came, one family had to flee so quickly that they were unable to take their two children from their home, and the Burmese military burnt down their house. When the family returned, the children were gone.” This was by no means the end of local suffering. For his part, Saw Lo Wah had to build his own home on three subsequent occasions, but each time Tatmadaw troops burned it down again, with all of his family’s possessions inside. After six decades of military-dominated rule and a new regime in power, Saw Lo Wah’s assessment is stark. But he is expressing a view of the latest military takeover that can be frequently heard among communities in different parts of the country today: “This is the root cause of our poverty. The Tatmadaw doesn’t care if you are young or old, male or female, they will kill everybody. They spare nobody.”.....A backdrop of conflict: militarisation as a way of life: Internal military conflicts have long been central to the nation-building ambitions of the Tatmadaw in Myanmar. In a country where national identity has long been linked to a particularly “racialised” vision of ethnicity, the national armed forces have been engaged in protracted warfare with a wide range of ethnic armed organisations (EAOs), amongst them the KNU, since independence from Great Britain in 1948. During these years, a simplistic vision of national politics has often pervaded popular imagination and discourse. In recent decades, this vision has been marked by the country’s democratic hero, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), who – it was hoped – were gradually leading the country on a path away from state failure and international isolationism towards democratisation and respect for human rights. These expectations reached a pinnacle when the NLD won the 2015 general election, assuming government office the following year. Yet amidst the period of economic liberalisation that followed the 2011 shift to a nominally civilian system of government, armed conflicts have persisted in ethnic nationality areas outside of the Bamar-dominated heartlands in the centre of the country. While the army's blood-stained campaign against the Rohingya population in 2017 was the subject of much international media coverage, the Tatmadaw has also continued to carry out “anti-insurgency” campaigns against EAOs among several other nationality groups, including the Buddhist Rakhine people who also hail from Rakhine State. The cycles of conflict within the country are yet to be ended. Many nationality peoples have been affected. Following the expulsion of over 750,000 Rohingya people, the Tatmadaw became locked in an increasingly bloody conflict with an emergent Rakhine force known as the United League of Army-Arakan Army (ULA-AA). But, after the NLD’s accession to office, the Tatmadaw also escalated military “clearance operations” forcibly displacing local populations in the Kachin, Karen and Shan States as well, severely impacting on the security and livelihoods of farming communities who depend on land for their survival. Accurate humanitarian statistics are difficult to assemble from different parts of the country. But up to 10,000 people are believed to have died during Tatmadaw operations in the past five years, while over a million civilians are currently displaced from their homes, either living as refugees in neighbouring countries or in displacement camps in the hills. The evidence of a pervasive culture of human rights violations is deeply troubling. Today Tatmadaw actions during the events of the past few years are the focus of ongoing human rights investigations for potential war crimes by the International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice and UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Finding a political language, though, that unites peoples and addresses the conflict challenges in inclusive ways has historically proven difficult. Distinctions between “state” and “non-state” actors have often been opaque within the geographic boundaries of Myanmar. Shifting alliances between the Tatmadaw, ethnic nationality forces, government-backed militias and local military strongmen have been one of the most persistent realities in defining the functioning of “State” in many parts of the country. Today over 20 EAOs remain active in different nationality lands, from Rakhine State on the Bay of Bengal to the Tanintharyi Region in Myanmar’s far south. In this context, projections of national unity become a reflection of the complex relationship between the Tatmadaw at the political centre and the peripheries where diverse nationality peoples live in uplands surrounding the Ayeyarwady plains. Over the decades, continued exploitation of the wealth of the resource-rich borderlands has been central to the development of Myanmar state, much in the same way that the plunder of native lands, slavery and a western expansionism was central in the shaping of the American national imaginary. Much of this economy is secretive and under-reported, but Myanmar’s ethnic states are home to large mineral reserves, illicit drug production and lucrative cross-border trades from which powerful elites and outside interests – not local peoples – mostly profit. Compounding the marginalisation of local peoples, there is often a large knowledge gap in the outside world about the harsh living conditions in the country’s conflict zones. Such a lack of understanding is a constant source of frustration for ethnic nationality peoples trying to make common cause with their fellow countryman, yet find themselves stymied by urban-rural differences as well as ethnic, religious and linguistic divides. Even many well-informed urban Burmese only have a limited grasp of what is happening in the hills. The same lack of awareness exists in the international community, where the confusing array of armed groups poses significant barriers for foreign journalists, policy-makers and other outside actors who seek to understand some of the longest-running conflicts in modern Asian history. For this reason, the failure of Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD leadership to address conflict and the grievances of non-Bamar peoples remains one of the party’s most notable failures during its time in government office. The 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), which the NLD-led administration inherited from its quasi-civilian predecessor, was a cornerstone in a faltering peace process that not only failed to include a majority of the strongest EAOs in the country but was also one in which the none of three words in its title could be said to be true: i.e. it was not nationwide, a ceasefire or an agreement. To try and pick up the political momentum, the NLD inaugurated a 21st Century Panglong Conference in August 2016 with a promise to re-energise the peace process. But the government never acknowledged the NCA’s many failings. The NCA’s largest signatories in terms of EAO combatants – the KNU and Restoration Council of Shan State – could hardly be seen to be representative of the entire country and both continued to clash with the Tatmadaw. At the same time, most of the eight other EAOs that signed the NCA were significantly smaller, some of which had never seriously fought with the government while others, notably the Chin National Front, had not had protracted clashes with the Tatmadaw since the early 1990s. Equally damaging to the credibility of the NCA, there were powerful and well-organised EAOs in the north of the country that were either not allowed by the Tatmadaw to join the accord or decided to boycott the process altogether. Pre-eminent EAOs which never joined the NCA include the United Wa State Party and Shan State Progress Party which have formal ceasefires with the government, and the Kachin Independence Organisation, Ta’ang National Liberation Army and ULA-AA that do not. The ethno-political landscape is now highly uncertain. Following the coup, the NCA EAO-signatories collectively issued a statement on 20 February refusing to recognise the new regime as a legitimate power, and leading to a cessation of further talks. This represents a de facto breakdown in a ceasefire which, since its inception, had given little assurances to NCA signatories that the Myanmar armed forces would hold true to their word. For ceasefire EAOs, this represents a dilemma. According to Lt-Col. Saw La Shwe Hai from the KNU’s armed wing, Tatmadaw officers claim to follow the NCA codes of conduct and that they will try to resolve issues through political dialogue, but they do not follow through in practice: “Instead they try and control more territory, build roads and further infrastructure and keep sending more reinforcements… They are trying to gradually control our area, bit by bit, but pretend they are following agreements… they couldn’t be lying any more”. For ethnic nationality communities in the conflict-zones, such experiences are hardly new. But there is evidence that the scale of human rights violations across the country since the SAC’s seizure of power is bringing about a change in attitudes among the Bamar-majority population as well. Amidst the protests in the cities, incidents are being documented that the Myanmar military has been looting shops and houses, stealing food from street vendors and taking livestock from markets. Understanding the reality of such violence from the perspective of those living in the ethnic states and borderlands sheds light on the nature of the ethnocratic state-building policies of governments since independence and the ideology of the Tatmadaw. Echoing this, a vocal minority of Bamar people have begun apologising for failing to stand behind ethnic peoples as they faced persecution. A female activist, who asked to remain anonymous, explained that “the intimidation, harassment and violence by the police and soldiers are nothing new” but that the “the violence and oppression has now been extended to the cities”. She continued: “We are not even experiencing the brutality of the military yet in the cities, like those people in Rakhine experienced every day and every night. Those in Kachin. Those in Karen. Those in Shan. Now we too have to defend ourselves.”.....Conclusion: As the military coup enters its second month, people across the country are increasingly faced with the striking parallels between the ongoing indiscriminate use of force, intimidation and suppression against anti-coup protestors and civilians in the towns and the military’s historical and ongoing systematic brutality in Myanmar’s ethnically diverse borderlands. For populations in these areas, this has long been part of their lived experience. But for many young Bamar people in the cities, a growing awareness of this offers important lessons for a country coming to grips with the reinstatement of a military dictatorship amidst longstanding ethnic strife. Such sentiments are not only rising in urban areas. Much of Myanmar’s largely rural population have also long faced the brunt of military-enabled land confiscations and repressive practices, keeping the majority of the population in poverty. As journalist and author Carlos Sardiña Galache succinctly put it: “The Tatmadaw has always portrayed itself as the only institution capable of preserving Burma's unity, and this coup is proving the point in an unintended way: virtually the whole country seems to be united in rejecting the coup and the Tatmadaw itself.” Now that these diverse groups are coming together, new alliances are beginning to emerge amidst the chaos. Although Myanmar’s future remains far from certain, the coup has created circumstances through which people in towns and cities across the country can better empathise with the long-suffering plight of residents of the war-torn lands inhabited by the Karens and other ethnic nationality peoples. Written in collaboration with members of the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN) conducting on the ground interviews..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Transnational Institute (TNI)
2021-03-12
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Political impasse continues in Myanmar. Peace talks and general elections have failed to achieve national breakthroughs. All parties — both domestic and international — need to reflect on this failure. Civil society networks and representative governance must be strengthened at the community level if peace and democracy are to be built. In January 2009, Haruki Murakami received the Jerusalem Prize, a biennial literary award given to writers whose work deals with themes of human freedom, society, politics and government. In his acceptance speech Murakami spoke of the “System” which oppresses us. He said: "Each of us possesses a tangible living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow the System to exploit us.” In Myanmar, where an unrepresentative structure of national governance has been failing us for over 70 years, we must all unite to change this. For if an unequal status quo is allowed to continue, even the small gains that we have made in peace and democratic reform will not be sustained....နိုင်ငံရေးအကျပ်အတည်းမှာ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင်ဆက်လျက်ဖြစ်ပေါ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးဆွေးနွေးပွဲများနှင့် အထွေထွေရွေးကောက်ပွဲများသည်လည်း နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝှမ်းအရေးနိမ့်လျက်ရှိသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီများအားလုံး-ပြည်တွင်း၊ ပြည်ပနှစ်ရပ်စလုံး- အနေဖြင့် ယခုကဲ့သို့ မအောင်မြင်ခဲ့ရသည့် အကြောင်းရင်းများကို ပြန်လည်သုံးသပ်ရန်လိုအပ်လှသည်။ ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီကိုတည်ဆောက်လိုလျှင် အရပ်ဖက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းကွန်ရက်များနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ကိုယ်စားပြုအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးစနစ်သည် ပြည်သူများအကြားအားကောင်းရပေမည်။ ၂၀၁၉ ဇန်နဝါရီလတွင် ဂျေရုဆလင် စာပေဆုကို စာရေးဆရာ မူရာကာမိက ဆွတ်ခူးရရှိခဲ့ပါသည်။ လူတို့၏ လွတ်လပ်မှု၊ လူ့အသိုက်အဝန်း၊ နိုင်ငံရေးနှင့် စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေး စသည့် အကြောင်းအရာများကို ရေးသားသည့် စာရေးဆရာများအတွက် ၂နှစ်တစ်ကြိမ် ချီးမြှင့်သည့် ဆုလည်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ယင်းဆုကို လက်ခံရယူသည့် အခမ်းအနားတွင် မိန့်ခွန်းပြောကြားရာ၌ လူများကို ဖိနှိပ်နေသည့် စနစ်များအကြောင်း မူရာကာမိက ထည့်သွင်းပြောကြားခဲ့ပါသည်။ “ကျွန်တော်တို့ တစ်ယောက်ချင်းစီမှာ သိမြင်ခံစားလို့ရတဲ့ ရှင်သန်နေတဲ့ ဝိဉာင်ရှိတယ်။ စနစ်တွေမှာ ဝိဉာင်မရှိပါဘူး။ အဲဒီလို စနစ်တွေက ကျွန်တော်တို့ကို အမြတ်ထုတ်နေတာကို ခွင့်မပြုသင့်ပါဘူး” ဟု သူက ပြောခဲ့ပါသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင်လည်း ပြည်သူများကို ကိုယ်စားမပြုသော အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးစနစ်သည် ပြည်သူများအတွက် ကောင်းကျိုးမပြုပဲ နစ်နာဆုံးရှုံးမှုများကိုသာ နှစ်ပေါင်း ၇၀ ကျော်ကြာ ဖန်တီးလျက် ရှိနေပါသည်။ ထိုစနစ်ကို ပြောင်းလဲပစ်ရန်အတွက် ပြည်သူတို့၏ စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်မှုကို လိုအပ်နေပါသည်။ တရားမျှတမှု မရှိသည့် ထိုစနစ်ကို ရှင်သန်နေစေရန် ခွင့်ပြုထားကြမည်ဆိုပါက ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီ အကူးအပြောင်းအတွက် ကြိုးစားအားထုတ်ရင်း ရရှိလာသည့် အနည်းငယ်မျှသော ရလဒ်များကိုပါ ဆုံးရှုံးရမည့် အလားအလာရှိနေပါသည်။..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "TNI"
2019-08-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "During 8-10 May 2019, representatives from Kayan, Kayah, Pa-O, Shan, Lahu and Kachin opium farming communities came together to discuss their challenges in life and find ways to solve their problems. During 8-10 May 2019, representatives from Kayan, Kayah, Pa-O, Shan, Lahu and Kachin opium farming communities came together to discuss our challenges in life and find ways to solve our problems. We feel it is crucial that our voices of poppy-growing communities are heard in decision-making processes that affect our lives. Therefore, in 2013 we set up the Myanmar Opium Farmers’ Forum (MOFF), and this is our 7th annual meeting. We want to make clear to the world why we grow opium. We are subsistence farmers living in isolated mountainous areas, and cultivate poppy as a cash crop in order to buy food to feed our families and buy access to education and health care for our children. So the main reason is poverty. Some people in the city may think we earn a lot of money, but we are still poor. “Rich people don’t grow opium,” said one farmer, “only poor people grow it!” We do not want to be seen as criminals. We are not planting opium to go against the government or against the world. We are just planting it for our survival. Many of us would like to grow other crops, but this is difficult for several reasons. First of all, there is no market, and prices are very unstable. We have weak negotiation power. The businessmen are well connected and better organised then us, and they decide the price. We do not have any strong farmers’ institutions and we have no collective bargaining power. Our villages are remote, have poor infrastructure and high transportation costs further make it difficult for us to reach the market to sell our crops. No buyer comes to our village to buy our crops; this only happens in the case of opium..." "ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ ကရင်၊ ကယား၊ ပအိုဝ်း၊ ရှမ်း၊ လားဟူနှင့် ကချင်ဘိန်းစိုက်တောင်သူ ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များသည် ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ ရင်ဆိုင်ကြုံတေ ွ့နေရသည့် စိန်ခေါ်မှုအခက်အခဲများကို နှီးနှောတိုင်ပင်၍ ဆေ ွးနွေးအဖြေရှာနိုင် စေရန်၂၀၁၉ ခုနှစ်မေလ ၈-၁၀ ရက်နေ့အတ ွင်း တေ ွ့ဆုံစည်းဝေးခဲ့ကြပါသည်။ ဘိန်းစိုက်တောင်သူများ၏ ဘဝများအပေါ် ရိုက်ခတ်လျက်ရှိသည့် ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက်ချမှတ်မှုလုပ်ငန်းစဉ်များအားလုံး၌ ဘိန်းစိုက်တောင်သူ များ၏ သဘောထားများကို ထည့်သ ွင်းစဉ်းစားပေးရန် အလွန်အရေးကြီးသည်ဟု ကျ ွန်ုပ်တို့ယူဆပါသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဘိန်းစိုက်တောင်သူများညီလာခံ(MOFF)ကို ၂၀၁၃ ခုနှစ်မှစ၍ စီစဉ်ကျင်းပလာခဲ့ သည်မှာ ယခု(၇)ကြိမ်တိုင်ခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ ဘိန်းစိုက်ပျိုးရသည့် ကိစ္စရပ်နှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ ကမ္ဘာ့လူထုတစ်ရပ်လုံးကို အမြင်ရှင်းစေလိုပါသည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့သည်ဝေးလံခေါင်ဖျားသည့် တောင်တန်းကုန်းမြင့်ဒေသများ၌ နေထိုင်ကြရသည့် လက်လုပ်လက် စားတောင်သူများသာဖြစ်ကြပြီး မိသားစုကို ကျေ ွးမွေးထောက်ပံ့ရန်နှင့် သားသမီးများ၏ ပညာရေးနှင့် ကျန်း မာရေးကို ထောက်ပံ့နိုင်သည့် ဝင်ငွေရသီးနှံတစ်ရပ်အဖြစ် ဘိန်းကိုစိုက်ပျိုးကြရခြင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ သို့ဖြစ်၍ ဆင်းရဲနွမ်းပါးမှုသည်သာလျှင်အဓိကအကြောင်းရင်းဖြစ်နေပါသည်။ မြို့ပြနေလူထုများအနေဖြင့်ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၌ ရွှေတ ွဲလ ွဲ ငွေတ ွဲလ ွဲဖြစ်နေကြမည်ဟု ယူဆလျက်ရှိသော်လည်း အကယ်စင်စစ်ကျ ွန်ုပ်တို့သည်ဆင်းရဲနေမြ ဲ ပင်ဖြစ်သည်။ “သူဌေးတေ ွက ဘိန်းမစိုက်ကြဘူး”ဟု တောင်သူတစ်ဦးက ပြောဆိုခဲ့ပြီး “ဆင်းရဲသားတေ ွပဲ ဘိန်းစိုက်ကြတယ်”ဟု ဆက်လက်ပြောဆိုခ ဲ့သည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ကို ရာဇဝတ်သားများအဖြစ် မရှုမြင်စေလိုပါ။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့အနေဖြင့် အစိုးရကို သို့မဟုတ်ကမ္ဘာကို တော်လှန်ပုန်ကန်ရန်ဘိန်းစိုက်ပျိုးနေကြသည်မဟုတ်ပါ။ အသက်ရှင်ရပ်တည်ရေးအတ ွက်မလွှဲမရှောင်သာ စိုက်ပျိုးနေကြရခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။..."
Creator/author: Angelo, U Min Thein, Khun Sein Shwe, Kyar Yin Shell, Nan Htay Htay
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2019-05-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 193.07 KB 288.22 KB
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Description: ''ပည်ထောင်စုငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး ညီလာခံဟုလည်းသိထားကြသည့် ၂၁ ရာစုပင်လုံညီလာခံကို ၁၉၄၇ ခုနှစ် နှောင်းပိုင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးအတိုင်းအတာငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးနှင့် နိုင်ငံရေးပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲရေး လုပ်ငန်းများဖော်ဆောင်နိုင် စေရန်ကြိုးပမ်းသည့် စိတ်အားတက်ကြွဖွယ်ရာအကောင်းဆုံး တာထွက်ခြေလှမ်းတစ်ရပ်အနေဖြင့် ကြိုဆိုဂုဏ်ပြု ခဲ့ကြသည်။ ယခုအချိန်ထိ “နှစ်ဆယ့်တစ်ရာစုပင်လုံ” ညီလာခံကို နှစ်ကြိမ်တိုင်တိုင်ကျင်းပခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်သည်။ အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ့ချုပ်ဦးဆောင်သည့် အစိုးရ၏ တိုင်းရင်းသားငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး ဦးစားပေးဆောင်ရွက်မှုနှင့်အတူ ဤအခင်း အကျင်းသည် ပျက်ပြယ်ပျောက်ဆုံးမသွားသင့်သည့် အမျိုးသားပြန်လည်သင့်မြတ်ရေးအတွက် နှစ်ရှည်လများလိုအပ် နေခဲ့သည့် အခွင့်အလမ်းတစ်ရပ်ပေါ်ပေါက်လာသည့် အခါသမယဖြစ်နေသည်။ • အမျိုးသားနိုင်ငံရေးနယ်ပယ်၌ တံခါးပွင့်လာသည့် အရေးပါသော တိုးတက်ဖြစ်ထွန်းမှု အခင်းအကျင်းသုံးရပ်ရှိနေ ပြီဖြစ်သည်။ ပထမအချက်အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီကိုယ်စားလှယ်များ၊ အစိုးရစစ်တပ် (တပ်မတော်)၊ တိုင်းရင်းသား လက်နက်ကိုင်အဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် အရပ်ဖက်လူမှုအဖွဲ့အစည်းများအပါအဝင် မတူကွဲပြားသည့် အကျိုးပတ်သက် ပါဝင်သူအသီးသီးမှ မိမိတို့၏ အမြင်သဘောထားအမျိုးမျိုးကို ထုတ်ဖော်ပြောဆိုခွင့် ရရှိလာခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ ဒုတိယ အနေဖြင့် ထိုကဲ့သို့သော အထင်ကရရှိသည့် စြင်္ကန်မျိုးကို ပြန်လည်အသက်သွင်းခြင်းက နိုင်ငံတော်ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲ ရာ၌အဓိကသော့ချက်နှစ်ခုဖြစ်သည့် လွှတ်တော်နှင့် တိုင်းရင်းသားငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးတို့ကို လမ်းကြောင်း တစ်ခုတည်း၌ ပေါင်းစည်းလာနိုင်စေမည့် အလားအလာမျိုးကို ဖန်တီးပေးလျက်ရှိသည်။ တတိယအနေဖြင့် ဖက်ဒရယ်စနစ်ကို ဦးတည်၍ ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲရန်လိုအပ်မှုကို အများပြည်သူမှ ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့်ထောက်ခံသဘောတူလာခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2017-09-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.4 MB
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Description: ''Hundreds of civil society organizations are mobilizing in opposition to the government’s implementation of the VFV Land Law due to the expectation that the law will facilitate land grabbing and land conflict. One statement explains that the VFV Land Management Central Committee’s notification of 30 October 2018 requires that anyone using the VFV land register receives permission to continue using the land.2 This requirement creates serious uncertainties for a large portion of Myanmar’s population. If they do register their land, they will lose their historical and traditional rights to it, instead receiving a 30-year use permit. If they do not register the land, they risk eviction or penalties of imprisonment for two years and/or a 500,000 kyats fine. The government has reportedly estimated that 45 million acres qualify as VFV land, 82% of which is in the ethnic nationality states, threatening the livelihoods and survival of an unknown number of persons throughout the country.3 CSOs have pointed out the ways that the VFV Land Law will threaten pre-existing land tenure, will facilitate land grabbing, and will cause land conflicts to increase.4 Three hundred and forty-six organizations signed onto a statement saying, “Instead of accepting and enacting this law, the fundamental priority must instead be to effectively recognize customary practices and communal land rights, and to safeguard the interest of the peoples depending on land.”5 This statement and a recent statement by internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Kachin and northern Shan States point out that the law will negatively affect persons displaced by conflict, who already face challenges in holding on to their ancestral lands...''
Creator/author: Jason Gelbort
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-12-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: ''The voice of communities involved in illicit cultivation had long been excluded from policymaking platforms. However, thanks to growing networks such as the Myanmar Opium Farmers Forum, more and more farmers have gained more space to provide input to drug policy discussions at the UN level. This video, prepared by the Myanmar Opium Farmers' Forum (MOFF), was presented at the fourth intersessional meeting at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), specifically during a session on Alternative Development and Crop Control Strategy on 24 October 2018. The session was part of a wider set of meetings in preparation for the upcoming high-level meeting at the CND in March 2019...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Shan
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Description: ''A Memorandum of Understanding to establish the China Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) was signed by the governments of Myanmar and China in September 2018. The CMEC forms part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a 21st century reimagining of the ancient Silk Road, the network of land and sea trade routes that once linked Imperial China with markets in the west. The Chinese posit BRI as "a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future", but there are many who perceive it as nothing more than a form of neocolonialism, a thinly-veiled attempt at gaining dominance on the world stage. The very act of rebranding the initiative Belt and Road, taking the word "One" out of its original name [“One Belt, One Road”], is seen as an attempt to address this negative impression...''
Creator/author: Lahpai Seng Raw
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2019-01-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ''ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး တိုးတက်ဖြစ်ထွန်းမှုကို အထောက်အကူပြုရန်အတွက် လူထုလူတန်းစားများ၏ မြေ ယာရပိုင်ခွင့်အခွင့်အရေးများကို မဖြစ်မနေအကာအကွယ်ပေးရမည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်အစိုးရ၏ မြေယာမူဝါဒအပေါ် ချဉ်းကပ်မှုပုံစံသည် မြေယာပဋိပက္ခများ တိုးပွားလာ စေပြီး တရားဝင်ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး စေ့စပ်ညှိနှိုင်းရာ၌ လက်ရှိကြုံတွေ့ရလျက်ရှိသည့် စိန်ခေါ်မှုများကို ပိုမို ဖိတ်ခေါ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ အရပ်ဖက်လူမှုအဖွဲ့အ စည်းများကလည်း လတ်တလောပြင်ဆင်ခဲ့သည့် မြေလွတ်၊ မြေလပ်နှင့် မြေရိုင်းစီမံခန့်ခွဲရေးဥပဒေ (VFV မြေယာဥပဒေ)ကို အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ခြင်းဖြင့် ကျေးလက်နေလူထုလူတန်းစားများကို ၎င်းတို့၏ ဘိုးဘွားပိုင်နယ်မြေများမှ နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာတိမ်းရှောင်ရစေပြီး ဓလေ့ထုံးတမ်းဆိုင်ရာ မြေယာ ရပိုင်ခွင့်အခွင့်အရေးများ ချိနှဲ့အားနည်းသွားစေရန် တွန်းအားပေးလိမ့်မည်ဟူသည့် ကြောင်းကျိုးဆီ လျော်သည့် စိုးရိမ်ပူပန်မှုပေါ်အခြေခံ၍ အကောင်အထည်ဖော်မှုကို အပြင်းအထန်ကန့်ကွက်လျက် ရှိသည်။ 1 နေပြည်တော်၏ ဥပဒေပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲမှုသည် လက်ရှိငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးလုပ်ငန်းစဉ်၏ ရည် မှန်းချက်နှင့် တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးအပစ်အခတ်ရပ်စဲရေးသဘောတူစာချုပ်(NCA)ပါ ကတိကဝတ်များနှင့် ဆန့်ကျင်သွေဖယ်လျက်ရှိကြောင်း ဤအချက်က သက်သေပြလျက်ရှိသည်။ ထို့အပြင် NCA ၌ သ ဘောတူလက်မှတ် ရေးထိုးထားခြင်းမရှိသေးသည့် နယ်မြေဒေသပေါင်းများစွာလည်း ကျန်ရှိနေဆဲ ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် အစိုးရတစ်ရပ်အနေဖြင့် အပြောင်းအလဲဆီသို့ ဦးတည်ချဉ်းကပ်ရာ၌ မြေယာ ရပိုင်ခွင့် အခွင့်အရေးများကို ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ပေးရန်နှင့် ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးတိုးတက်ဖြစ်ထွန်းလာ စေမည့် ယုံကြည်မှုတိုးတက်ခိုင်မာလာအောင် တည်ဆောက်သွားရန် မဖြစ်မနေလိုအပ်ပါသည်။...''
Creator/author: Jason Gelbort
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2019-01-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), English
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Description: ''In regards to current drug trends, particularly methamphetamine (both in crystal and pill form) has become increasingly accessible and affordable throughout Asia, reflecting the trend of rising use of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) in the region. Governments in the SEA region have implemented different kinds of national drug policy reform, including diversion programmes (Indonesia and Cambodia), harm reduction measures (Malaysia and Myanmar), and steps towards decriminalisation of cannabis cultivation and use for medical and scientific purposes (Thailand). The scale of illicit cultivation of crops continues to be largely influenced by various socioeconomic and political factors such as poverty, conflict, and weak institutions, both in Myanmar and Afghanistan. In areas affected by conflict, households often grow opium poppy as a means of survival in an environment where markets are not accessible. Lessons can be learned, for instance, from experiences in Thailand or Colombia. The Thai experience demonstrates the importance of integrated rural development as a foundation of AD measures, addressing short-term needs as well as long-term sustainability. This includes community planning, inclusive value-chain development and sustainable land management, among other aspects. Experiences regarding coca cultivation areas and the recent peace agreement in Colombia confirm that multi-stakeholder dialogue is important for being able to access local communities and building trust...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 397.01 KB
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Description: ''Between 26 and 28 May 2018, representatives of opium farming communities in several states in Myanmar came together in Lashio, Shan State, to share experiences, concerns, and initiatives on the issue of illicit cultivation, especially in relation with supply-side policies which have affected their lives and livelihoods. A final statement was concluded at the end of the forum. We, representatives from Kayah, Kayan, Shan, Pa-O, Lahu and Kachin opium farming communities, came together in Lashio in Shan State during 26-28 May 2018, to discuss the challenges we face in our lives, and to share experiences and find ways to solve our problems. We set up the Myanmar Opium Farmer’s Forum (MOFF) to make our voices heard in 2013, and this was our 6th annual MOFF meeting...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-06-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: ''The national peace negotiation process in Myanmar is not working, and it is currently facing stagnation. After a 14-month delay, a third “Union Peace Conference—21st Century Panglong” (UPC-21CP) took place in Nay Pyi Taw in mid-July this year in a bid to convey a positive momentum. But, even then, core issues like political dialogue, security reform, natural resource-sharing and the ethnic right of self-determination were not included. Rather, only 14 subsidiary issues that are already covered in the 2008 constitution were discussed and agreed upon. They have now been added to a “Union Accord” that was partially inked at the previous UPC-21CP meeting last year. Like the 2008 constitution, the detail of the Union Accord remains a matter of deep controversy. Some of the longest-running ethnic conflicts in Asia are still continuing in several borderlands and, for the moment, it is very difficult to define in what direction Myanmar’s peace process is truly heading...''
Creator/author: Sai Wansai
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ''အက်ပ်အတည်း ျပဿနာ တစ္ခုကိုမွ နှိုးဆြျခင်းမျပုတဲ့ ကေ်ာင်းတော်၊ စိတ္မသက္မသာ မျဖစ်စေတဲ့ နှုတ္ကပတ်တော်၊ လူတစ်ယောက္ကိုမွ တနုံ့နုံ့နဲ့ မခံခိမခံသာ မျဖစ်စေတဲ့ ဘုရားရွင်ရဲ့ နှုတ္ကပတ်တ္တောစ္ခြန်း၊ အဲဒီစကားကို ြမြက်ကြားတဲ့နေရာ လူ့အသိုက်အဝန်းထဲမွာ တကယ်ရွိနေတဲ့ မေကာင်းမှုကို မထိမတို့တဲ့ နှုတ္ကပတ်တ္တောစ္ခြန်း၊ ဒါဟာ ဘယ္လို နှုတ္ကပတ်တ္မောိုးပါလိမ့်။'' ကက်သလစ် ဆရာတော်ကြီး အ္စောကာ ရိုမားရို၊ အယ္လ္ဆာဗေဒါ နိုင်ငံ၊ ၁၆ ဧပြီ ၁၉၇၈ ကက်သလစ် ဆရာတော်ကြီး ရိုမားရို (ခုတော့ သူတ္စောင် အရွင်သူျမတ် စိန့်ရိုမားရို) ရဲ့စကားတြေဟာ သူေျပာခဲ့တဲ့ ၁၉၇၈ ခုနွစ္တုံးကလိုပဲ ခုခိန္ထိ ဝမ်းနည်းအားငယ္စရာကောင်းတဲ့ အမွန္တရားတစ္ခု ျဖစ်နေတုံးပါပဲ။ ကိုးကြယ်ယုံကြည္မှု ဘာသာတရားတြေဆိုတာ ကမ္ဘာလောကကြီးရဲ့ အခက်အခဲ ဒုက္ခေတြကေန ပုန်းရွောင္ဖို့ ထြက်ေျပးဖို့မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ လူ့လောကရဲ့ လက်တြေ့ဘဝေတြထဲက အခက်အခဲဒုက္ခေတြကို နားလည္ဖို့၊ ကရုဏာအျပည့္နဲ့ တုံျပန်ေျဖရွင်းဖို့လို့ ကြျန္မနားလည္ထားပါတယ်။ ဒါကြောင့္မို့ ခုလို အကြံပေးအဖြဲ့ရဲ့ စီစဉ္မှုနဲ့ ဘာသာပေါင်းစုံ စုဖြဲ့ပြီး ဒီဆြေးနြေးပြဲမွာ ပါဝင္ခြင့်ရကြတာဟာ ဝမ်းေျမာက္စရာ အခြင့္ထူးတစ်ရပ္ပဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ်။...''
Creator/author: Lahpai Seng Raw
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: ''The voice of communities involved in illicit cultivation had long been excluded from policymaking platforms. However, thanks to growing networks such as the Myanmar Opium Farmers Forum, more and more farmers have gained more space to provide input to drug policy discussions at the UN level. This video, prepared by the Myanmar Opium Farmers' Forum (MOFF), was presented at the fourth intersessional meeting at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), specifically during a session on Alternative Development and Crop Control Strategy on 24 October 2018. The session was part of a wider set of meetings in preparation for the upcoming high-level meeting at the CND in March 2019. The voice of communities involved in illicit cultivation had long been excluded from national and international policymaking platforms. Since UNGASS 2016, however, farmers involved in the illicit cultivation of coca, cannabis, and opium poppy have gained more space to provide input to drug policy discussions at the UN level, largely thanks to the work of social movements such as MOFF in Myanmar, COCCAM in Colombia, and many more at the grassroots level...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The necessity of peace by political means, inclusive of all nationalities and faiths within the Union. A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that? -Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador 16 April 1978- The words of Archbishop Oscar Romero are as poignant today as when first spoken in 1978. Faith does not mean shying away or hiding from the challenges of the world. It means being responsive, compassionate and understanding in the front-line challenges of human life. It is thus a wonderful opportunity for inter-faith dialogue that the Advisory Forum has provided by organising for us all to join together in this forum. I am a Kachin woman from northern Myanmar and was raised as a Christian, as are many Kachin people. Like all co-founders of the Union, the hope of the Kachin people is always for peace and justice. This sentiment for peace and justice was strong in the 1947 Panglong Agreement, again during the transition to independence, and even when armed struggle became prolonged between different forces within the country. The Kachin people always believed that, eventually, there would be a peaceful resolution by political means, which would include all nationalities and faiths within the Union.''
Creator/author: Lahpai Seng Raw
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-11-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ''The right to land for all peoples is essential for peace, democracy and development. The recently adopted amendment by parliament to the 2012 Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Law (VFV Law) has immediate, deep and far-reaching implications for many millions of rural working people in Myanmar, especially in ethnic nationality regions. The new law has also serious, negative consequences for the country’s development and the transition towards democracy, and ultimately for the prospects for a lasting peace in Myanmar. Across Myanmar, but especially in ethnic borderland areas, the livelihoods and well-being of agrarian communities have, for centuries, been assured through traditional customary land and resource management systems. Many such systems continue to exist, and they command social legitimacy in regulating how people relate to each other and to land and resources at the village level. These systems involve community assertion of authority over the local land and resources, and regulation of their management and use. These systems are often informal, but there is clear understanding within and between villages what land can be used, by whom, for how long, and for what purposes...''
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-12-13
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: KEY POINTS: • The 21 st Century Panglong Conference, also known as the Union Peace Conference, has been hailed as the most encouraging initiative to achieve countrywide peace and political reform in Myanmar since the Panglong Conference of February 1947. Two ?Panglong-21” meetings have been held so far. With the National League for Democracy government prioritising ethnic peace, this is a long-needed moment of opportunity for national reconciliation that should not be lost. • There have been three important advances in the landscape of national politics so far. First, different points of view could be expressed by a diversity of stakeholders, including representatives of political parties, the national armed forces (Tatmadaw), ethnic armed organisations and civil society groups. Second, the revival of such a symbolic platform raises the potential for the two key processes in national reform ? parliamentary and ethnic peace ? to be brought together on the same track. Third, there is broad agreement in public statements on the need for pro-federal reform. • Worrying failings, however, are beginning to appear, raising warning spectres from the country?s troubled past. Dating back to the Panglong Conference in 1947, each new era of government has witnessed new political initiatives to foster national peace, and all have been unsuccessful. This must not happen again. • Amidst urgent concerns: there is a lack of inclusion in the present peace process; Tatmadaw domination still continues; there is an over-reliance on the inconclusive Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement of ex-President Thein Sein; land-grabbing, natural resource exploitation and economic opportunism remain widespread; and military-first solutions are still being pursued in several parts of the country. Meanwhile civilian displacement and humanitarian suffering have not ended, highlighted by continuing emergencies in the Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States. • The international response to Myanmar?s ethnic challenges is divided. Western governments have backed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement as the road to peace; the NLD-led administration has reduced cooperation with United Nations? mediation; and China is seeking to take on the leading international role. Concerned by instability along its border, China recognises that a majority of ethnic armed organisations have been marginalised in the peace process to date. But, with major geo-political ambitions of its own, China?s involvement is only adding to uncertainties about Myanmar?s future direction. • A window of opportunity still remains. But, for genuine peace and national reform to be achieved, the 21 st Century Panglong must deliver a political destination of hope that includes all peoples rather than another cycle of failure in the country?s history of ethnic conflict. In one of the most ethnically-diverse countries in Asia, the present crises in Myanmar?s borderlands are not exceptions but long-standing examples of failures that lie at the heart of the modern-day state."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2017-09-21
Date of entry/update: 2017-10-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1 MB
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Description: "...Myanmar?s future could still be bright. But as military offensives continue, it is vital to recognise that the recourse to armed tactics is not just a Kachin issue but a national issue as well. If there is a reversion to military rule, it might not make much difference for the Kachins who have been living under this reality for many decades, but it must give real cause for concern to everyone who supports democracy. Political solutions will never be achieved on the battlefield. Under such a scenario, there will be no winners but just losers. Military-first tactics will never end, and the present political landscape will not mark a step in transition towards peace and democratic change. Rather, the country will remain enmeshed in the unending cycles of conflict, ceasefires and broken promises that underpin state failure and national under-achievement. The task of finding peaceful solutions thus falls to us all: political parties, ethnic armed organisations, community and civil society groups, media, faith-based groups, individual activists for peace, and coalitions of interest groups. It is time to say that ?enough is enough” to military offensives. At a time of critical national change, the attitude of waiting until armed conflict is over to settle things will not work. Popular momentum is building. What is now needed is to forge a national movement in the same way as the ?Save the Irrawaddy” campaign that halted the construction of the Myitsone Dam under the Thein Sein government. People of all ethnic, political, religious and geographical backgrounds need to come together in one voice to stop the war before it is too late...."
Creator/author: Lahpai Seng Raw
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2016-10-19
Date of entry/update: 2016-10-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Communities in the Kachin State have launched a ?people?s war on drugs?. Known as Pat Jasan (?Prohibit Clear?), a new organisation was formed two years ago to combat the worsening drug problem among the local population. The self-appointed committee decided to take law enforcement into their own hands as they feel the government is not doing enough to stop the flow of harmful drugs into their communities. The Pat Jasan vigilantes, often dressed in military-style uniforms and armed with stick and batons, have arrested and beaten drug users and put them into forced treatment camps, and they have sent teams into opium-growing areas to eradicate poppy fields. The Pat Jasan has been praised by some Kachin activists for finally addressing drug problems, but criticized by others for violating human rights and not providing any services to marginalized communities, including drug users and poppy farmers. Most recently, their poppy eradication efforts led to open conflict with opium farmers and local militia groups. The creation of Pat Jasan and its war on drugs have brought to light a number of key drug-related problems facing not only the Kachin State but also the rest of the country..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2016-03-16
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: Abstract: "Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land grab differ from those in regions such as Africa. At a glance, Europe is not a high profile, major driver of land-grabbing in this region, but a closer examination reveals that it nonetheless is playing a significant role. This influence is both direct and indirect, through European corporate sector and public policies, as well as through multilateral agencies within which EU states are members. Looking at some of the cases of large-scale land acquisition in Southeast Asia, and the role played by the European Union, we put forward several observations and issues for discussion."
Creator/author: Santurnino M. Borras Jr., Jennifer C. Franco
Source/publisher: Transitional Institute (TNI)
2011-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 421.32 KB
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Description: "We are at a critical juncture in our history, more promising than at any time in recent memory. The country will have a civilian-majority government that came to office through the votes of a multitude of smaller nationality groups for a pan-national party promising political change. If this political transition is to succeed, poverty must be alleviated, corruption curtailed, drug abuse radically reduced, and a host of other social crises addressed that have long blighted our country. At the beginning of the year my son came to the Kachin state with his newly-wed bride to receive our blessings for his marriage. For the first time I began to think about becoming a grandmother, holding a tiny grandchild and then actually thinking that, at some time in the future, I would welcome a granddaughter or grandson to our home for another happy wedding. What can I pass on to this future generation? What will unfold before their eyes? Snow-capped mountains and orchids hidden in deep forests? Streams rushing downhill to join the great Irrawaddy? Flourishing farmlands? I had a vision of reforested hills in Hpakant, travellers gathering pleasure from the peaceful countryside where camps for internally-displaced persons now dot the hills. I saw organic farmers, where today great swathes of monocultures for export have now displaced the original owners. And I could imagine thriving universities, where drug-addicted young people presently waste away their lives. These reflections are not simply personal, but concerns that every parent has in our country today. We are now at a critical juncture in our history, more promising than at any time in recent memory. For the first time since the 1950s, the country will have a civilian-majority government that came to office through the votes of a multitude of smaller nationality groups for a pan-national party promising political change. For non-Burman peoples, however, an underlying question remains, as it has in every political era since independence in 1948: can a multi-ethnic country of such cultural vibrancy and diversity be governed by a party that appears to be led by one majority group?..."
Creator/author: Lahpai Seng Raw
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2016-03-17
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Description: Abstract: "The recent political and economic liberalization in Burma/Myanmar, while indicative of some positive steps toward democratization after decades of authoritarian rule, has simultaneously increased foreign and domestic investments and geared the economy toward industrialization and large-scale agriculture. In rural areas, new institutional frameworks governing land, including a new Farmland Law (2012) and Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Law (2012) have effectively created a land market through private land-use property rights and a new registration system with new land administration bodies. In a country permeated by legacies of corruption, coercion and military-linked cronies, land governance procedures and implementation tend to favour the more powerful and well-connected, with little protection mechanism for the majority smallholding farmers in the country. The Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ), in the southern Thanintharyi division of Myanmar, to be developed trilateraly with Thai, Myanmar and Japanese investment, is set to become one of the largest industrial zones in Southeast Asia, covering an area of approximately 200km. The project plan includes a deep sea port, industrial estate, power plant and cross-border road and rail link to Thailand. The development of the SEZ, together with land speculation in surrounding areas and other confiscations linked to agricultural concessions, mining and military constructions has been met with collective mobilizations. The paper argues that although resistance against land confiscations are increasingly linked to global trends, such reactions are also responding to an expanding opportunity structure in the national political context. Collective action in the Dawei area takes advantage of histories of activism linked to democratic movements as well as human rights repertoires, social networks and trainings across the border in Thailand. Smallholding farmers, in alliance with activists, are also contesting land confiscations conducted by the military in the 1990s, encouraged by a greater political liberalization and testing the grounds for protest and engagement with the state. These contestations have implications for democratization and the transition of state-society relations more broadly. Although embedded locally, this process engages with transnational networks and alliances as well as global frameworks such as human rights, livelihoods and sustainable development."
Creator/author: Yukari Sekine
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2016-02-04
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 490.57 KB
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Description: Contents: What is land and why is it important? ... Why is land such a burning issue in Myanmar? ... How is land related to debates about development?... Is there a human right to land?... What steps are people in Myanmar taking to express and assert their human right to land?
Creator/author: Jenny Franco, Hannah Twomey, Khu Khu Ju, Pietje Vervest, Tom Kramer
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-02-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 365.33 KB
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Description: Key Points: "•• Myanmar has suffered from decades of civil war and military rule. Addressing the structural roots of violence, including gendered inequality, are crucial in order to build a sustainable peace. It is essential to analyse conflict, violence and human insecurity within a social context that is shaped by gender inequality. Women are involved in and affected by civil war as victims, survivors and agents of conflict and peace in specific ways which are often different from the experiences of men... •• The role of women is critical to the achievement of peace and democracy. To create a peace and national reform process that is effective and truly inclusive, women need to participate in all levels of decision-making to prevent, manage and resolve conflict... •• International experience shows that failure to incorporate women?s gendered needs and priorities in peace agreements will greatly undermine the potential for sustainable peace. As a result of advocacy from the global women?s movement, many international agreements are now in place providing an imperative for governments to guarantee women?s rights to equitable participation in decision-making on national issues of peace and governance... •• Myanmar?s political and ethnic leaders appear to lack understanding of their responsibility to implement women?s equal rights in decision-making on peace-building and national transition. Women have mostly been excluded from high-level peace negotiations. However women are already participating in important efforts to achieve peace and reconciliation but lack official recognition for this... •• Despite facing repression and discrimination, women?s organisations have accelerated their activities in promoting the rights of women and seeking to ensure that women?s representatives achieve rightful participation in national reform, peace processes and decisions about the country?s future. Myanmar?s leaders and the international community need to demonstrate acknowledgement of these efforts and expand the opportunities for inclusive and gender-equitable decision-making in the peace and democratisation processes under way."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2016-01-13
Date of entry/update: 2016-01-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 310.42 KB
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Description: စကားချီး။ ။ ဤပုံနှိပ်ထုတ်ဝေမှုသည် TNI ၏ ၂၀၀၉ ခုနှစ်တွင် ထုတ် ဝေခဲ့သည့် ?ရွှေတြိဂံနယ်မြေမှ ဆေးပြတ်စဝေဒနာများ၊ ဖရိုဖရဲဖြစ်နေ သည့် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဈေးကွက်? (Withdrawal Symptoms in the Golden Triangle: A Drugs Market in Disarray) ဟူသည့် အစီရင်ခံစာ၏ နောက် ဆကတ် အွဲ ကျိုးဆက ်တစခ် ြုဖစသ် ည။် ဤအစရီ ငခ် စံ ာသည ်အရေ့ ှတောင် အာရှမူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဈေးကွက်၏ ပြောင်းလဲမှုကို လေ့လာသုံးသပ်၍ အစား ထိုးအပြောင်းအလဲ ပြုလုပ်နိုင်မည့် ရွေးချယ်စရာမူဝါဒများကို ရေးဆွဲဖော် ထုတ်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းခဲ့သည့် ကနဦးအားထုတ်မှုတစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်သည်။ အစီရင်ခံ စာ၌အရှေ့ တောင ် အာရှေ ဒသတစလ် ာွှ းမ ှ ဘနိ ်းအဓကိ စကို ပ် ျိုးထတု လ် ပု ် လျက်ရှိသည့် ရြွှေတဂိ ဟံ ု လူသိများသည့် မြန်မာ၊ လာအိုနှင့်ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံ တို့၌ ၁၉၉၈ မှ ၂၀၀၆ ခုနှစ်အတွင်း ဘိန်းစိုက်ပျိုးထုတ်လုပ်မှု သိသိ သာသာလျော့ကျသွားစေခဲ့သည့် အဓိကမောင်းနှင်အားများနှင့် နောက် ဆက်တွဲသက်ရောက်မှုများကို ဆန်းစစ်သုံးသပ်ထားခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ပြင် အိမ်နီးချင်းတိုင်းပြည်များဖြစ်သည့် အရှေ့မြောက်အိန္ဒိယနှင့် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံ၏ ယူနန်ပြည်နယ်များရှိ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းများ နှင့်လည်း ဆက်စပ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ အစီရင်ခံစာအတွင်း မြန်မာနှင့် လာအို နိုင်ငံရှိ ဘိန်းတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးလုပ်ငန်းများ၏ ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲမှုကို မေးခွန်းထုတ်ခဲ့ပြီး အခြားဒေသများသ့ို ရေ့ွှ ပြောင်း ပျံ့ နံ့ှသာွ းခသဲ့ ည့် ဘနိ ်း စိုက်ပျိုးထုတ်လုပ်မှုလမ်းကြောင်းများကို မီးမောင်းထိုးပြထားသည်။ ?ဆေးပြတ်စဝေဒနာများ? (Withdrawal Symptoms) ကို ပုံနှိပ် ထုတ်ဝေခဲ့ချိန်မှစ၍ အရှေ့တောင်အာရှ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဈေးကွက်အတွင်း သိသိသာသာ ပြောင်းလဲမှုများကို တွေ့ရှိလာရသည်။ သိသာထင်ရှားမှု အရှိဆုံးဖြစ်ရပ်တစ်ခုမှာ တစ်ကျော့ပြန် ဘိန်းစိုက်ပျိုးထုတ်လုပ်မှုသည် ၂၀၀၆ ခုနှစ် ထုတ်လုပ်မှုပမာဏထက် နှစ်ဆကျော် မြင့်မားလာခဲ့ခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ဤသို့မြှင့်တက်လာခြင်းကြောင့် လက်ရှိတည်ဆဲ မူးယစ် ဆေးဝါးတားဆီးနှိမ်နှင်းရေး မူဝါဒများ၏ ထိရောက်အကျိုးရှိမှုနှင့် အာဆီယံအဖွဲ့ဝင်နိုင်ငံများ၏ ၂၀၁၅ မူးယစ်ကင်းစင်ရေးဒေသတွင်း ရည်မှန်းချက်ပန်းတိုင်ကြီးကို လက်လှမ်းမီနိုင်ခြင်းရှိမရှိ မေးခွန်းထုတ် စရာဖြစ်လာခဲ့သည်။ ခြုံငသုံ းုံသပရ် မညဆ် ပို ါက ဒေသတငွ ်း ရ ှိ မးူယစ် ဆေးဝါးဆုငိ ်ရာ ပြဿနာရပမ် ျားအပေါ် ကငို တ် ယွ သ် ည့် မဝူ ါဒများသည် တားဆီးချုပ်ချယ်မှု တင်းကျပ်လွန်းအားကြီးသည်။ ယင်းမူဝါဒများသည် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးထုတ်လုပ်ခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးသုံးစွဲလျက်ရှိသည့် လူအုပ်စုများအတွက် ဆိုးရွားပြင်းထန်သည့် နောက်ဆက်တွဲဆိုးကျိုးများ သာဖြစ်ပေါ်စေခဲ့သည်။ အထူးသဖြင့် အပယ်ခံ လူ့အသိုက်အဝန်းများနှင့် အဆင်းရဲဆုံး ရပ်ရွာလူထုများအများဆုံး ထိခိုက်ခံစားကြရသည်။ ?တစ်ကျော့ပြန်? အစီရင်ခံစာသည် ဒေသတွင်းရှိ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါး ထုတ်လုပ်မှုနှင့် သုံးစွဲမှုဆိုင်ရာအခြေအနေများ၏ အကြောင်းတရား များနှင့် သက်ရောက်ထိခိုက်မှုများကို လေ့လာဆန်းစစ်ထားခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ ခြငွ ်း ချကမ် ရှိ တားဆီးပိတ်ပင်ခြင်းနှင့် ရက်အကန့်အသတ်အပေါ်အခြေ ခံ၍ စဉ်းစားတွေးခေါ်မှုသည် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးနှင့်ပတ်သက်သည့် ပြဿနာ ရပ်များကို ပိုမိုကြီးထွားလာစေကြောင်း ဝေဖန်သုံးသပ်ထားခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ အစီရင်ခံစာ၌အဆိုပြုထားသည့် ရွေးချယ်စရာမူဝါဒများသည် နိုင်ငံတကာ အလေ့အထကောင်းများ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးစံ သတ်မှတ်ချက်များနှင့် ကိုက်ညီမှုရှိသည့် အပြင်ကရုဏာတရားနှင့် အထောက်အထားအပေါ် အခြေပြု၍ ယုတ္တိကျကျဖြင့် ထိထိရောက်ရောက်အကောင်အထည်ဖော် နိုင်သည့် မူဝါဒများလည်းဖြစ်သည်။
Creator/author: Tom Kramer, Ernestien Jensema, Martin Jelsma, Tom Blickman, Amira Armenta, Sophie Broach
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2014-06-14
Date of entry/update: 2015-12-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 7.28 MB
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Description: "Current drug control polices in South-east Asia are repressive and criminalise opium farmers, greatly affecting the lives of communities cultivating opium. Most policy responses ? including from some armed opposition groups ? focus on eradication of poppy fields and the implementation of strict bans on opium cultivation... Projects: Myanmar in Focus, UN Drug Control, Drugs & Democracy The Third Myanmar Opium Farmers? Forum was held in September 2015 in Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar. It brought together around 30 representatives of local communities involved in poppy cultivation in Myanmar?s major opium growing regions: Chin State, Kachin State, northern and southern Shan State and Kayah State. Farmers and community representatives from Chin, Kachin, Kayah, Kayan, Pa-O, Shan and Ta-ang (Palaung) ethnic communities took part in the forum. Current drug control polices in South-east Asia are repressive and criminalise opium farmers, greatly affecting the lives of communities cultivating opium. Most policy responses ? including from some armed opposition groups ? focus on eradication of poppy fields and the implementation of strict bans on opium cultivation. As these communities depend on opium as a cash crop to solve immediate food security problems and sustain their livelihoods, such repressive policies are driving communities further into poverty. Currently only very few Alternative Development (AD) programmes are offered to opium-growing communities to address these problems. Furthermore, opium cultivation often takes place in conflict-affected areas, and links between drugs and conflict affect local communities. Until now these communities have had little or no influence on the design of the drug control policies that have great impact on their lives and livelihoods. They have also had little participation in the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of AD programmes that are supposed to help them. The forum?s aim was to identify the main concerns of opium farmers, and formulate alternative policy options that respect the rights of producer communities and involve them in the decision-making processes. To this end the forum adopted a statement with recommendations to policy makers nationally and internationally. The meeting was held under Chatham House rules because of the sensitivity of the subject, and the names and places of origin of the participants remain confidential. This report reflects participants? views and captures the main conclusions and recommendations that emerged from the forum... Conclusion: At the end of the forum the farmers issued a statement with recommendations to policy makers nationally and internationally. The forum also agreed on follow-up activities that would help draw attention to the challenges they face."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-12-14
Date of entry/update: 2015-12-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 133.3 KB
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Description: "...In the coming months, ...citizens across the country are hoping that the NLD, with its countrywide mandate, is able to make a truly new beginning in initiating political, ethnic and institutional reform to bring the country together after decades of internal conflict, economic malaise and military rule. Popular momentum presently lies on the NLD side, and ethnic peace and justice are at the centre of its goals for national reform. But given Myanmar?s troubled history, uncertain and difficult times undoubtedly lie ahead"
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-12-04
Date of entry/update: 2015-12-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Conclusion: "Myanmar goes to the polls in 2015 in a very different political context to the general elections in 2010 or 1990. Indeed, provided that political campaigning and the conduct of the polls are genuinely free and fair, it should become the most broadly contested election since independence in 1948. Yet, while political space has opened up and there have been many reforms since President Thein Sein assumed office in 2011, core ethnic aspirations have yet to be realized ? either through parliament or the national peace process. The country and its politics remain polarized and ethnicity highly politicized. For this reason, while the elections have the potential to be reasonably credible and inclusive (although far from uniformly so) and ethnic parties may fare reasonably well, it is not clear that the structures and processes in Myanmar politics are at present capable of effectively addressing the legacy of decades of ethnic conflict and discrimination that continue to leave many communities in the country neglected and marginalised. It is therefore vital that the election is closely monitored and openly pursued and that, whatever the outcome, it is not perceived as an end itself but another step in a reform process that still has a long way to run in bringing peace, equality and democratic rights to all the country?s peoples. A historic challenge awaits Myanmar?s leaders through the 2015 polls. As with the peace talks towards a nationwide ceasefire, they provide the opportunity for different parties to work constructively together in building a democratic future for the country. The question remains: will the 2015 election become the platform from which the issues of ethnic peace and inclusive reform are really grappled with, or will they result in another failed opportunity to do so?"
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2015-11-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 256.04 KB 2.69 MB
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Description: "This assessment is in response to the 6th draft of the NLUP, released in May 2015, following months of public and expert consultations. It outlines some of the key positive and negative points of the new draft. The new draft NLUP has taken on board many of the concerns and recommendations raised by the public during the consultation process, and includes several key issues that would greatly improve Myanmar?s land governance arrangements. However, some serious concerns remain. As in our past responses to the earlier (5th) draft of the NLUP, we take as our starting point how the draft fulfills principles and provisions negotiated and agreed upon by the world?s governments ? including the Government of Myanmar ? and captured guidelines of the UN Committee on World Food Security (UN CFS) known as the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (hereafter referred to as the ?TGs”). In addition, the assessment that follows is based on the English version of NLUP-6..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-09-16
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 300.46 KB
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Description: "On 11 and 12 September 2015 opium farmers and representatives of opium farming communities from Kayah State, Shan State, Kachin State and Chin State, came together in Upper Myanmar to discuss the drug policies affecting their lives. Following from the discussions the farmers issued a statement with recommendations to policy makers nationally and internationally."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-09-12
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 52.04 KB
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Description: "On 11 and 12 September 2015 opium farmers and representatives of opium farming communities from Kayah State, Shan State, Kachin State and Chin State, came together in Upper Myanmar to discuss the drug policies affecting their lives. Following from the discussions the farmers issued a statement with recommendations to policy makers nationally and internationally."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-09-12
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 34.9 KB
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Description: "Under the 2008 Constitution, all seven ?Divisions? have been renamed ?Regions? The seven ethnic ?States? retain their names. There are also five new Self-Administrated Zones and one new Self-Administrated Division for ?National races with suitable population?"
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Ethnic based parties are unlikely to sweep the 7 ethnic states, concludes Transnational Institute (TNI) briefing paper, entitled Ethnic Politics and the 2015 Elections in Myanmar, which was published yesterday.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) via Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.)
2015-09-09
Date of entry/update: 2015-09-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The renewed violence in the Kokang region of the northern Shan state in February has had serious repercussions for efforts to solve ethnic conflict in Myanmar and end the decades-old civil war."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) via "The Nation" (Bangkok)
2015-08-08
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...In summary, the return of the MNDAA to the Kokang region is a result of the failed policies of the past and set in motion a series of unprecedented events. These include a deterioration in relations with China which, as a result, has become more focal in Myanmar?s peace process, and a hastily- arranged ethnic summit at the headquarters of the UWSA, the country?s largest armed opposition group, which until now had shied away from becoming involved in alliance political affairs. The renewed hostilities have also negatively impacted on prospects for the signing of a nationwide ceasefire agreement. Excluding some groups from an NCA and future political dialogue is a high-risk strategy. It will continue divisive, and unsuccessful, practices from the past whereby some nationality forces have ceasefires with the government, while the Tatmadaw pursues military tactics against others. As Myanmar?s tragic experience since independence has frequently warned, conflict in any part of the country can quickly lead to national instability. Therefore, at a time of critical political transition in the country, failure to address the root causes of armed conflict and to create an inclusive political process to solve nationality grievances is only likely to have a very detrimental impact on the prospects for peace, democracy and development. If the government is serious and determined to bring peace to all Myanmar?s peoples, military solutions to ethnic conflict must no longer be pursued, and an inclusive political dialogue should start as soon as possible. Experiences from other countries entangled in decades of civil war around the world have long shown that ceasefires are not a necessary precondition to start political negotiations. Peace in Myanmar needs to move from arguments about process to agreements about delivery. In short, it is time to end military confrontation and to start political dialogue."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-07-17
Date of entry/update: 2015-08-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 755.82 KB
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Description: Recommendations: "Important progress has been started in national politics under the government of President Thein Sein. But as the countdown accelerates towards a general election later this year, there is a risk that political reform and ethnic peace are faltering. To avoid this, clear markers must be agreed of processes of democratic reform that guarantee the rights and involvement of all peoples and parties. Constitutional reform and nationwide peace will be essential, and it is vital that the conduct of the general election is free and fair to ensure momentum in political reform. An inclusive political dialogue must be fostered at the national level to move beyond the practice of different parliamentary processes and ethnic ceasefire talks that do not provide a political roadmap for all citizens. It is vital that reform accords promote justice and cooperation, not exclusion and new divisions in society and politics. Inequitable distribution of political and economic rights between the Burman- majority centre of the country and the ethnic minority borderlands continues to drive conflict. Despite ceasefires in some regions, fighting continues in others, furthering mistrust and humanitarian suffering. Military solutions cannot be imposed. If ethnic grievances and aspirations are to be addressed, political and economic reforms must be the cornerstone of peace. International aid is welcomed as a support for socio-political reform. But as programmes diversify, it is essential that aid is targeted at the key political issues and most vulnerable communities. Solutions will not be found by only engaging, or building up, a dominant government and military system that does not represent the people; rather, it will perpetuate conflict and state failure"
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) - Myanmar Policy Briefing Nr 14 April 2015
2015-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-04-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 651.69 KB
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Description: A RESPONSE TO THE DRAFT NATIONAL LAND USE POLICY...."...The main problems with the current draft of the policy stem from: its failure to recognize that land has more than an economic function and that many past and present small land users have more than just economic attachments to their land; and from its failure to recognize that for any land policy to have political legitimacy and succeed, it must necessarily also have as one of its central purposes to seek to confront the twin issues of correcting past social injustices and promoting social justice. Additionally, the NLUP must address the question of how to move from an overly centralized system of governance in light of ethnic minority groups? desires to move towards a more federal system..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 356.4 KB
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Description: Introduction: "The draft National Land Use Policy (NLUP) that was unveiled for public comment in October 2014 intends to create a clear national framework for managing land in Myanmar1. This is a very important step for Myanmar, given the fundamental importance of land policy for any society ? particularly those with recent and complex histories of political and armed conflict and protracted displaced populations. With 70% of Myanmar?s population living and working in rural areas, agriculture is a fundamental part of the country?s social and economic fabric. The majority of these are small-holder farmers, whose land rights are currently under threat. The situation is particularly dire for the country?s ethnic minority groups, who make up an estimated 30% of the population. Establishing an inclusive land use policy-making process that allows for - and encourages - full and meaningful participation for all rural working people is essential for ensuring a policy outcome that is widely and effectively accepted by society. The land use policy draft under discussion here has a national scope, and will likely have a long-term impact. Therefore it is of crucial importance to the future prospects and trajectories of agriculture and the lives of those engaged in the sector, with impacts not only upon how land is used, but also upon who will use it, under what conditions, for how long and with what purposes. Ensuring that all members of Myanmar?s rural communities are considered in the making of the policy, so that their needs are represented and their rights are upheld, is critical to its legitimacy and efficacy in providing a basis for democratic access and control over land and associated resources. This policy brief will focus upon the potential gender implications of the current policy draft and offer some suggestions as to how it might be improved to promote and strengthen women?s land rights within the Myanmar context..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 237.68 KB
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Description: "This report reviews Myanmar?s drug laws and related policies, including the 1917 Burma Excise Act; the 1993 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law; and the 1995 Rules relating to Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Since these laws were enacted several important changes have taken place inside and outside of Myanmar. The decision of the Myanmar Government to review the law is not only timely but also offers a prospect to improve the drugs legislation and to ensure that the laws address drug-related problems in the country more effectively. It is an opportunity to ensure that affected populations have access to health care and development, taking into account both national conditions and international developments and best practices. This review paper will first give an overview of Myanmar?s current legal and policy framework related to drugs, followed by an overall analysis. After that it will make specific comments on a number of key articles. In addition, the review will outline some international obligations and best practices. Finally, the paper will make some overall conclusions and recommendations..." "ဤအစီရင်ခံစာသည် ၁၉၁၇ ခုနှစ် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံယစ်မျိုးအက်ဥပဒေ၊ ၁၉၉၃ ခုနှစ် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးနှင့် စိတ်ကိုပြောင်းလဲစေသော ဆေးဝါးများဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေ၊ ၁၉၉၅ ခုနှစ် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးနှင့် စိတ်ကိုပြောင်းလဲစေသောဆေးဝါးများဆိုင်ရာ နည်းဥပဒေ တို့အပါအဝင် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးနှင့် ပတ်သက်သည့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ တည်ဆဲဥပဒေများနှင့် မူဝါဒများကို ဆန်းစစ်သုံးသပ်ထားခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ အဆိုပါဥပဒေများ စတင်အသက်ဝင် ပြီးနောက်ပိုင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ၌ အရေးပါသည့် အပြောင်းအလဲများ ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာခဲ့သည်။ ဥပဒေကို စိစစ်ပြင်ဆင်မည့် မြန်မာအစိုးရ၏ ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက်သည် အချိန်ကိုက်ဖြစ်ရုံမျှမက မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေ ပြဋ္ဌာန်းချက်များကို ပိုမိုတိုးတက် ကောင်းမွန်လာအောင် ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်မည့် အလားအလာကောင်းများကို ဖော်ထုတ် ပေးပြီးမြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်း ရင်ဆိုင်ကြုံတွေ့နေရသည့် မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးဆိုင်ရာ ပြဿနာ ရပ်များကို ထိထိရောက်ရောက် ကိုင်တွယ်ဖြေရှင်းနိုင်သည့် ဥပဒေများပေါ်ပေါက်လာ အောင်အထောက်အကူပြုလျက်ရှိသည်။ ပြည်တွင်းအနေအထားများ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးလုပ်ငန်းများနှင့် အကောင်းဆုံးအလေ့အထများကို ထည့်သွင်းပေါင်းစပ်၍ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးကြောင့် ထိခိုက်ခံစားရလျက်ရှိသည့် လူထုအတွက် လိုအပ်လျက်ရှိသည့် ကျန်းမာရေး ပြုစုစောင့်ရှောက်မှုနှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးအကူအညီများကို လက်လှမ်းမီအသုံးပြု နိုင်အောင် ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးနိုင်မည့် အလားအလာကောင်းတစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်သည်။ ဤဆန်းစစ်သုံးသပ်ချက်စာတမ်း၌ မူးယစ်ဆေးဝါးနှင့် ပတ်သက်သည့် မြန်မာ နိုင်ငံ၏ တည်ဆဲဥပဒေနှင့် မူဝါဒရေးရာမူဘောင်နှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ ခြုံငုံဆန်းစစ်ချက် အကျဉ်းပါရှိသည့် ယေဘုယျသုံးသပ်ချက်ဖြင့် စတင်ထားပါသည်။ ထို့နောက် ဥပဒေပါ အချို့သောပုဒ်မများအပေါ် အသေးစိတ်စိစစ်သုံးသပ်ချက်များဖြင့် ဆက်လက်ရှင်း လင်းဖော်ပြထားပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ဆန်းစစ်သုံးသပ်မှုအတွင်း နိုင်ငံတကာတာဝန်ဝတ္တရား များနှင့် အကောင်းဆုံးအလေ့အထများကိုလည်း မီးမောင်းထိုးပြထားပါသည်။ နောက်ဆုံး အနေဖြင့် စာတမ်းအဆုံးပိုင်း၌ နိဂုံးချုပ်သုံးသပ်ချက်များနှင့် အကြံပြုထောက်ခံချက် အချို့ကို သုံးသပ်တင်ပြထားပါသည်။...."
Creator/author: Martin Jelsma, Ernestien Jensema, Nang Pann Ei Kham, Tom Kramer, Gloria Lai, Tripti Tandon
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2015-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English & Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 200.85 KB
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Description: A joint preliminary assessment by TNI Myanmar Project and TNI Agrarian Justice Programme.....Summary: "October 18, 2014 saw the official unveiling by the government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar of its much-awaited draft national land use policy. Once it is finalized, the new policy will guide the establishment of a new overarching framework for the governance of tenure of land and related natural resources like forests for years to come. As such, it is of vital importance. This preliminary assessment aims to shed light on the key aspects of the draft policy and its potential implications for the country?s majority rural working poor, especially its ethnic minority peoples, although they are not the only ones whose future prospects hinge on how this policy making process will unfold. The scope of the policy is national and clearly intends to determine for years to come how land will be used ? especially by whom and for what purposes ? in lowland rural and urban areas as well. Focused critical engagement by civil society groups will likely be needed to ensure that the policy process addresses the concerns and aspirations of all rural working people system wide. Initial scrutiny suggests that those who see the land problem today as a problem of business and investment ? e.g., how to establish a more secure environment particularly for foreign direct investments ? are likely to be pleased with the draft policy. Those who think that the land problem goes deeper ? e.g., implicating the social-ecological foundations of the country?s unfolding politi - cal-economic transition ? are likely to be seriously concerned. This suggests that focused efforts at trying to influence the content and character of the draft policy are needed. The government?s decision to open the policy process to public participation is therefore a welcome one. Yet whether and to what extent this public consultation process will be truly free and meaningful remains to be seen"
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2014-10-23
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "TNI?s in depth examination of the illegal drug market in the Golden Triangle, which has a witnessed a doubling of opium production, growing prison populations and repression of small-scale farmers. This report details the failure of ASEAN?s ?drug free? strategy and the need for a new approach..."The illicit drug market in the Golden Triangle – Burma, Thailand and Laos – and in neighbouring India and China has undergone profound changes. This report documents those changes in great detail, based on information gathered on the ground in difficult circumstances by a group of dedicated local researchers. After a decade of decline, opium cultivation has doubled again and there has also been a rise in the production and consumption of ATS – especially methamphetamines. Drug control agencies are under constant pressure to apply policies based on the unachievable goal to make the region drug free by 2015. This report argues for drug policy changes towards a focus on health, development, peace building and human rights. Reforms to decriminalise the most vulnerable people involved could make the region?s drug policies far more sustainable and cost-effective. Such measures should include abandoning disproportionate criminal sanctions, rescheduling mild substances, prioritising access to essential medicines, shifting resources from law enforcement to social services, alternative development and harm reduction, and providing evidence-based voluntary treatment services for those who need them. The aspiration of a drug free ASEAN in 2015 is not realistic and the policy goals and resources should be redirected towards a harm reduction strategy for managing – instead of eliminating – the illicit drug market in the least harmful way. In view of all the evidence this report presents about the bouncing back of the opium economy and the expanding ATS market, plus all the negative consequences of the repressive drug control approaches applied so far, making any other choice would be irresponsible."
Creator/author: Ernestien Jensema, Martin Jelsma, Tom Blickman, Tom Kramer
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2014-06-01
Date of entry/update: 2014-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.56 MB
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Description: Conclusions and Recommendations: "The 2014 Population and Housing Census is likely to undertake the most significant ethnic and political boundary making in the country since the last British census in 1931. However, by using flawed designations that date from the colonial era and ignoring the considerable complexity of the present political situation in Myanmar, the census is likely to raise ethnic tensions at precisely the moment that peace negotiations are focused on building trust. Ethnic politics, democratic reform and conflict resolution are at a critical juncture. If carried out in an inclusive, transparent and ethically implemented fashion, a census could support national reconciliation and momentum towards reform. Instead, many ethnic groups fear that its timing, format and methodology, with an unwarranted array of questions and overseen by law enforcement officers, will further diminish and marginalise the political status of non- Bamar groups. Citizenship rights for some people could even be under threat, based on census results. The timing of the census in the year before a key general election raises additional concerns. Statistical reports that result from it could have confusing and negative impact on political debate and ethnic representation in the legislatures, as defined by the 2008 constitution. There are many communities and internallydisplaced persons in the conflict zones of the ethnic borderlands who will not be properly included as well as others with marginal legal status who would prefer to disappear in an official counting exercise. Through inclusive dialogue, planning and timing, many of these controversies could have been addressed. The UNFPA and Western government donors, with a projected US$74 million budget, have a special responsibility to ensure accurate research, definitions, data collection and inclusion in any process of this magnitude. Difficulties have been treated purely as technical problems with simple, ?one-sizefits- all” solutions, rather than as fundamentally political and ethnic challenges that need resolution. Instead of creating the opportunity to improve inter-ethnic understanding and citizenship rights, the census promises to compound old grievances with a new generation of complexities"
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centrum Nederland
2014-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2014-02-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Conclusion: "Ultimately, it must be for Burma?s peoples to decide their political future. As in previous times of change, the present landscape looks uncertain and complex. But for the first time in decades, the issues of peace, democracy and promises of ethnic equality agreed at Burma?s independence are back for national debate and attracting international attention. This marks an important change from the preceding years of conflict and malaise under military rule, and expectations are currently high. It is vital therefore that opportunities are not lost and that the present generation of leaders succeed in achieving peace and justice where others before them have failed. Realism and honesty about the tasks ahead are essential. Burma?s leaders and parties, on all sides of the political and ethnic spectrum, still have much to achieve.".....Recommendations: "To end the legacy of state failure, the present time of national transition must be used for inclusive solutions that involve all peoples of Burma. The most important changes in national politics have started in many decades. Now all sides have to halt military operations and engage in sociopolitical dialogue that includes government, military, ethnic, political and civil society representatives. Political agreements will be essential to achieve lasting peace, democracy and ethnic rights. National reconciliation and equality must be the common aim. The divisive tradition of different agreements and processes with different ethnic and political groups must end. In building peace and democracy, peoplecentred and pro-poor economic reforms are vital. Land-grabbing must halt, and development programmes should be appropriate, sustainable and undertaken with the consent of the local peoples. Humanitarian aid should be prioritized for the most needy and vulnerable communities and not become a source of political advantage or division. As peace develops, internally displaced persons and refugees must be supported to return to their places of origin and to rebuild divided societies in the ethnic borderlands. The international community must play a neutral and supportive role in the achievement of peace and democracy. National reform is at an early stage, and it is vital that ill-planned strategies or investments do not perpetuate political failures and ethnic injustice."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centrum Nederland
2013-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-12-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.14 MB
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Description: "Burma?s dramatic turn-around from ?axis of evil? to western darling in the past year has been imagined as Asia?s ?final frontier? for global finance institutions, markets and capital. Burma?s agrarian landscape is home to three-fourths of the country?s total population which is now being constructed as a potential prime investment sink for domestic and international agribusiness. The Global North?s development aid industry and IFIs operating in Burma has consequently repositioned itself to proactively shape a pro-business legal environment to decrease political and economic risks to enable global finance capital to more securely enter Burma?s markets, especially in agribusiness. But global capitalisms are made in localized places - places that make and are made from embedded social relations. This paper uncovers how regional political histories that are defined by very particular racial and geographical undertones give shape to Burma?s emerging agro-industrial complex. The country?s still smoldering ethnic civil war and fragile untested liberal democracy is additionally being overlain with an emerging war on food sovereignty. A discursive and material struggle over land is taking shape to convert subsistence agricultural landscapes and localized food production into modern, mechanized industrial agro-food regimes. This second agrarian transformation is being fought over between a growing alliance among the western development aid and IFI industries, global finance capital, and a solidifying Burmese military-private capitalist class against smallholder farmers who work and live on the country?s now most valuable asset - land. Grassroots resistances increasingly confront the elite capitalist class? attempts to corporatize food production through the state?s rule of law and police force. Farmers, meanwhile, are actively developing their own shared vision of food sovereignty and pro-poor land reform that desires greater attention.... Food Sovereignty: a critical dialogue, 14 - 15 September, New Haven.
Creator/author: Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2013-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2013-09-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)... Text box extracted from "Access Denied - Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Burma" by TNI/BCN, May 2013 at http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs15/TNI-accesdenied-briefing11-red.pdf
Creator/author: Jennifer Franco
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centre Netherlands
2013-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 43.88 KB 160.52 KB
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Description: The reform process in Burma/Myanmar by the quasi-civilian government of President Thein Sein has raised hopes that a long overdue solution can be found to more than 60 years of devastating civil war... Burma?s ethnic minority groups have long felt marginalized and discriminated against, resulting in a large number of ethnic armed opposition groups fighting the central government ? dominated by the ethnic Burman majority ? for ethnic rights and autonomy. The fighting has taken place mostly in Burma?s borderlands, where ethnic minorities are most concentrated. Burma is one of the world?s most ethnically diverse countries. Ethnic minorities make up an estimated 30-40 percent of the total population, and ethnic states occupy some 57 percent of the total land area and are home to poor and often persecuted ethnic minority groups. Most of the people living in these impoverished and war-torn areas are subsistence farmers practicing upland cultivation. Economic grievances have played a central part in fuelling the civil war. While the central government has been systematically exploiting the natural resources of these areas, the money earned has not been (re)invested to benefit the local population... Conclusions and Recommendations: The new land and investment laws benefit large corporate investors and not small- holder farmers, especially in ethnic minority regions, and do not take into account land rights of ethnic communities. The new ceasefires have further facilitated land grabbing in conflict-affected areas where large development projects in resource-rich ethnic regions have already taken place. Many ethnic organisations oppose large-scale economic projects in their territories until inclusive political agreements are reached. Others reject these projects outright. Recognition of existing customary and communal tenure systems in land, water, fisheries and forests is crucial to eradicate poverty and build real peace in ethnic areas; to ensure sustainable livelihoods for marginalized ethnic communities affected by decades of war; and to facilitate the voluntary return of IDPs and refugees. Land grabbing and unsustainable business practices must halt, and decisions on the allocation, use and management of natural resources and regional development must have the participation and consent of local communities. Local communities must be protected by the government against land grabbing. The new land and investment laws should be amended and serve the needs and rights of smallholder farmers, especially in ethnic regions.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centre Netherlands
2013-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-05-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 160.52 KB
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Description: Conclusions and Recommendations: * The government should halt all offensive operations against the KIO and other armed ethnic forces. Armed conflict will worsen, not resolve, Burma?s ethnic and political crises. The violence contradicts promises to achieve reform through dialogue, and undermines democratic and economic progress for the whole country. * Ethnic peace must be prioritised as an integral part of political, economic and constitutional reform. Dialogue must be established to include ethnic groups that are outside the national political system. * Restrictions on humanitarian aid to the victims of conflict must be lifted. With hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in the ethnic borderlands, a long-term effort is required to ensure that aid truly reaches to the most vulnerable and needy peoples as part of any process of peace-building. * Economic and development programmes must benefit local peoples. Land-grabbing and unsustainable business practices must halt, and decisions on the use of natural resources and regional development must have the participation of local communities and representatives. * The international community must play an informed and neutral role in supporting ethnic peace and political reform. Human rights? progress remains essential, all ethnic groups should be included, and economic investments made only with the consultation of local peoples.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centre Netherlands
2013-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2013-03-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Burma has entered a pivotal stage in its political and economic development. The advent of a new quasi-civilian government has raised the prospect of fundamental reforms. This has sparked great investment interest among governments and the private sector in the region and beyond, to extract the country?s natural-resource wealth, and to develop large-scale infrastructure projects to establish strategic ?corridors? to connect Burma to the wider economic region. The country is touted as Asia?s ?final frontier? for resources and investment and as Asia?s next ?economic tiger?. These large scale investment projects focus on the borderlands, where most of the natural resources in Burma are found. These areas are home to poor and often marginalised ethnic minority groups, and have been at the centre of more than 60 years of civil war in Burma – the longest running in the world. These war-torn borderlands are now in the international spotlight as regions of great potential but continuing poverty and grave humanitarian concern. The report warns that foreign investment in these resource-rich yet conflict-ridden ethnic borderlands is likely to be as important as domestic politics in shaping Burma?s future. Such investment is not conflict-neutral and has in some cases fuelled local grievances and stimulated ethnic conflict. Economic grievances among ethnic groups – often tied to resource extraction from the borderlands to sustain the government and business elites – have played a central part in fuelling the civil war. While regional investment could potentially foster economic growth and improve people?s livelihoods, the country has yet to develop the institutional and governance capacity to manage the expected windfall. Burma is emerging from decades under military rule, and the foreign-funded mega projects have not, to date, benefited local communities. Land-grabbing has increased, and the recent economic laws and new urban wealth have not brought about tangible improvements for the poor. If local communities are to benefit from the reforms, there need to be new types of investment and processes of implementation. The government should direct investment towards people-centred development that benefits household economies. There is a need to resolve conflict through dialogue and reconciliation. These are the hallmarks of a robust and healthy democracy. In their absence, the development of Asia?s final frontier will only deepen disparity between the region?s most neglected peoples and the new military, business and political elites whose wealth is rapidly increasing."
Creator/author: John Buchanan, Tom Kramer, Kevin Woods (Series Editor, Martin Smith)
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI), Burma Centre Netherlands
2013-02-21
Date of entry/update: 2013-02-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.7 MB
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Description: "Land grabbing is an urgent concern for people in Tanintharyi Division, and ultimately one of national and international concern, as tens of thousands of people are being displaced for the Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Dawei lies within Myanmar?s (Burma) southernmost region, the Tanintharyi Division, which borders Mon State to the North, and Thailand to the East, on territory that connects the Malay Peninsula with mainland Asia. This highly populated and prosperous region is significant because of its ecologically-diversity and strategic position along the Andaman coast. Since 2008 the area has been at risk of massive expulsion of people and unprecedented environmental costs, when a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Thai and Myanmar governments, followed by a MoU between Thai investor Italian-Thai Development Corporation (ITD) (see Box 1) and Myanma Port Authority, granted ITD access to the Dawei region to build Asia?s newest regional hub. Thai interest in Dawei is strategic for two reasons. First, the small city happens to be Bangkok?s nearest gateway to the Andaman Sea, and ultimately to India and the Middle East. Second, the project links with a broader regional development plan, strategically plugging into the Asian Development Bank?s (ADB) East-West Economic Corridor, a massive transport and trade network connecting Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam; the Southern Economic Corridor (connecting to Cambodia); and the North-South Economic Corridor, with rail links to Kunming, China. If all goes as planned, the Dawei SEZ project, with an estimated infrastructural investment of over USD $50 billion will be Southeast Asia?s largest industrial complex, complete with a deep seaport, industrial estate (including large petrochemical industrial complex, heavy industry zone, oil and gas industry, as well as medium and light industries), and a road/pipeline/rail link that will extend 350 kilometers to Bangkok (via Kanchanaburi). The project even has its own legal framework, the Dawei Special Economic Zone Law, drafted in 2011 to ensure the industrial estate is attractive to potential investors..."
Creator/author: Elizabeth Loewen
Source/publisher: Paung Ku and Transnational Institute (TNI)
2012-09-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-10-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Analysis of the social costs of large-scale Chinese-supported rubber farms in northern Burma suggests that the future for ordinary citizens will be affected as much by the country?s chosen economic path as the political reforms underway.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2012-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-09-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "In July, TNI-BCN hosted a two-day conference, involving a diversity of ethnic groups from different areas of Burma/Myanmar, with the theme ?prospects for ethnic peace and political participation”. Those taking part included 30 representatives from Burmese civil society, parliament and armed opposition groups. Political events in Burma are continuing to unfold rapidly, but reform is still at a tentative and early stage. Under the Thein Sein government, Burma has entered its fourth era of political transition since independence in 1948. Previous hopes for ethnic peace and the establishment of democratic structures and processes have been disappointed. A military coup in 1962 ended the post-independence parliamentary era, and the national armed forces (Tatmadaw) have dominated every form of government since. Meanwhile conflict has continued unabated in the ethnic borderlands. In recent months, new trends ? many of them positive ? have begun to reshape the landscape of national politics. Ceasefires have been agreed with the majority of armed ethnic forces; the National League for Democracy (NLD) has elected representatives in the national legislatures; Western sanctions are gradually being lifted; and the World Bank and other international agencies are returning to set up office in the country. Such developments are likely to have a defining impact on ethnic politics, which remains one of the central challenges facing the country today"..."In summary, Burma is now at a sensitive stage in its political transition. Under the Thein Sein government, encouraging prospects for the future have undoubtedly emerged. But reform is still at a very early stage, and there should be no underestimation of the difficult challenges that lie ahead. Ethnic conflict and military-dominated government continue in many areas and, after decades of division, intensive efforts are still required to bring about an inclusive and lasting peace. A new parliamentary system is in place, but further attention will be needed on such issues as electoral, census, land tenure rights, education, investment and economic reform to guarantee the rights of all peoples. Independent institutions must also strive to grow in an environment where power and decision-making are often in the hands of small elites. And, as events move quickly, it is vital that all parts of the country are included. The history of state failure has long warned of the debilitating consequences of political and ethnic exclusions."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland
2012-07-09
Date of entry/update: 2012-08-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Conclusions and Recommendations: "* After decades of division in national politics, the recent steps towards reconciliation and democratic reform by the Thein Sein government are welcome. The participation of the National League for Democracy in the April by-elections, new ceasefires with armed ethnic opposition groups and prioritization of economic reforms are all initiatives that can contribute to the establishment of peace and democracy. * The momentum for reform must now continue. Remaining political prisoners must be released; a sustainable ceasefire achieved with the Kachin Independence Organisation and other armed opposition groups; and the provision of humanitarian aid to internally displaced persons and other vulnerable peoples needs to be accelerated. * The 2015 general election is likely to mark the next major milestone in national politics. In the meantime, it is vital that processes are established by which political reform and ethnic peace can be inclusively developed. Burma is at the beginning of change – not at the end. * The international community should support policies that encourage reconciliation and reform, and which do not cause new divisions. Burma?s needs are many, but local and national organisations are ready to respond. Aid priority should be given to health, education, poverty alleviation, displaced persons and other humanitarian concerns."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland (Burma Policy Briefing Nr 9)
2012-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-06-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 278.9 KB
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Description: Amsterdam, 22 & 23 February 2012 "A two-day conference under Chatham House rule was organized on 22-23 February in Amsterdam by BCN-TNI to assess ongoing social and political changes in Burma/Myanmar under the government of President Thein Sein. Sixty people at?tended, including representatives of Bur?mese civil society as well as international non-governmental organisations, diplo?mats and academics.Burma/Myanmar is in the midst of its most important period of political transition in over two decades. Previous times of government change since independence have led to conflict and division rather than inclusion and national progress. Thus the conference focused on developments in five key areas – politics, ethnic relations, the economy, social and humanitarian affairs, and the international landscape – in order to consider the challenges and opportunities that present changes bring. Analysis during the conference reflected the rapid speed of recent change, welcoming the potential that this provides for reconciliation and addressing long-neglected needs. But progress also requires realism and the inclusion of all citizens to foster stability and national advancement. The rapprochement between the government and National League for Democracy, promised economic change and recent spread of ethnic ceasefires are providing grounds for optimism that Burma/Myanmar could be embarking on a road to democratisation and reform. Western governments are keen to support such processes. But the social and political landscape is uneven, with differences between Yangon, for example, and the rest of the country. Burma/Myanmar is at the beginning of a new time of socio-political change – not at an end. It is thus essential that domestic and international policies are reflective of realities and support inclusive reform. The divisions and state failures of the past must not be repeated. In politics, the new government under President Thein Sein appears determined to make the new constitutional system work. Censorship has reduced; many political prisoners have been released; and the door opened to political exiles and international critics. But there remain many uncertainties about how the new political system will evolve. Through the Union Solidarity Development Party, a governmental transition has taken place from the military State Peace and Development Council. But it is unclear how the NLD, ethnic and other opposition parties will fit into the political process. Peace talks in the coming month and parliamentary by-elections on 1 April may answer some of these questions. But, in the meantime, there are many shades of grey in the functioning of government..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland (Burma Policy Briefing Nr 8)
2012-03-09
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 206.34 KB
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Description: "Northern Burma?s borderlands have undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades. Three main and interconnected developments are simultaneously taking place in Shan State and Kachin State: (1) the increase in opium cultivation in Burma since 2006 after a decade of steady decline; (2) the increase at about the same time in Chinese agricultural investments in northern Burma under China?s opium substitution programme, especially in rubber; and (3) the related increase in dispossession of local communities? land and livelihoods in Burma?s northern borderlands. The vast majority of the opium and heroin on the Chinese market originates from northern Burma. Apart from attempting to address domestic consumption problems, the Chinese government also has created a poppy substitution development programme, and has been actively promoting Chinese companies to take part, offering subsidies, tax waivers, and import quotas for Chinese companies. The main benefits of these programmes do not go to (ex-)poppy growing communities, but to Chinese businessmen and local authorities, and have further marginalised these communities. Serious concerns arise regarding the long-term economic benefits and costs of agricultural development— mostly rubber—for poor upland villagers. Economic benefits derived from rubber development are very limited. Without access to capital and land to invest in rubber concessions, upland farmers practicing swidden cultivation (many of whom are (ex-) poppy growers) are left with few alternatives but to try to get work as wage labourers on the agricultural concessions. Land tenure and other related resource management issues are vital ingredients for local communities to build licit and sustainable livelihoods. Investment-induced land dispossession has wide implications for drug production and trade, as well as border stability. Investments related to opium substitution should be carried out in a more sustainable, transparent, accountable and equitable fashion. Customary land rights and institutions should be respected. Chinese investors should use a smallholder plantation model instead of confiscating farmers land as a concession. Labourers from the local population should be hired rather than outside migrants in order to funnel economic benefits into nearby communities. China?s opium crop substitution programme has very little to do with providing mechanisms to decrease reliance on poppy cultivation or provide alternative livelihoods for ex-poppy growers. Chinese authorities need to reconsider their regional development strategies of implementation in order to avoid further border conflict and growing antagonism from Burmese society. Financing dispossession is not development."
Creator/author: Tom Kramer & Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2012-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.67 MB
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Description: Conclusions and Recommendations: * The new cease-fire talks initiated by the Thein Sein government are a significant break with the failed ethnic policies of the past and should be welcomed. However, the legacy of decades of war and oppression has created deep mistrust among different ethnic nationality communities, and ethnic conflict cannot be solved overnight. * A halt to all offensive military operations and human rights abuses against local civilians must be introduced and maintained. * The government has promised ethnic peace talks at the national level, but has yet to provide details on the process or set out a timetable. In order to end the conflict and to achieve true ethnic peace, the current talks must move beyond simply establishing new cease-fires. * It is vital that the process towards ethnic peace and justice is sustained by political dialogue at the national level, and that key ethnic grievances and aspirations are addressed. * There are concerns about economic development in the conflict zones and ethnic borderlands as a follow-up to the peace agreements, as events and models in the past caused damage to the environment and local livelihoods, generating further grievances. Failures from the past must be identified and addressed. * Peace must be understood as an overarching national issue, which concerns citizens of all ethnic groups in the country, including the Burman majority.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland (Burma Policy Briefing Nr 8)
2012-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 271.5 KB
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Description: "...The breakdown in the ceasefire of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) with the central government represents a major failure in national politics and threatens a serious humanitarian crisis if not immediately addressed. Over 11,000 refugees have been displaced and dozens of casualties reported during two weeks of fighting between government forces and the KIO. Thousands of troops have been mobilized, bridges destroyed and communications disrupted, bringing hardship to communities across northeast Burma/Myanmar.1 There is now a real potential for ethnic conflict to further spread. In recent months, ceasefires have broken down with Karen and Shan opposition forces, and the ceasefire of the New Mon State Party (NMSP) in south Burma is under threat. Tensions between the government and United Wa State Army (UWSA) also continue. It is essential that peace talks are initiated and grievances addressed so that ethnic conflict in Burma does not spiral into a new generation of militarised violence and human rights abuse..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) & Burma Centrum Nederland (BCN). Burma Policy Briefing Nr 7, June 2011
2011-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2011-06-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Conclusions and Recommendations: * Two months after a new government took over the reins of power in Burma, it is too early to make any definitive assessment of the prospects for improved governance and peace in ethnic areas. Initial signs give some reason for optimism, but the difficulty of overcoming sixty years of conflict and strongly-felt grievances and deep suspicions should not be underestimated... * The economic and geostrategic realities are changing fast, and they will have a fundamental impact ? positive and negative ? on Burma?s borderlands. But unless ethnic communities are able to have much greater say in the governance of their affairs, and begin to see tangible benefits from the massive development projects in their areas, peace and broadbased development will remain elusive... * The new decentralized governance structures have the potential to make a positive contribution in this regard, but it is unclear if they can evolve into sufficiently powerful and genuinely representative bodies quickly enough to satisfy ethnic * There has been renewed fighting in Shan State, and there are warning signs that more ethnic ceasefires could break down. Negotiations with armed groups and an improved future for long-marginalized ethnic populations is the only way that peace can be achieved.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) & Burma Centrum Nederland (BCN). Burma Policy Briefing Nr 6, May 2011
2011-05-29
Date of entry/update: 2011-05-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 352.53 KB
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Description: Conclusions and Recommendations: * An inclusive endgame has long been needed to achieve national reconciliation. But political and ethnic exclusions are continuing in national politics. If divisions persist, Burma?s legacy of state failure and national under-achievement will continue... * The moment of opportunity of a new government should not be lost. It is vital that the new government pursues policies that support dialogue and participation for all peoples in the new political and economic system. Policies that favour the armed forces and military solutions will perpetuate divisions and instability... * Opposition groups must face how their diversity and disunity have contributed to Burma?s history of state failure. If they are to support democratic and ethnic reforms, national participation and unity over goals and tactics are essential. All sides must transcend the divisions of the past... * As the new political era begins, the international community should prioritise policies that promote conflict resolution, political rights and equitable opportunity for all ethnic groups in national life, including the economy, health and education. Continued repression and exclusion will deepen grievances ? not resolve them.
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) & Burma Centrum Nederland (BCN). Burma Policy Briefing Nr 5, February 2011
2011-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2011-05-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 461.56 KB
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Description: "Political grievances among Karen and other ethnic nationality communities, which have driven over half a century of armed conflict in Burma/Myanmar, remain unresolved. As the country enters a period of transition following the November 2010 elections and formation of a new government, the Karen political landscape is undergoing its most significant changes in a generation. There is a pressing need for Karen social and political actors to demonstrate their relevance to the new political and economic agendas in Burma, and in particular to articulate positions regarding the major economic and infrastructure development projects to be implemented in the coming years. The country?s best-known insurgent organisation, the Karen National Union (KNU), is in crisis, having lost control of its once extensive ?liberated zones?, and lacks a political agenda relevant to all Karen communities. Meanwhile the government?s demand that ceasefire groups, such as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, transform into Border Guard Forces under direct Burma Army control throws into question the future of various armed groups that have split from the KNU since the 1990s. In this context, Thailand-Burma border areas have seen an upsurge in fighting since late 2010. Nevertheless, the long-term prospect is one of the decline of insurgency as a viable political or military strategy. Equitable solutions to Burma?s social, political and economic problems must involve settling long-standing conflicts between ethnic communities and the state. While Aung San Suu Kyi, the popular leader of the country?s democracy movement, seems to recognise this fact, the military government, which holds most real power in the country, has sought to suppress and assimilate minority communities. It is yet to be seen whether Karen and other ethnic nationality representatives elected in November 2010 will be able to find the political space within which to exercise some influence on local or national politics. In the meantime, civil society networks operating within and between Karen and other ethnic nationality communities represent vehicles for positive, incremental change, at least at local levels."
Creator/author: Ashley South
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland
2011-03-28
Date of entry/update: 2011-03-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.99 MB
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Description: "...The elections held in Burma on 7 November 2010 were not free and fair. The manipulation of the vote count was even more blatant than those parties and individuals who decided to participate, despite the unlevel playing field, had expected. This has severely limited the opposition?s representation in the legislatures, and it has seriously damaged the credibility of the new government to be formed in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, the significance of the elections should not be underestimated. This was a point made in advance of the elections by many opposition parties that took part, that they were participating not out of any misguided sense that the polls would be credible, but because of the important structural shifts the elections should bring: a generational transition within the military leadership, an array of new constitutional and political structures, and some space to openly debate political issues. A positive evolution is not inevitable, but those major changes present new opportunities that should be recognized and utilized. The release of Aung San Suu Kyi also presents important opportunities for the country, even if the motives behind it may have been questionable. This paper provides an overview of the final election results, and discusses the implications for the functioning of the legislatures. While the regime-created Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) together with the armed forces have overwhelming control of the national legislatures and the legislatures in the Burman-majority regions, the picture is more complex in the ethnic-state legislatures. The main focus of this paper is on the opportunities that may exist for improving the governance of ethnic areas. In this respect, the relative success of some ethnic parties must be set against the fact that several others were excluded from the elections, and that a dangerous confrontation continues between the government and several ceasefire groups..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland
2010-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-12-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Conclusions and Recommendations: "• The elections will be Burma?s most defining political moment for a generation. However the electoral process lacks democratic and ethnic inclusion. Without such inclusion, the country?s political crises are likely to continue. • The electoral playing field is tilted in favour of the regime?s USDP due to strict regulations on registration, the cost of registering candidates, and the limited time for parties to organize. • Even if the voting is fair, ?establishment? parties, together with military appointees, are likely to control a majority of seats in the new legislatures. 37 political parties will participate in the elections. But most have small regional or ethnic support bases. • Despite the restrictions, democratic opposition parties participating in the polls want to make the best use of the limited space available. The elections begin new arrangements and contests in Burmese politics, which will play out over several years. Outcomes remain unpredictable. • Ethnic exclusion and lack of polls in many minority areas mean that the election will not resolve the country?s ethnic conflicts. The regime?s promotion of Border Guard Forces rather than political dialogue with armed opposition groups has also increased tensions. To establish peace, there must be equitable participation, bringing rights and benefits to all peoples and regions."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute, Burma Centrum Nederland (Burma Policy Briefing Nr 3 October 2010)
2010-10-01
Date of entry/update: 2010-10-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...Opium farmers in Afghanistan and Burma are coming under huge pressure as local authorities implement bans on the cultivation of poppy. Banning opium has an immediate and profound impact on the livelihoods of more than 4 million people.These bans are a response to pressure from the international community. Afghan and Burmese authorities alike are urging the international community to accompany their pressure with substantial aid. For political reasons, levels of humanitarian and alternative development aid are very different between the two countries. The international community has pledged several hundred millions for rural development in poppy growing regions in Afghanistan. In sharp contrast, pledged support that could soften the crisis in poppy regions in Burma is less than $15 million, leaving an urgent shortfall. Opium growing regions in both countries will enter a downward spiral of poverty because of the ban.The reversed sequencing of first forcing farmers out of poppy cultivation before ensuring other income opportunities is a grave mistake.Aggressive drug control efforts against farmers and small-scale opium traders, and forced eradication operations in particular, also have a negative impact on prospects for peace and democracy in both countries. In neither Afghanistan nor Burma have farmers had any say at all in these policies from which they stand to suffer most. It is vital that local communities and organisations that represent them are given a voice in the decision-making process that has such a tremendous impact on their livelihoods..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2005-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Burma is on the brink of yet another humanitarian crisis. In the Kokang region, an opium ban was enforced last year, and by mid-2005 no more poppy growing will be allowed in the Wa region. Banning opium in these Shan State regions adds another chapter to the long and dramatic history of drugs, conflict and human suffering. TNI tries to bring nuance to the polarised debate on the Rangoon-focussed political agenda, the demonising of the ceasefire groups and repressive drug policy approaches. Hundreds of thousands of farmers who depend on the opium economy risk being sacrificed in an effort to comply with international pressures about drug-free deadlines. Community livelihoods face being crushed between the pincers of the opium ban and tightened sanctions. The unfolding drama caused by the opium bans is forcing the international community to rethink its strategies. Enforcement of tight deadlines will result in major food shortages and may jeopardise the fragile social stability in the areas. To sustain the gradual decline in opium production, alternative sources of income for basic subsistence farmers have to be secured. Without adequate resources, the longer-term sustainability of ‘quick solutions? is highly questionable. Since military authorities are eager to comply with promises made, law enforcement repression is likely to increase, with human rights abuses and more displacement a potential outcome. The only viable and humane option lies in a simultaneous easing of drug control deadline pressures and increasing international humanitarian aid efforts. Both require stronger international engagement of a different kind to that we have seen so far."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute
2003-12-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...The simultaneous spread of HIV/AIDS and the growing number of injecting drug users is fuelling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Current pro-grammes reach only a small proportion of IDUs with harm reduction interventions. There are no existing programmes available for IDUs who are sexually active to protect themselves and their sexual partners from HIV. The second major risk group are sex workers. Current programmes reach only a very small number of them, and the number of AIDS deaths among them is estimated to be high. In order to effectively address the spiralling numbers of HIV/AIDS infected drug users, is it extremely important for all stakeholders involved to acknowledge the HIV/AIDS epi-demic and the need for harm reduction poli-cies. It is key for all sides to de-politicise HIV/AIDS. The international community needs to make a firm international commitment to stem and reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Burma. It should ensure sufficient and long-term financial support for HIV/AIDS and harm reduction programmes. The SPDC needs to provide adequate space for humanitarian aid to take place. The new guidelines that have been proposed by the government should be amended to ensure direct and unhindered access for interna-tional aid agencies to local communities. The space for initial harm reduction initiatives is encouraging, but needs to be scaled up in order to be effective. Perhaps the most serious shortcoming how-ever is the fact that local community-based organisations in Burma have not been able to participate in the debate about interna-tional humanitarian aid to Burma. In parti-cular, in the discussions about the funding for programmes on HIV/AIDS, People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), and drug users or the organisations that represent them, have not been consulted or been able to partici-pate in the formulation of polices and deci-sion-making processes that have such tre-mendous impact on their health, livelihoods and lives. The international community should also support and strengthen efforts by drug us-ers and PLWHA to organise themselves. This will enable them to voice their opinion and represent their interests better at the local as well as international level. It will also contribute to civil society building and de-mocratisation in the country."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute/Burma Centre Netherlands
2006-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: The Golden Triangle is closing a dramatic period of opium reduction?, wrote UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa in his preface to the 2007 survey on Opium Poppy Cultivation in South East Asia. ?A decade long process of drug control is clearly paying off.? According to the survey, the region produced one-third of world opium production in 1998, now down to only about 5 percent. The once notorious region ?can no longer be called Golden Triangle on the reason of opium production alone.? There has clearly been a significant decline in opium production in Southeast Asia over the past decade in spite of a resurgence in Burma (Myanmar) in the last two years. In this study, we try to assess the causes and consequences, and come to the conclusion that the region is suffering a variety of ‘withdrawal symptoms?, leaving little reason for optimism. The rapid decline has caused major suffering among former poppy growing communities in Burma and Laos, making it difficult to characterise developments as a ‘success story?. Meanwhile, the market of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) has increased rapidly and higher heroin prices are leading to shifts in consumer behaviour. While the total numbers of opium and heroin users may be going down, many have started to inject and others have shifted to a cocktail of pharmaceutical replacements, representing largely unknown health risks. Confronted with harsh domestic repression and little support from the international community, both farmers and users in the region are struggling to find coping strategies to deal with the rapid changes. Drug control officials have presumed that reducing opium production would automatically lead to a reduction in drug consumption and drugrelated problems. The reality in Southeast Asia proves them wrong. Had quality treatment services been in place, more drug users may have chosen that option. In the absence of adequate health care and within a highly repressive law enforcement environment, however, most are forced to find their own ‘solutions?. Harm reduction services are still only accessible to a tiny proportion of those who need them in the region, even though most countries have now adopted the basic principles in their policy framework. China, especially, has started to significantly scale up needle exchange and methadone programmes to prevent a further spreading of blood-borne infections. In 1998, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting signed the declaration for a Drug-Free ASEAN by 2020 and two years later even decided to bring forward the target year to 2015. Countries elaborated national plans to comply with the deadline putting huge pressure on rural communities to abandon poppy cultivation and traditional opium use and on police to arrest as many users and traders as possible. This also led to the 2003 ‘war on drugs? in Thailand in which thousands of drug users and small-scale traders were killed. The 2008 status report on progress achieved towards making ASEAN and China drug-free, ?identifies an overall rising trend in the abuse of drugs?, however, and acknowledges that ?a target of zero drugs for production, trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs in the region by 2015 is obviously unattainable?. This TNI publication makes extensive use of the research carried out by our team of fifteen researchers working in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Yunnan province in China. Hundreds of interviews were conducted with farmers, users and traders. We cannot thank them enough for their motivation and courage. Most prefer to remain anonymous and continue their research to detect new trends and help fill gaps in knowledge that have become apparent while writing this first report. A more detailed publication incorporating their latest findings is due at the end of this year. We intend to discuss our outcomes with authorities, civil society and researchers in the region with a view to contributing to a better understanding of the changes taking place in the regional drugs market and to design more effective and humane drug policy responses for the future.
Creator/author: Tom Kramer, Martin Jelsma
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) Debate Papers No. 16
2008-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The issue of how International Non Governmental organisations (INGOs) should approach operating in Burma is a thorny one. This was particularly so in the early 1990s. Many development workers and the expatriate democracy movement felt that an NGO presence would provide the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)[i], with much needed legitimacy. Warnings were sounded: INGOs would fall prey to the SLORC's manipulation, aid would be stolen and sold to profit the government, INGOs would be used in SLORC propaganda and meaningful development would not reach those it was intended for. They would become ?willing minions” executing the SLORC?s agendas. INGOs were urged that their priority should be the large refugee populations in neighbouring countries who were the most visible and accessible victims of the SLORC's misrule. Despite the heat of the debate in 1993, some fifteen INGOs have entered Burma and more continue to arrive to explore the environment (and some have subsequently withdraw).[ii] What has their experience been? As Burma approaches its thirty-fifth year of military rule, what are the issues for INGOs wanting to work with Burmese? What possibilities could be explored for facilitating the growth of civil society? What attitude should INGOs adopt towards the democracy movement inside Burma? This paper examines these questions, with a focus on INGO experience, and begins by outlining a theoretical model for understanding the variety of INGOs and how their approach to operating in Burma might be categorised..."... This paper is one of four presented at the conference organised by TNI and the Burma Centrum Nederland on December 4 and 5, 1997 in the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, 'Strengthening Civil Society in Burma. Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs'. A book of the same name, containing edited versions of the papers, an introduction and notes on the authors was subsequently published by Silkworm Books, Chiangmai 1999.
Creator/author: Marc Purcell, Australian Council for Overseas Aid
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute/Burma Centrum Nederland
1997-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm doc
Size: 275.78 KB 166.5 KB
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Description: "...The peaceful and lasting solution to the long-running ethnic conflicts in Burma is, without doubt, one of the most integral challenges facing the country today. Indeed, it can not be separated from the greater challenges of social, political and economic reform in the country at large. Since the seismic events of 1988, Burma has remained deadlocked in its third critical period of political and social transition since independence in 1948. However, despite the surface impasse, the political landscape has not remained static. During the past decade, the evidence of desire for fundamental political change has spread to virtually every sector of society, and, at different stages, this desire for change has been articulated by representatives of all the major political, ethnic, military and social organisations or factions. That Burma, therefore, has entered an era of enormous political volatility and transformation is not in dispute..."... This paper is one of four presented at the conference organised by TNI and the Burma Centrum Nederland on December 4 and 5, 1997 in the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, 'Strengthening Civil Society in Burma. Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs'. A book of the same name, containing edited versions of the papers, an introduction and notes on the authors was subsequently published by Silkworm Books, Chiangmai 1999.
Creator/author: Martin Smith
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute/Burma Centrum Nederland
1997-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm doc
Size: 254.9 KB 149.5 KB
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Description: "The development and maintenance of civil society - that is, free associations of citizens joined together to work for common concerns or implement social, cultural or political initiatives which compliment, as well as compete with the state - depends upon the citizens of any state being able to enjoy fundamental freedoms: freedom of thought, opinion, expression, association and movement. Underscoring and defending these freedoms must be an independent judiciary and the guarantee of the rule of law. In Burma today, none of these conditions exist. There is no freedom of the press in Burma: government censorship is heavy-handed and pervasive. While the opening up of the economy since 1988 had lead to a proliferation of private magazines and access to affordable video and satellite equipment has also resulted in a massive expansion of small scale video companies and TV/Videos parlours around the country, the organs of state censorship have kept pace with these developments, and virtually every sentence and every image which is produced by the indigenous media has to passed by the government's censorship board, and all non-local media are also carefully monitored and controlled. The Burmese services of the BBC, VOA and the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma are often jammed; CNN and World Service broadcasts which include issues sensitive to the government mysteriously loose sound. New laws have been promulgated to restrict access to the internet, and it has been reported that the government has also purchased technology from Israel which can monitor and censor e-mail messages, and other equipment from Singapore to monitor satellite phones...".... This paper is one of four presented at the conference organised by TNI and the Burma Centrum Nederland on December 4 and 5, 1997 in the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, 'Strengthening Civil Society in Burma. Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs'. A book of the same name, containing edited versions of the papers, an introduction and notes on the authors was subsequently published by Silkworm Books, Chiangmai 1999.
Creator/author: Zunetta Liddell
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute/Burma Centrum Nederland
1997-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm doc
Size: 90.45 KB 71 KB
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Description: Links to 4 Papers from the conference of this name, Amsterdam, 4-5 December 1997, organised by the Burma Center Netherlands & Transnational Institute... (Also published by Silkworm Books, Chiangmai 1999, with Introduction and notes on the authors)... A Void in Myanmar: Civil Society in Burma by David Steinberg... Ethnic conflict and the challenge of civil society in Burma by Martin Smith... No Room to Move: Legal Constraints on Civil Society in Burma by Zunetta Liddell... "Axe-handles or willing minions?" International NGOs in Burma by Marc Purcell
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute/Burma Centrum Nederland
1997-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : html
Size: 3.33 KB
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Description: La lettre d'information hebdomadaire d'Info Birmanie... La drogue et le conflit en Birmanie: Un rapport du TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTE (TNI) traduit et adapté par Fanny Guillier pour Info Birmanie... "Le texte qui suit est l'adaptation en français d'un rapport du TNI daté de décembre 2003. Le rapport original est consultable sur le site http://www.tni.org/ sous le titre: "Drugs and Conflict in Burma - Dilemna for policy responses".
Creator/author: Fanny Guillier (traductrice)
Source/publisher: TNI via Info Birmanie
2004-03-03
Date of entry/update: 2004-03-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Francais, French
Format : html
Size: 59.55 KB
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Description: "The term 'civil society' has been prominent in the history of Western intellectual thought for about two hundred years. Its con­notative vicissitudes, its origins and previous political uses from Hegel and Marx and beyond in a sense reflect a microcosm both of poli­ti­­cal and social science theory. For a period reflection on civil society was out of style, an anachronistic concept replaced by more fashionable intellectual formulations. Today, however, the term has once again come back into significance. Here, however, we are not concerned with its history, but rather with its contemporary use, as defined below, as one means to under­stand the dynamics of Burmese politics and society..."... This paper is one of four presented at the conference organised by TNI and the Burma Centrum Nederland on December 4 and 5, 1997 in the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, 'Strengthening Civil Society in Burma. Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs'. A book of the same name, containing edited versions of the papers, an introduction and notes on the authors was subsequently published by Silkworm Books, Chiangmai 1999.
Creator/author: David Steinberg
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute/Burma Centrum Nederland
1997-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : htm doc
Size: 85.2 KB 66.5 KB
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