Suu Kyi in Indiana

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Myo Myint lost most of his right arm and right leg and several fingers fighting for the Burma army before he began working against Myanmar's military rulers and became a political prisoner.
The 49-year-old political refugee would like to return to his homeland one day, but he doesn't believe it will happen, even after hearing Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi say she would work to make sure people like him could come back.
Myint was among thousands of elated supporters who greeted Suu Kyi with cheers, tears and a standing ovation Tuesday as she took to the stage at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Ind., the fourth stop on her 17-day U.S. tour.
Like Suu Kyi, Myint was imprisoned in 1989. But Myint, who spent 15 years as a political prisoner, said he doesn't believe Suu Kyi will be able to help him go back to Myanmar. That's because he says he's too well-known for working against the junta, having been featured in an HBO documentary called "Burma Soldier."
"She cannot do anything. She is not in the power," he said.
Sixty-seven-year-old Suu Kyi, who was recently elected to parliament after spending 15 years under house arrest for opposing Myanmar's military rulers, voiced optimism for democracy in her Southeast Asian home.
"The important thing is to learn how to resolve problems. How to face them and how to find the right answers through discussion and debate," the Nobel Laureate told the more than 5,000 people who gathered to hear her speak. Fort Wayne is home to one of the largest Burmese communities in the United States.
Myint said he lost his arm and leg in a battle with communist insurgents while serving in the Burma army. After he left the army, he switched sides, meeting with resistance groups and working against the military rulers.
"We were looking together to find a way to end the civil war," he said.
Suu Kyi rose to prominence during a failed pro-democracy uprising to protest Burma's military-backed regime in 1988. Thousands of the 1988 protesters were killed and tens of thousands more — including Oxford-educated Suu Kyi — spent years as political prisoners. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party was subsequently stymied by the junta's iron grip on the country.
But Suu Kyi voiced cautious hope Tuesday.
"The differences and problems we have amongst ourselves, I think we can join hands and reconcile and move forward and solve any problems," she said. Suu Kyi delivered most of her speech — and answered most questions — in Burmese, with an English translation by video.
Since 1991, when a single Burmese refugee resettled in Fort Wayne — about two hours north of Indianapolis and 8,000 miles from Myanmar — thousands more have followed, many of them relocating under a federal program after years in refugee camps in Thailand.
After his imprisonment, Myint spent three years in Thailand before applying to become a political refugee. A brother who had fought against the Burma military rulers in 1988 already lived to Fort Wayne.
Both were excited to attend Suu Kyi's speech Tuesday. Though Myint doesn't believe he will ever be able to return, he was pleased to hear her say she would work to clear the way for the return of those who left.
"I would love to go back but I have no chance," he said.
For some Burmese residents, Suu Kyi's visit was the first tangible connection with the homeland they hope to one day return.
"I would appreciate and be very grateful if you could look back to your home country, which is Burma," she said.
Myanmar's half century of military rule invited crippling international sanctions. But President Thein Sein, who is visiting New York this week, has introduced political and economic reforms in recent years, and the U.S. is considering easing the main plank of its remaining sanctions, a ban on imports.
Suu Kyi, who already has met with President Barack Obama and received Congress' highest honor, said the sanctions were effective in pushing the junta to reform but that "they should now be lifted" so Myanmar can rebuild its economy.
"We cannot only depend on external support and support of our friends from other nations. We should also depend on ourselves to reach this goal," she said.

Kerry Gets One Right

“Kyaw Zaw Lwin spent seven months in unjust confinement and we are all relieved that his ordeal is now over.  Sadly, while he is coming home, Burma’s junta continues to hold its grip on 2,200 political prisoners. All are jailed for one reason — their efforts to convince the Burmese junta to respect basic human rights and agree to a genuine democratic process.” – John Kerry, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts

Nyi Nyi Aung Released

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A U.S. citizen accused of subversion was released from prison in his native Myanmar and deported Thursday after serving part of a three-year prison sentence.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, had been arrested when he arrived at Yangon's international airport Sept. 3 on accusations he was plotting to stir political unrest, which he denied.

The 40-year-old was sentenced in October for forging a national identity card, possessing undeclared foreign currency, and failing to renounce his Myanmar citizenship when becoming an American citizen.

He was released Thursday after 6½ months in prison and escorted aboard a flight to Thailand accompanied by a U.S. consular official, said his aunt, Khin Khin Swe.

"He looks well and happy, though much thinner than before," Khin Khin Swe said.

"I am very happy for him but I want families of other prisoners of conscience to be happy and hope that all will be released," she said, adding that five of her relatives are in prison, including her son-in-law.

The U.S. Embassy confirmed the release and said: "We welcome that development."

As a teenager in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, Kyaw Zaw Lwin helped organize students during the country's 1988 pro-democracy uprising and later fled to the United States. His reason for returning to Myanmar was not clear, though there has been speculation he hoped to see his jailed relatives.

Attorney Beth Schwanke of the Washington-based advocacy group Freedom Now said that Kyaw Zaw Lwin had spoken by phone with his fiance, Wa Wa Kyaw, and would return Friday to their home in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

"She says he's exhausted and has clearly been through a horrible ordeal, and he sounds strong and that he's thrilled to be released and coming home to Maryland," Schwanke said.

Wa Wa Kyaw released a statement thanking the U.S. State Department and members of Congress for helping secure her fiancee's release.

U.S. Congressman Chris Van Hollen called Kyaw Zaw Lwin's case a "miscarriage of justice."

"His imprisonment, trial, and sentencing were a travesty and an affront to the rule of law," Van Hollen said in a statement. "While I am pleased Nyi Nyi Aung has been set free, we must continue to press for the release of all political prisoners held by the Burmese junta."

Myanmar's military government holds more than 2,000 political prisoners, according to the U.N. and independent human rights organizations. The most prominent is opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The 1991 Nobel peace laureate has been detained for about 14 of the last 20 years, and is currently under house arrest, from which she is due to be released in November.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin's mother is serving a five-year prison term for political activities, and his sister was sentenced to 65 years in prison for involvement in 2007 pro-democracy protests, which government forces brutally suppressed, activist groups and family members say.

Last year, another American was deported by Myanmar. John Yettaw, whose case attracted considerably more attention, was sentenced to seven years in prison in August for sneaking into Suu Kyi's home, but released less than a week later after a visit to the country by U.S. Senator Jim Webb.

Bangladesh, US, Train Near Burmese Waters

US naval ships started a three-day training exchange program with Bangladesh on Tuesday on the Bay of Bengal near Burmese territorial waters, said  an official source. “The training program started yesterday on the offshore island of Kutubdia in Cox’s Bazaar District, located near the Burmese border. In the training, 200 US naval personnel are participating,” the source said.

US Navy Commander Adam J. Welter is conducting the training with an estimated 200 naval personnel on board the USS Ingraham.

Commander Welter told journalists that the training is aimed at strengthening the relationship with Bangladesh through mutual cooperation and understanding.

The training is being conducted as part of a goodwill visit to Bangladesh, and will be carried out as the ship travels to Singapore from Bahrain, where it was engaged in anti-terror vigilance until two weeks ago.

The US and Bangladesh naval forces will share their experiences and knowledge as part of the training, not just militarily but also technical knowledge. Such joint military training missions are occasionally carried out by Bangladesh and the US in the Bay of Bengal.

“Burma VJ” in the running for Academy Award

The documentary “Burma VJ” is in the running for an Oscar for best feature-documentary at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards show which will be broadcast worldwide on Sunday night in the United States.“If “Burma VJ” receives the Oscar, it will be the first time in history that a whole nation’s population will receive the Oscar,” said Jan Krogsgaard, the originator and scriptwriter of the film. “I think even the generals of Burma would like to see this happen, deep inside themselves, and find peace within their own life.”

“Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country” tells the story of how Burmese video journalists took to the streets and filmed the September 2007 mass demonstrations in Rangoon. It is among five documentaries nominated this year.

Other nominees are “The Cove,” about a hidden dolphin slaughter in a Japanese town; “Food, Inc.,” a story of the horrors of factory farms, slaughterhouses and meat plants in the US; “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” the story of a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist who in 1971 concluded that the war was based on decades of lies and leaked top secret documents to The New York Times; and “Which Way Home,” a film that follows unaccompanied child migrants on their journey through Mexico as they try to reach the United States.

“Burma VJ” has already won 33 awards—including World Cinema Documentary Film Editing and Golden Gate Persistence of Vision prizes.

Most of the material for the film was shot by Burmese video journalists at great personal risk and smuggled out of the country to the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). A Danish professional film-maker, Anders Østergaard, directed the film, which was released to wide acclaim this year.

In an interview on the Oscar official Web site, producer Lise Lens-Moller said: “Burma had almost vanished from the global consciousness when we started working on the film in 2004 and the VJ’s main motivation for risking their lives and their freedom everyday was to try and bring attention to their situation. I hope the Oscar nomination will keep the Burmese people’s struggle alive and supported around the world.”

The live announcement of the Oscar winner will attract Burmese communities around the world.

“It must be a historical milestone,” said Khin Maung Win, the deputy executive director of the Democratic Voice of Burma. “Even if Burma VJ does not win the prize, the film will bring attention to our democracy movement.”

Recent Report on KIA

Laiza, Burma – The sharp sound of loading and unloading weapons and the barked orders of the sergeant-major cut through the mountains of northern Burma as the young cadets are put through their morning drills.Their discipline is good, their uniforms smart and there is little doubting their sense of purpose or patriotism towards the red and green flag with crossed machetes they proudly wear on their right shoulders.

They are the next generation of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and say they are not afraid to be the generation that fights in a civil war many fear may soon be upon them.

“The Union of Burma was formed on the basis of equality for ethnic people, but there has been inequality throughout history and we are still being suppressed,” said cadet Dashi Zau Krang.

He is 26 and has a degree in business studies, but says inequality has stopped him getting a good job and driven him to join the military.

But he is not afraid.

“The Burmese army may be the strongest in South East Asia, while we are very few, but God will help us to liberate our people to get freedom and equality. This is our responsibility,” he said.

It is a war the Kachin people do not want and one they cannot win.

But their generals believe a 17-year ceasefire could soon end as a Burmese army deadline approaches, demanding the forces merge or disarm.

They have already refused, and although their leaders are still pushing for a political solution, their commanders are preparing for the worst when time runs out at the end of February.

“I can’t say if there will be war for sure, but the government wants us to become a border guard force for them by the end of the month,” said the KIA’s Chief of Staff, Maj Gen Gam Shawng.

“We will not do that, or disarm, until they have given us a place in a federal union and ethnic rights as was agreed in 1947.”

The KIA and its civilian organisation have been allowed to control a large swathe of northern Burma as part of a ceasefire agreement with the country’s ruling generals.

Trade with China

They provide power, roads and schools funded by taxes on the brisk trade from China as well as the jade and gold mines and teak.

But now soldiers are being recruited, veterans are being recalled and retrained, and an ethnic army is preparing to fight perhaps the biggest military force in South East Asia.

On the car radio are freedom songs, and at one of the training camps a course in traditional dance is being run – cultural nationalism and propaganda is strong.

A BBC team travelled to an area in northern Burma controlled by the Kachin army and its civilian arm, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO).

We were taken to training camps and outposts, but could not walk into Laiza town to talk to people on the street for fear of being seen by an extensive network of Burmese or Chinese government informers and spies.

It made forming a balanced view very difficult, but the determination and planning of the military was clear.

High on a vantage point above their headquarters, trenches are being dug and tree trunks are being hauled and hewn into gun turrets piled high with earth.

They can see the Burmese army positions from here and they know this will be just one of the front lines if fighting breaks out.

A well-oiled and highly polished large-calibre anti-aircraft gun is produced, standing on a tripod in a bunker overlooking the lush jungle valley.

Guerrilla war

The gleaming gun is a statement, a display for the visitors, but the small metal plane stencilled on the sights looks woefully optimistic.

They are organised and say they have heavy weapons, but we did not see them.

There are around two dozen ethnic groups in Burma, mostly scattered around its borders, and the biggest have been in various states of ceasefire or civil war over the past few decades.

The KIA is one of the biggest. Their commanders say it includes 10,000 regular troops and 10,000 reservists, but it is impossible to know for sure.

The Burmese army is huge. It has an air force of sorts and artillery, and the KIA knows the only way to survive will be to withdraw into the jungle and fight a guerrilla war of attrition.

But civil war would create tens of thousands of refugees and create regional instability.

“If we are attacked the other ethnic groups will support us, as they know the same could happen to them,” Gen Gam Shawng explained.

The nearby Wa ethnic group has tens of thousands of troops and resources funded by drug smuggling, and we were told a deal with them had been agreed.

Whether civil war comes here is now up to the Burmese government.

If they use this election year to solve what they see as the “problem” of the ethnic groups they will have a fight on their hands, and the region will have to deal with the consequences.

American Sentenced in Burma

A Myanmar court Wednesday sentenced a naturalized US citizen to three years in jail with hard labor on charges of committing forgery, illegal possession of foreign currency and refusing to revoke his Myanmar passport.

Judge Nyo Tun of the Yangon North District Court found Nyi Nyi Aung guilty on three counts and sentenced him to three years in jail.
'We will appeal his case at the Division Court soon,' said Nyan Win, the defendant's lawyer.

Nyi Nyi Aung, a former Myanmar student activist who fled to Thailand after the 1988 crackdown on the fledgling pro-democracy movement in his homeland, was arrested Sep 3 at Yangon International Airport.

He was initially accused of holding undeclared currency, a crime committed by most visitors entering Myanmar, where foreign currency is strictly controlled and the legal exchange rate is six kyat to the dollar, compared with 1,000 kyat to the dollar on the ubiquitous black market.

Authorities later added charges of holding forged documents and refusing to cancel his Myanmar passport.

Nyi Nyi Aung, who lived in Thailand from 1988 until 1994, was eventually granted refugee status by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and migrated to the US where he became a naturalized citizen in 2005.

In the US, he was a campaigner for democracy in Myanmar, which has been under military rule since 1962.

Nyi Nyi Aung reportedly entered Myanmar four times on his US passport between 2005 and 2009, meeting with various dissident groups.

Prior to his arrest in September, the junta had made it known he was a wanted man in Myanmar for his anti-government activities.

Friends speculated that he had returned to visit his mother, a political prisoner who is suffering from thyroid cancer.

There are an estimated 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar jails or under house arrest.

Hearing In Senate Foreign Relations Committee

The inconsistent foreign policy of the United States towards Asian countries has gifted an opportunity to China to enhance its influence over regional countries including military-ruled Burma, Senator Jim Webb said on Thursday during a hearing of which he chaired.Webb, in his remarks at the Senate’s Foreign Relations Subcommittee Hearing on Washington’s engagement in Asia, said, “American sanctions and other policy restrictions have not only increased Chinese political and economic influence in Southeast Asia, they ironically serve as a double reward for China because all the while American interaction in East Asia has been declining.”

Webb said in recent years China has become the only country in the world to which the United States is vulnerable, strategically and economically.

“And nowhere is this more obvious than in Burma, where Chinese influence has grown steadily at a time when the United States has cut off virtually all economic and diplomatic relations. Since then, Chinese arms sales and other military aid has exceeded $3 billion,” added the Virginian Senator.

Webb, who in August 2009 travelled to Burma and met with high-ranking junta officials, including Senior General Than Shwe, as well as detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is a strong advocate of engagement with the Burmese junta, in power since 1988.

Webb said in the absence of United States engagement with the junta, China has taken over and greatly influenced the Burmese regime to the extent of creating “an intrinsic suspicion of U.S. motives in the region.”

“And as only one example of China’s enormous investment reach,” he added, in reference to a future pipeline to run through Burma, “within the next decade or sooner, Beijing is on track to exclusively transfer to its waiting refineries both incoming oil and locally tapped natural gas via a 2,380-kilometer pipeline, a $30 billion deal.”

The Senator said Washington should maintain consistency in its foreign policy towards Asia, as “inconsistencies inherent in our policies toward different governments tend to create confusion, cynicism, and allegations of situational ethics.”

The hearing on Thursday also took the testimony of Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, Dr. Robert Sutter of Georgetown University and Dr. Robert Herman of Freedom House.

Verdict Expected for Kyaw Zaw Lwin

A Myanmar court will hand down its verdict next week on an American charged with forgery and currency infractions after being accused of trying to foment rebellion against the country’s military rulers.Nyan Win, the lawyer for Myanmar-born Kyaw Zaw Lwin, said final arguments in his case were made Friday at the court inside Yangon’s notorious Insein prison, and a verdict is expected Wednesday.

Kyaw Zaw Win was arrested on Sept. 3 and initially accused of trying to stir up unrest which he has denied. Prosecutors later asked the court to charge him with forgery and violating the foreign currency exchange act.

He was put on trial in October and faces up to 12 years in prison.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s mother is serving a five-year prison term for political activities and his sister was sentenced to 65 years in prison for her role in 2007 pro-democracy protests, which government forces brutally suppressed, activist groups and family members say.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin staged a 12-day hunger strike in December to protest conditions of political prisoners in Myanmar, according to human rights groups.

Myanmar has one of the most repressive governments in the world and has been controlled by the military since 1962.

Rights groups and dissidents say the junta has jailed thousands of political prisoners, including pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Suu Kyi whose political party won 1990 elections that the military refused to recognize has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest.

Air Force Jet Crashes at Myanmar Airport

Yangon – A Myanmar Air Force fighter plane crashed on Friday morning while attempting to land at Yangon airport, killing its pilot, an airport official said.An official at Yangon International Airport said the Chinese-made F-7 jet crashed while on a training flight. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The Air Force base is adjacent to the civilian airport and uses the same runways.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a Swedish think tank, Myanmar purchased at least 36 F-7 jets from China in the 1990s.

American Citizen Charged in Myanmar Court

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- A special court Friday formally charged a Myanmar-born American, initially accused of attempting to foment rebellion against the country's military rulers, for forgery and violation of the foreign currency act, his lawyer said.

In another court case, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear final arguments to decide whether to review the most recent extension of the house arrest of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin, a U.S. citizen, was charged with forgery for allegedly making up a national identity card, which carries maximum 7-year prison term. He was also charged with violating the currency act, that could put him in prison for another three years, said his lawyer Nyan Win.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin, who is also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, was arrested Sept. 3 when he arrived at Yangon airport and accused of trying to stir up anti-government protests.

The lawyer said his client ended a 12-day hunger strike on Dec. 15 and "looked well and was in good spirits."

Kyaw Zaw Lin's mother is serving a five-year prison term for political activities and his sister was sentenced to 65 years in prison for her role in pro-democracy protests in 2007.

The lawyer for Suu Kyi, also Nyan Win, said the Supreme Court posted an announcement on its notice board setting Jan. 18 as the date to hear final argumentd in her latest case.

Suu Kyi's lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court in November after a lower court upheld a decision to sentence her to 18 months of house arrest. She had been convicted in August last year of violating her previous term by briefly sheltering an American intruder who swam uninvited to her lakeside home.

The legal team argued that her house arrest extension was unlawful as it was based on provisions from the 1974 Constitution that was no longer in existence, said Nyan Win.

"We are optimistic that the Supreme Court will review the Divisional Court decision as we have presented strong legal points," he said.

The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Laureate was initially sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor, but that sentence was commuted to 18 months of house arrest by junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe.

Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.

Suu Kyi's sentence ensures she cannot participate in Myanmar's first elections in two decades that are scheduled for next year. Her party swept the last elections in 1990, but the results were never honored by the military, which has ruled the country since 1962.

O’Brien Continues To Explain Myanmar’s Rulers

“Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.”

Suu Kyi, Orwell, and O’Brien

In the Orwellian country that is Myanmar, the former Burma, a woman who has committed no crime can be tried and judged guilty. And that is what happened last month.

This month, in fact this week, the sentence was declared. It was originally to have been three years, but was commuted to only one and a half years.

Let’s take a minute and consider what she actually did.

When an American named John Yettaw swam across the Inya Lake to her house, she did not immediately throw him out. This assumes, of course, that she knew about his presence in the first place.

Why was he not allowed to swim to her house? Well, it turns out she was under “house arrest” for fourteen of the last twenty years. What crime had she committed that she would be under arrest for that length of time? She won an election in 1990.

No, those are not unconnected thoughts. Her crime was that she won an election in 1990. So what do the madmen who run Myanmar want? In the words of O’Brien:

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”

Su Su Nway in Solitary Confinement in Kale Prison

A prominent Burmese labor rights activist, Su Su Nway, was placed in solitary confinement for three days after participating in a ceremony to mark the 62nd anniversary of Martyrs’ Day on June 19 in Kale Prison, in Sagaing Division, according to her sister.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy Newspaper on Tuesday August 4th, her sister, Htay Htay Kyi, said, “She was put in solitary confinement because she stood up and sang an independence anthem composed by Min Ko Naing to mark Martyrs’ Day.”

Htay Htay Kyi said she visited her sister on July 21 when she delivered medicine to Su Su Nway who said she had been denied medical care by the prison authorities.

Su Su Nway, 37, suffers from hypertension [high blood pressure] and heart disease.

In 2006, she won the John Humphrey Freedom Award for promoting human rights.

She was arrested together with two colleagues after they pasted anti-government posters on a billboard in downtown Rangoon during the monk-led uprising of 2007. She was sentenced to twelve and a half years in prison.

Su Su Nway is among 2,100 other political prisoners who are currently being detained by the Burmese military authorities.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in July called on the Burmese junta to release all political prisoners before the national elections in 2010.

Burmese permanent representative at the UN, Than Swe reportedly told Ban that Burma will release prisoners before the election; however, he did not specify if political dissidents would be among the prisoners released.

Dengue Fever in Kalemyo

At least 10 children have died and several are ill after being afflicted by Dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease, in Kalemyo a town near the Indo-Burma border in Sagaing Division, north-western Burma, an official at a private clinic said.

“As far as I know at least 10 children have died. A lot of other children are admitted in the hospital, which is crowded with patients,” the official in Thapyaynyo clinic in Kalemyo said.

When contacted, an official at the Kalemyo General Hospital on Friday said, the ‘Patient Ward’ of the hospital is full of children being treated for Dengue haemorrhagic fever.

The outbreak of Dengue was noticed in Kalemyo in the beginning of June and has been continuing since.

A local resident of Kalemyo told Mizzima that most of the children in her neighborhood are suffering from the disease. While many have been taken to hospital several others are depending on private clinics.

Dengue in Kalemyo, a town located on the border of Chin state in western Burma, is common during the monsoons.

Local residents said, despite being a curable disease, Malaria and Typhoid continue to claim several lives every year.

Pagoda Collapse in Myanmar

From NY Times

BANGKOK — It cannot have pleased Myanmar’s ruling family: the collapse of a 2,300-year-old gold-domed pagoda into a pile of timbers just three weeks after the wife of the junta’s top general had helped reconsecrate it with a diamond orb and a sacred golden umbrella.

A rescue worker looks through the rubble of the ancient Danok pagoda, which collapsed last Saturday as workmen were completing its renovation — killing at least 20 people, according to émigré reports.

There is no country in Asia more superstitious than Myanmar, and the collapse of the temple was widely seen as something more portentous than shoddy construction work.

It comes at a moment when the junta has put on trial the country’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, after an American intruder swam across a lake and spent a night at the villa where she has been under house arrest for most of the past 19 years.

After two weeks of testimony, the trial is on hold as the junta apparently tries to decide how to manage what seems to have been a major blunder, drawing condemnation from around the world.

The superstitious generals may be consulting astrologers as well as political tacticians as they decide how to proceed. That would not be unusual for many people in Myanmar.

Currency denominations and traffic rules have been changed in the past, the nation’s capital has been moved and the timing of events has been selected — even the dates of popular uprisings — with astrological dictates in mind.

“Astrology has as significant a role in policies, leadership and decision making in the feudal Naypyidaw as rational calculations, geopolitics and resource economics,” said Zarni, a Burmese exile analyst and researcher who goes by one name. He was referring to the country’s new capital, which was opened in 2005.

And so it seemed only natural to read a darker meaning into the temple collapse.

The Danok pagoda, on the outskirts of Myanmar’s main city, Yangon, was blessed May 7 in the presence of Daw Kyaing Kyaing, the wife of the country’s supreme leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. The event received major coverage in the government-controlled press.

In a solemn ceremony, the worshipers fixed the diamond orb to the top of the pagoda along with a pennant-shaped vane and sprinkled scented water onto the tiers of a holy umbrella, according to the government mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar.

Like the rest of the heavily censored press, the newspaper was silent, a week ago, when it all came crashing down. But word of mouth — and foreign radio broadcasts — spread fast in Myanmar.

“O.K., she thinks she is so great, but even the gods don’t like her, people believe like that,” a senior astrologer said on condition of anonymity because of the danger of speaking to the media.

The ceremony was part of a decades-long campaign by the senior general to legitimize military rule on a foundation of Buddhist fealty, dedicating and re-gilding temples, attending religious ceremonies and making donations to monks.

That campaign was undermined, and perhaps fatally discredited, in September 2007 when soldiers beat and shot protesting monks in the streets, invaded monasteries without removing their boots and imprisoned hundreds of monks.

“No matter how many pagodas they build, no matter how much charity they give to monks, it is still they who murdered the monks,” said Josef Silverstein, a Myanmar specialist and emeritus professor at Rutgers University, at the time of the protests.

So when the Danok pagoda suddenly collapsed last Saturday as workmen were completing its renovation — killing at least 20 people, according to émigré reports — many people saw it as the latest of a series of bad omens for the junta that included a devastating cyclone early last year.

Its sacred umbrella tumbled to the ground and its diamond orb was lost in the rubble, according to those reports.

“The fact that the umbrella did not stay was a sign that more bad things are to come, according to astrologers,” said Ingrid Jordt, an anthropology professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and a specialist on Burma.

“It is also a sign that Than Shwe does not have the spiritual power any longer to be able to undertake or reap the benefit from good acts such as this,” she said in an e-mail message. “In a sense, the pagoda repudiated Than Shwe’s right to remain ruler.”

As laborers began trying to put the pagoda back together, local residents were quoted in émigré publications with vivid accounts of supernatural happenings.

“The temple collapsed about 3:10 p.m. while I was loading bricks on a platform around the pagoda,” a 24-year-old construction worker told The Irrawaddy, a magazine based in Thailand.

“The weather suddenly turned very dark,” he was quoted as saying. “Then we saw a bright red light rising from the northern end of the pagoda. Then, suddenly, the temple collapsed. I also heard a strange haunting voice coming from the direction of the light.”

Indeed, the Danok pagoda may have been a poor choice for the junta’s ruling family to seek religious affirmation.

According to The Irrawaddy: “Several elderly locals from Danok Model Village said that they believed that the pagoda never welcomed cruel or unkind donors, and always shook when such persons made offerings.”

Secretary of State Speaks Out

Myanmar's military regime is allowing reporters and diplomats into the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi.

But allowing access to the trial isn't halting accusations that the hearing is a ploy to keep the pro-democracy leader behind bars through next year's election.

Suu Kyi is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest after an American stayed at her home without official permission. The offense is punishable by up to five years' imprisonment.

The Nobel Peace laureate has been in detention without trial for more than 13 of the past 19 years. She was due to be released next week.

Meantime U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says it's "outrageous" that Myanmar's military-led government is still holding Suu Kyi in detention.

Clinton told lawmakers Wednesday at a Capitol Hill hearing that the junta is holding Suu Kyi merely because she is politically popular.

Clinton says elections scheduled in Myanmar for next year are "illegitimate" even before they begin because of the way the junta has treated the Nobel Peace laureate.

Suu Kyi has been in detention without trial for more than 13 of the past 19 years. She is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest after an American man stayed at her home without official permission.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday it is "outrageous" that Myanmar had put pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on trial but hoped it would end soon and she would be released.

Clinton, speaking to a Senate subcommittee overseeing State Department funding, said the Obama administration was trying to see if third countries could pressure the military junta in Yangon to obtain her release.

"Clearly China, India and others are major players," Clinton said, suggesting these countries would be approached.

"We're going to try (to push for her release), and I don't think I can make any kind of assurance because we don't know whether we will have any success in convincing them otherwise," Clinton told the senators.

"But it is outrageous that they are trying her and that they continue to hold her because of her political popularity and they intend to hold elections in 2010," the chief US diplomat said.

These elections from the beginning "will be illegitimate because of the way that they have treated her," she continued.

"So it is our hope that this baseless trial will end with a quick release of her and then a return to some political involvement eventually by her and her party," she added.

Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial on Monday on the charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest over a bizarre incident in which an American swam to her lakeside house.

The charges carry a jail term of up to five years and would stretch her detention past its supposed expiry date this month and through controversial elections due in 2010.

John Yettaw, 53, who was held for sneaking into Suu Kyi's house and staying there for two days before he was caught, was also put on trial on charges of breaking the security law and immigration conditions.

Yettaw, 53, apparently used a pair of homemade flippers to swim across a lake to her crumbling residence in an apparent show of solidarity, but Aung San Suu Kyi's main lawyer Kyi Win said they had asked him to leave.

Orphanages Closed, Buildings Seized

The Burmese military regime has shut down at least 50 Chin orphanages in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma leading to problems for children.

According to a report said the regime closed down about 50 Chin orphanages on March 6, 2009 as their licenses expired. The regime has seized all the buildings

“We had registered for a period of five years. I don’t know others’ cases. Actually, we had registered in 2003 and its validity is up to 2008. Now we have to register for 2009 to 2013, but just before doing so the authorities stopped renewing the license,” said a local Chin from Rangoon .

It means 50 out of 100 Chin orphanage schools in Rangoon city have now been shut down by the government. Similarly, 13 out of 16 schools in Hleku townships also closed including Victoria Childcare Centre (VCC) which looks after 54 orphanages.

Kanpalet Township , Southern Chin state, which looks after 99% of the children in VCC has sent them back to their relatives as per the rule of government that allows a person can adopt not more than five children in his life time.

“The children’s future will be totally dependant on the adopters. Some will be adopted well and some might be adopted as house keepers or servants. It’s very hard to figure out their fortune,” said a victim at one of orphanage schools.

At the same time, some schools are searching for people to adopt the children.. It is difficult to know where other schools are located and who are taking responsibility regarding this matter as the government has restricted them and they are afraid to used telephone for their security.

“Once we had used telephone for conversation about our work, the authorities immediately arrived and they inquired about it. We don’t want to use the phone anymore after facing this thrice as we’ve afraid,” he added.

He continued that the care takers at the orphanage schools have been given an appointment on 17 March. It needs to be watched how it will turn out, but the schools cannot be opened again.

Chin orphanage schools started to open in 2003 in Yangon city and there are about 140 of Chin orphanage schools in Burma.

More From Tim Patterson

“My generation thinks there will be a war,” says a 22-year-old cadet in the Kachin Independence Army, one of several armed groups that struggle for political autonomy on the frontiers of Myanmar.

His AK-47 slung loosely over his shoulder, the cadet qualifies his prediction, perhaps in deference to the officers who listen as he speaks.

“We don´t know what the leadership will decide,” he says. “We will follow their orders.”

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, encompasses the homelands of several distinct ethnic groups that resent the totalitarian rule of ethnic Burmese, who form a majority in this impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

Burmese dominate the powerful armed forces, which prop up the military junta that governs Myanmar, widely recognized as one of world’s most corrupt and repressive governments.

The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is the military wing of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), among the largest and most powerful of the armed groups that challenge the junta´s rule.

Founded in the early 1960s, the KIO represents ethnic Kachins, themselves a loose coalition of predominantly Christian tribes whose historic territory encompasses the Himalayan foothills of northernmost Myanmar, bordered by southern Tibet, far-eastern India and the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan.

For more than 30 years, the KIA has waged a guerrilla campaign against the military from its jungle bases along the Chinese border. Other armed groups were active in the region during this period, including the Communist Party and various warlords, many of whom financed their armies through opium smuggling, intensive logging and mining for gold, rubies and jade.

In 1994 the KIO leadership signed a cease-fire with the military, an agreement many Kachins saw as a betrayal of their aspirations for political autonomy.

The cease-fire brought a measure of stability to Kachin state and enriched some powerful individuals who were willing to cooperate with Burmese authorities, but it did little to alleviate the suffering of Kachin civilians.

In the 15 years since the truce, Kachins say there has been no genuine attempt at reconciliation, and many expect a renewed outbreak of armed hostilities.

During the war years, Kachin state developed a reputation as one of the most lawless places in the world.

Only a handful of foreign observers managed to sneak inside to document reports of human rights abuses by Myanmar’s military in its efforts to defeat the resistance groups and consolidate control over Kachin state.

One journalist, Outside Magazine editor Mark Jenkins, was drugged, beaten and dumped in an alley with a death threat written on his hand after interviewing Kachin villagers near the state capital of Myitkyina in 1996.

The Kachins hope for more exposure to the outside world, one KIA soldier explained. “Here in Kachin, it´s been 15 years since the cease-fire, but nothing has changed.”

“I have a degree in economics, but there is no job for me,” added another soldier. “There are no good positions for Kachin people. There is oppression and exploitation everywhere.”

Like others quoted in this article, the soldiers asked not to be named, fearing retribution from the government.

The KIA military academy is located off a rough mountain road that links the wartime army headquarters, a windswept base called Pajau, with more comfortable and modern peacetime headquarters outside the bustling border town of Laiza.

Recruits rise before dawn to practice karate and repeat the pledges of the army: “We will always obey the orders of the Kachin Independence Organization,” they shout. “We will never give up our arms.”

These two pledges may come into conflict if the KIO leadership decides to participate in nationwide elections scheduled for 2010.

The elections are the culmination of a constitutional process introduced by the junta last year. Few observers expect the elections to be free or fair.

Both within Myanmar and abroad, the elections are widely seen as an attempt by the junta to legitimize iron-fisted military rule.

A clause in the new constitution states that all rebel groups must disarm and submit to the central control of the Myanmar military.

Although the KIO initially signaled its intent to participate in the election, officials now claim the KIO itself will stay on the sidelines, although KIO members may form a party to contest the elections.

Whether the Kachins decide to participate, the government that emerges will no doubt be heavily influenced by the leaders of the current military junta.

If the government attempts to forcibly disarm the KIA and other armed ethnic groups, the Kachins may retreat from their peacetime headquarters and retrench in the rugged hills along the Chinese frontier.

Bombs Explode in Two Historic Areas

Note: the following story is from BurmaNet. The two locations where the bombs exploded were sites of massive government retaliations against the student-led protests in 1988. The "Whole Burma United Revolutionary Front" (WBURF) has claimed responsibility for the bombings.

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Authorities in Myanmar have warned people to be on alert after two small bombs exploded in the commercial hub Yangon, causing minor damage but no injuries, junta-run media reported Thursday.

The explosions hit hours apart Tuesday evening at a Yangon park and bus stop, and police and soldiers immediately sealed off the scene.

“Authorities concerned have reminded the people to provide information to those responsible in time if there is something or someone (suspected) of committing destructive acts,” the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

The paper said an investigation was ongoing and gave no indication about who might be behind the blasts, but the military regime has in the past blamed similar attacks on ethnic rebel insurgents battling junta rule.

The first explosion blew a hole in a fence and smashed the windscreen of a truck, the paper said, while the bus stop bomb near a busy intersection blew a small crater in the ground and damaged the shelter.

Myanmar was rocked by a series of similar small blasts late last year, with one man killed in Yangon in October and two people killed in a township outside the main city in a video cafe bombing.

Although the junta usually blames armed exile groups or ethnic rebels, it has also pointed the finger at democracy activists.

State-run media in September accused two members of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) of bombing pro-government offices in July last year.

The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed it to take office. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest almost constantly since.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by claiming the need to fend off ethnic rebellions which have plagued remote border areas for decades.