Tag: Aung San Suu Kyi

NAY PYI TAW (TIP): Nobel laureate and Myanmar .s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi will chair a new committee dedicated to promoting peace and development in Rakhine state, where the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority lives, officials said on June 1.

The founding of the committee was announced a week after the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, urged Suu Kyi, who is also the country’s foreign minister, to promote human rights after a meeting in which both discussed the situation of the Rohingya minority.

The committee will include 19 more members of the new Cabinet, according to the state newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar.

Among other matters, it will be responsible for coordinating the activities of UN agencies and international NGOs working in the area.

These organizations work, albeit with restrictions, in the area to assist the Rohingyas , a minority living in Myanmar for centuries, who are not recognized as Burmese citizens but are considered Bengali immigrants.

About 120,000 of them are confined in 67 camps and suffer all kinds of restrictions since the outbreak of sectarian violence in 2012 between this minority and the Buddhist majority in the region, which caused at least 160 deaths, EFE news reported.

In March, just days before handing over power, the former government lifted the state of emergency imposed since then in Rakhine where the Rohingyas have limited freedom of movement and access to education, and suffer the confiscation of their property.

YANGON (TIP): Myanmar’s president signed a bill giving Aung San Suu Kyi a new role of state adviser, shoring up her influence across all branches of government despite vehement opposition from the still-powerful military.

Suu Kyi is determined to rule the former junta-run nation regardless of an army-scripted constitution that bars her from becoming president, as she strives to meet the aspirations of millions of voters who gave her pro-democracy party a landslide election victory last November.

She is already foreign minister and met her Chinese counterpart for talks yesterday, prioritising Beijing in her first foray into international diplomacy since her National League for Democracy officially took power last week.

The bill outlining her advisory role, which mentions the Nobel laureate by name, enables Suu Kyi to wield influence over parliament as well as in the cabinet in a position officially called “state counsellor”.

It was signed into law by President Htin Kyaw, Suu Kyi’s longtime aide and effective proxy, following debates in both houses of parliament that have seen protests by the army’s legislative representatives.

“The president has signed the state counsellor bill today,” president office deputy director-general Zaw Htay told AFP.

He declined to give further details on the legislation, which sped through both houses of parliament thanks to the NLD’s huge majority.

In a dramatic lower house session yesterday, unelected military MPs — who make up a quarter of the legislature because the constitution reserves seats for them — stood up to register a protest that their suggested amendments were being ignored. The bill was then sent straight to the president without a vote in the combined legislature because no clauses had been altered. One army MP, Brigadier General Maung Maung, complained to reporters after Tuesday’s session that the passage of the bill was “democratic bullying by majority”.

NAYPYITAW (TIP): Htin Kyaw, a confidante of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, was sworn in Wednesday as Myanmar’s president, ushering in the first democratically elected government into office after decades of military rule.

The 70-year-old Htin Kyaw took the oath of office in a joint session of Myanmar’s newly elected parliament with his two vice presidents at his side, as Suu Kyi sat watching in the front row. “I, Htin Kyaw, will be loyal to the union and the people of the union,” he said, reading from a written pledge, while repeating after the house speaker Mann Win Khaing Than. “I will respect this constitution and the laws of the nation.”

The same pledge was simultaneously read by First Vice President Myint Swe and Second Vice President Henry Van Tio. Later in the day, outgoing President Thein Sein will formally hand over the presidency to Htin Kyaw.

Rightfully, the job belonged to Suu Kyi, who has been the face of the pro-democracy movement and who endured decades of house arrest and harassment by military rulers without ever giving up on her non-violent campaign to unseat them. But a constitutional provision barred Suu Kyi from becoming president, and she made it clear that whoever sits in that chair will be her proxy. She has said repeatedly she will run the government from behind the scenes.

Still, Htin Kyaw will be remembered by history as the first civilian president for Myanmar and the head of its first government to be elected in free and fair polls. Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory in elections last November, in a reflection of Suu Kyi’s widespread public support. The constitutional clause that denied her the presidency excludes anyone from the position who has a foreign spouse or children. Suu Kyi’s two sons are British, as was her late husband. The clause is widely seen as having been written by the military with Suu Kyi in mind.

The democracy that Suu Kyi and her colleagues are building is still not a complete package. The military has reserved 25 percent of the seats in parliament for itself, guaranteeing that no government can amend the constitution without its approval. Also, it ensured that one of Htin Kyaw’s two vice presidents is a former general, Myint Swe, a close ally of former junta leader Than Shwe. Myint Swe remains on a U.S. Treasury Department blacklist that bars American companies from doing business with several tycoons and senior military figures connected with the former junta.

NAYPYITAW (TIP): Myanmar’s president-elect on March 22 proposed an 18-member cabinet that will include party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the former dissident who for decades had campaigned for a democratically elected government to replace the country’s military junta.

President-elect Htin Kyaw submitted the names to the parliament for a formal review and approval by legislators on Wednesday, after which the Cabinet positions of the ministers will be decided.

Notable, and top on the list, is Suu Kyi, who was not able to become president because of a constitutional block, even though she led her party to a landslide win in general elections last November.

It was widely rumored that Suu Kyi will become the foreign minister, but that’s far from certain because if she were to take that post she would have to give up her parliament seat and end party activities.

“I doubt that Aung San Suu Kyi would take the position of the foreign minister,” said Toe Kyaw Hlaign, a political analyst. “Also, working as a foreign minister requires a lot of time traveling around the world. She will have to do a lot of international relations and overseas trips, and she won’t have the time to exercise control over the government,” he told The Associated Press.

Suu Kyi has said in the past that she will be “above the president” and indirectly govern the country from behind the scenes.

Still, Suu Kyi’s entry into the government is a remarkable turn of fortunes not only for the Nobel Peace laureate but also for the country, which had been under an iron-fisted military rule since 1962. For decades the junta kept Myanmar in isolation and economic stagnation while refusing to listen to international counsel or homegrown demands for democracy.

Suu Kyi came to prominence in 1988 when popular protests were building up. The junta simply crushed the protests that had turned into anti-government riots, killing thousands of people and placing Suu Kyi under house arrest in 1989.

The general did call elections in 1990 but refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won overwhelmingly. Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later.

As Myanmar continued to wallow under military rule, Suu Kyi was released and re-arrested several times. The junta finally started loosening its grip on power in 2010, allowing elections that were won by a military-allied party after the NLD boycotted the polls as unfair.

YANGON (TIP): Myanmar’s feared former junta leader Than Shwe has endorsed his one-time nemesis Aung San Suu Kyi as a “future leader” of the country, according to his grandson.

Than Shwe, a postal clerk turned general who ran the country with an iron fist for nearly two decades until 2010, met with democracy champion Suu Kyi on December 17.

Her party is preparing for power after November’s massive election win. The talks mark a dramatic turnaround in fortune for Suu Kyi, who was kept under house arrest for years by the 82-year-old retired general for leading the democracy movement against his army.

Aung San Suu Kyi is sending her newly elected MPs on a crash course on Myanmar’s parliament as they prepare to take their seats for the first time early next year, her party said today.

The veteran campaigner’s National League for Democracy party won a thunderous majority in the landmark November polls that are set to tip the balance of power away from the military for the first time in decades.

Some 390 NLD MPs will flood into parliament in February, mostly political newcomers with no experience of the Naypyidaw legislature, which itself has only been in operation since a quasi-civilian regime replaced military rule in 2011.

“The new MPs do know about politics but they need to learn more about the parliament,” party spokesman Win Htein said. He said a series of classes would teach the budding politicians about the operations of the legislature as well other key topics like the country’s controversial army-drafted constitution to help “improve their performance” as MPs.

The tutorials will be held in batches in Naypyidaw and later in Yangon in the coming weeks as the NLD prepares for its historic new role after a quarter century of opposition to military rule.

Suu Kyi and her party will face a slew of challenges when they take the helm, building on the reforms of recent years to revive Myanmar’s fortunes after nearly half a century of isolation and mismanagement under the former junta.

They will also have to work with the military, which continues to hold a quarter of parliament seats and control over key ministries. But NLD MPs hoping to hear educational pearls of wisdom from Suu Kyi herself will be disappointed.

YAGON/HPAKANT(MYANMAR) (TIP): : A disregard for the rule of law in the jade mining industry in Myanmar had made accidents such as the landslide that killed more than 100 people at the weekend a common occurrence, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi said on Thursday.

Authorities called off search efforts late on Wednesday in Hpakant, with as many as 100 people estimated still missing after a huge slag heap of mining debris gave way on Saturday and buried a makeshift settlement of migrant workers as they slept.

“As far as we understand, it was the fifth similar incident this year,” Suu Kyi told Radio Free Asia’s Myanmar language service during an interview broadcast on Thursday.

“This sort of accident is common just because there is no rule of law. It also reflects lack of due consideration for the safety of people’s life and property.”

They were Suu Kyi’s first comments on the disaster in Hpakant, where rescue workers recovered 114 bodies before giving up the search.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which swept to victory in the Nov. 8 elections, has called for stricter safety measures and increased government oversight of the industry in the wake of the disaster.

Reforming the sector will be difficult. The lucrative jade industry is dominated by companies linked to leaders of the previous military government, ethnic armies and businessmen with close connections to the former junta.

Hpakant is at the heart of the jade mining region and produces some of the world’s highest quality jade, but workers, many migrants from other parts of the country, operate in perilous conditions for little pay.

Some work for mining companies, but many others pick over the massive debris dumps that are excavated from vast mines. They hope to find precious stones that may have been passed over. Landslides on the debris dumps are common, especially during the heavy monsoon rains, but rarely this deadly.

Htin Kyaw, a local police officer who was assisting with rescue efforts, said that only 80 of the 114 bodies had been identified. Authorities would now focus on finding safe shelter for survivors, he said.

“Now, we are trying to help relocate those who escaped the landslide to safer places,” he said.

Exactly how many people were sleeping in the huts and tents is unknown, but Tint Soe, who was elected as lawmaker for the NLD to the lower house for the area, said that he estimated the death toll to be between 170 to 200 people.

SITTWE, MYANMAR (TIP): Noor Bagum would have liked to have voted for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy
(NLD) but, like the majority of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, she took no part in the historic election the Nobel laureate won by a landslide.

Stripped of their right to cast ballots by the current government, many Rohingya now hope that, with the NLD able to rule largely on its own, a Suu Kyi-led government will work to restore their lives and many of the rights they have lost.

“I hope that things will get a little bit better,” said Noor Bagum, a 28-year-old mother-of-five, whose village was destroyed during violence between Buddhists and Muslims that swept through Myanmar’s western Rakhine State in 2012.

Dealing with the Rohingya will be one of the most controversial – and unavoidable – of a long list of issues Suu Kyi will inherit from the current government.

Feted by many in the West for her role as champion of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement during long years of military rule, she has been criticized overseas, and by some in Myanmar, for saying little about the abuses faced by the group.

When an NLD government takes power in March, she will come under mounting international pressure to take a definitive stance in their defence.

But speaking out for the Rohingya would carry a political cost at home. The group is widely disliked in Myanmar, where they are seen as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh -including by some in Suu Kyi’s party. She risks haemorrhaging support by taking up the cause of the beleaguered minority.

LOCAL RIVAL

The NLD also faces a powerful local rival -the Arakan National Party (ANP) – that has been accused of stoking anti-Muslim sentiment and has called for the deportation of Rohingya. The ANP won most of the 29 national level seats in Rakhine and took decisive control of the state’s regional assembly.

“We’ll be damned if we do, and we’ll be damned if we don’t,” said Win Htein, a senior NLD leader, adding that standing up for the Rohingya would give the ANP “ample reason to criticize the NLD”.

Although many have lived in Myanmar for generations, the Rohingya are not one of the 135 ethnic groups recognised under the country’s citizenship law and are thus entitled to only limited rights.

HOPONE, Myanmar: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi over the weekend appealed to ethnic rebel groups in nationwide ceasefire talks with the government not to rush the deal, but work slowly on an agreement that would ensure long lasting peace and stability. The Nobel peace laureate’s comments come ahead of a meeting between Myanmar President Thein Sein and ethnic rebel groups on Wednesday in the capital Naypyitaw to discuss a draft of the long-discussed ceasefire proposal.

LOIKAW (Myanmar) (TIP): Thousands thronged to see Aung San Suu Kyi’s first rally on Sept 10 as the Myanmar opposition leader launched her bid for historic November elections by touring a remote eastern region seen as a stronghold of the ruling party.

Suu Kyi urged voters to think of future generations in her debut campaign speech to a rapt audience in Kayah state, many wearing the colourful traditional dress of local ethnic groups, as her party’s first nationwide election bid in a quarter of a century gathers steam.

“What kind of country will our children grow up in?What kind of education system (will they have), what kind of healthcare system? Will they have security? We have to think about these things,” she said.

Myanmar is set to go to the polls on November 8 in what many hope will be the country’s freest elections in decades as it emerges from years of military rule.

But while the army has stepped back from outright control, handing over to a quasi-civilian government in 2011, it retains deep roots in the political system, with a quarter of the legislature ring-fenced for unelected soldiers.

Kayah is seen as a stronghold of the army-backed ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which currently holds every seat in the state after local ethnic parties were sidelined in flawed 2010 elections also boycotted by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). The veteran democracy campaigner, whose own constituency is in the rural hamlet of Kawhmu near Yangon, has predicted her party will win a majority in the polls. She has started her campaign by holding rallies in areas of Kayah where president’s office minister Soe Thane and chief peace negotiator Aung Min are set to fight for election as independents.

Myanmar’s seven ethnic minority states will be a key campaign battleground for the elections.

Around a third of the country’s population identify as one of the country’s 135 minority groups, which have their own languages and traditions.

Many of these ethnic regions have fought bitter wars for greater autonomy since the country’s independence from British colonial rule in 1948, and Myanmar’s government has placed a nationwide ceasefire at the heart of its reform drive. Those efforts have produced a ceasefire document — seen as a historic first step in the peace process — but stuttered again this week over lingering mistrust and disagreements over which rebel factions should be allowed to sign the deal.

STRASBOURG (France): Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate and long-time political prisoner, has finally collected the European Union’s 1990 Sakharov prize for human rights. In October 21 stirring ceremony, European Parliament President Martin Schulz said that “23 years later, we welcome you here and it is a great moment.” Suu Kyi has persevered for decades in promoting democracy. She and her National League for Democracy party were frozen out of politics by the military regime that governed until 2011, and last year she and several dozen party members won parliamentary seats. However, a clause in the army-dictated constitution disqualifies her from becoming president. She is now seeking the constitutional changes that would allow her to seek the presidency.