Australian Myanmar Doctors in Chaimai

Generation Wave ၏ “မ်ဳိးဆက္လိႈင္း” ထြက္ၿပီ

အာဏာရွင္ဆန္႔က်င္ေရးလႈပ္ရွားမႈတြင္ တခ်ဳိ႕က ဂီတကုိ အသုံးျပဳၾကသည္။ စစ္အစုိးရကုိ လူငယ္ႀကိဳက္ ေခတ္ေပၚ သီခ်င္းမ်ားျဖင့္ အံတုသည့္ Generation Wave ေခၚ မ်ဳိးဆက္သစ္လူငယ္မ်ား အစည္းအရုံးက သီခ်င္းသစ္ ၇ ပုဒ္ ထပ္မံ ဖန္တီး ထုတ္ေ၀လုိက္သည္။ စက္တင္ဘာ ၂၄ ရက္ေန႔မွ စတင္ၿပီး ထုိသီခ်င္းမ်ားကုိ မိတ္ဆက္ေၾကာင္း ၎တုိ႔၏ ၀က္ဆုိက္တြင္ ေဖာ္ျပထားသည္။









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An 'Election' Burma's People Don't Need

By U Win Tin

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Much attention has been focused on Sen. James Webb's recent visit to my country and his meetings with Senior Gen. Than Shwe and incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. I understand Webb's desire to seek a meaningful dialogue with the Burmese ruling authorities. Unfortunately, his efforts have been damaging to our democracy movement and focus on the wrong issue -- the potential for an "election" that Webb wants us to consider participating in next year as part of a long-term political strategy. But the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent.

In our last free election, the Burmese people rejected military rule in a landslide, awarding our National League for Democracy party more than 80 percent of the seats in parliament. Yet the military has refused to allow the NLD to form a government. In the 19 years since that election, Burmese democracy activists have faced imprisonment, intimidation, torture and death as they have peacefully voiced demands for justice, individual and ethnic rights, and a democratic form of government that is representative of all Burma's people.

While never ending our struggle for democracy, the NLD has continually sought to engage the regime and open a dialogue -- based on peace and mutual respect -- that could address Burma's critical political as well as social problems. Make no mistake -- these two issues are linked. Burma was once the rice bowl of Asia. Today, because of the regime's destructive economic policies and its use of oppression to maintain military rule, Burma is a shattered, poverty-stricken country.

The regime is seeking to place a veneer of legitimacy on itself through showcase "elections" and claiming that "disciplined democracy" will be instituted next year. Yet in May 2008, just days after a massive cyclone devastated Burma and killed more than 100,000 people, the regime used a farcical process to claim that 93 percent of voters chose to adopt a constitution that permanently enshrines military rule and prevents those with undefined "foreign ties" from holding public office -- catch-all provisions that would bar Suu Kyi and democracy activists from seeking office.

Some international observers view next year's planned elections as an opportunity. But under the circumstances imposed by the military's constitution, the election will be a sham. We will not sacrifice the democratic principles for which many millions of Burmese have marched, been arrested, been tortured and died to participate in a process that holds no hope whatsoever for bringing freedom to our country.

The demands of the NLD are reasonable. In April we issued another declaration to encourage engagement with the military that called for the release of all political prisoners, a full review of the constitution, reopening of all NLD offices and the right to freely organize. The regime's answer is the continued jailing of Suu Kyi and 2,000 other activists, massive military offensives against ethnic groups and the enforcement of rules to gag democracy.

How can the international community play a meaningful role? First, officials such as Webb should stop fear-mongering about China. His language about containing China, and working with Burma's regime to do so, is based on an outdated and unrealistic thesis. Suu Kyi rejected such notions by informing Webb that "we will not deal with anyone with fear and insecurity. We will deal with anyone, China, America, India, equally and friendly. As we can't choose our neighbors, we understand that we need to have a good relationship with China." Second, the NLD encourages other countries and international organizations to engage with Burma's military leaders to persuade them to engage with us and Burma's ethnic groups. The United States and many other nations have imposed sanctions on Burma. That is their decision and in keeping with their justified solidarity with the democratic values that we all hold so dear. If the regime genuinely engages with the NLD and ethnic representatives, releases political prisoners, ceases attacks against ethnic minorities and takes additional steps to build a true democratic state, these sanctions will be repealed at the right time.

In the meantime, let no one doubt our resolve. The NLD is a reflection of Burmese society. We will not be cowed or coerced into participating in a fatally flawed political process that robs the Burmese people of the freedom for which we struggle. We stand ready to engage, but we are more than willing to continue our struggle for the democratic values that so many have given their lives and their freedom to achieve.

U Win Tin is a member of the Central Executive Committee and a founder of Burma's National League for Democracy party. He was a political prisoner from 1989 to 2008.

Birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi - 2009

U.S. Department of State
Birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi
Ian Kelly
Department Spokesman
Washington, DC
June 18, 2009

The United States sends its best wishes to Aung San Suu Kyi on the occasion of her 64th birthday on June 19. She continues to inspire those who support freedom and democracy in Burma and around the world. Sadly, though, Aung San Suu Kyi will once again spend her birthday in confinement – isolated from her family, friends, and the Burmese people – as Burmese authorities pursue unjustified and indefensible charges against her.

We call on the Burmese authorities to drop those charges and release Aung San Suu Kyi immediately. Aung San Suu Kyi has dedicated her life to achieving democratic change and promoting progress in Burma. We will continue our efforts to support that change, and we salute the courage of Aung San Suu Kyi and the more than 2,100 other political prisoners who have sacrificed so much for a noble cause. We, along with all of her admirers in Burma and abroad, look forward to the day when she will be able to celebrate her birthday in freedom.

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Stand up for your right

" BOB MARLEY ရဲ႕ လြတ္လပ္ခြင့္ အေၾကာင္း ဖြဲ႔ႏြဲ႔ထားတဲ့ သီခ်င္းေတြကုိ ႀကိဳက္ပါတယ္။ အထူးသျဖင့္ Stand up for your right (သင္တို႔ အခြင့္အေရးမ်ားအတြက္ – ႏိူးထၾကေလာ့) ဆိုတဲ့ သီခ်င္းကုိ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလးကုိ ႀကိဳက္ပါတယ္။ - -"

Suu and Bill Richardson talk ( 01

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ႏွင့္ ဘီလ္ရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္ စကား၀ုိင္း အပုိင္း (၁)

မတ္ ၁၄၊ ၂၀၀၉

ေအာက္ေဖာ္ျပပါတို႔သည္ (၁၅-၂-၉၄) ေန႔ရက္၌ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အား အေမရိကန္ ေအာက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ အမတ္ ဘီလ္ရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္၊ UNDP ကုလသမဂၢ ဖြံ႔ၿဖိဳးမႈ အစီအစဥ္မွ ေဂ်ဟန္ရာဟင္မ္ႏွင့္ New York Times (NYT) သတင္းေထာက္ ဖီးလစ္ပ္ရွယ္ႏြန္တို႔ (၃)ဦး သြားေရာက္ ေတြ႔ဆံု ေမးျမန္းခန္းမွ ေကာက္ႏႈတ္ခ်က္မ်ားျဖစ္သည္။

မိတ္ဆက္နိဒါန္း

စတင္ မိတ္ဆက္ၾကၿပီးသည္ႏွင့္ တၿပိဳင္နက္ ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲသည္ အက်ဥ္းက်ေနၾကေသာ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္ အဖြဲ႔ဝင္တို႔၏ ကံၾကမၼာဘက္သို႔ ဦးတည္ကာ ေျပာဆိုၾကပါသည္။ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ အက်ဥ္းခံ ကိုမင္းကုိႏုိင္၊ မသီတာ၊ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေဟာင္း ဦးတင္ဦး (၄င္းအား အက်ဥ္းရံုး စီရင္ခ်က္ခ်ေသာ “သားပုိက္ေကာင္ခံုရံုး” အေၾကာင္းလည္း ေမးေသး၏) ဟံသာဝတီ ဦးဝင္းတင္၊ ေဒါက္တာေအာင္ခင္ဆင့္ (ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ ေဒါက္တာယုိကိုတာက အမ်ဳိးသား ညီလာခံ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ ေဒါက္တာေအာင္ခင္ဆင့္အား ေထာင္ထဲ၌ ေတြ႔ဆံုခဲ့သည္ကုိ သိေနသည္) ဦးဝင္းထိန္ႏွင့္ ကိုျမင့္စုိးတုိ႔ အေၾကာင္းကုိ ေမးျမန္းေျပာဆိုၾကပါသည္။ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ႏုိဘယ္လ္ဆုရွင္က ထုိ ကုိျမင့္စုိးသည္ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္ လူငယ္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ အျဖစ္ ေဆာင္ရြက္ခဲ့ေသာ ကိုျမင့္စုိးဟုတ္၊ မဟုတ္ပင္ ေသခ်ာေအာင္ ေမးျမန္းပါေသးသည္။

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ အျခားေသာ အဖဲြ႔ခ်ဳပ္ လူငယ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားလည္း မည္သို႔မည္ပံု ျဖစ္ေနၾကသည္ကုိ သိလုိေနေပသည္။ မစၥတာ ရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္ အေနျဖင့္ အင္းစိန္ေထာင္ထဲသို႔ သြားေရာက္ၿပီးေနာက္ တဖန္သူမထံ ျပန္လည္၍ အက်ဳိးအေၾကာင္း ျပန္ၾကားေပးရန္ ေဒၚစုက ေမတၱာရပ္ခံပါသည္။ ေအာက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ အမတ္က န ဝ တ သည္ သူ၏ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံခ်က္မ်ားကုိ လက္ခံလုိက္ေလ်ာေၾကာင္း မွတ္ခ်က္ျပဳေသာအခါ ေဒၚစုက ခ်က္ခ်င္းပင္ “ဒီလိုဆို ခပ္မ်ားမ်ားေလး ေမတၱာရပ္ခံပါလား” ဟု ဆိုလိုက္သည္။

ထုိ႔ေနာက္ မစၥတာရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္က ယခုသူ႔အေနျဖင့္ ေဒၚစု ခင္ပြန္း မိသားစုတို႔ထံမွ စာမ်ား၊ ေအာက္စဖုိ ့ တကၠသုိလ္ စိန္ဂြၽနး္ ေကာလိပ္ ဝါဒင္ ထံမွ စာႏွင့္ ေဂ်ာ့ခ်ဲေတာင္းတကၠသုိလ္ ပါေမာကၡ ေဒးဗစ္စတုိင္းဘတ္ ထံမွ စာမ်ား ယူေဆာင္လာပါေၾကာင္း ေျပာျပပါသည္။ ဤ ခရီးအတြက္ ျပင္ဆင္ေနစဥ္ ကုလသမဂၢဌာနခ်ဳပ္တြင္ ေန႔လယ္စာ စားပြဲ က်င္းပျဖစ္ခဲ့ေၾကာင္းလည္း ေျပာျပပါသည္။

ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲစကားဝုိင္း

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္။ ။ (ယူအင္န္ဒီပီ ဌာေနကုိယ္စားလွယ္ မစၥတာရာဟင္မ္ဘက္သို႔ လွည့္၍) ပါေမာကၡယိုကုိတာ မလာႏုိင္မွန္း က်မ သိေပမယ့္ ကုလသမဂၢ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တဦးဦးကုိ ဒီေတြ႔ဆံုပြဲမွာ ပါဝင္ေစခ်င္ခဲ့တာပါ။ က်မကုိ ထိန္းသိမ္းထားတဲ့ ဥပေဒအရ က်မဟာ သံတမန္မ်ား၊ ႏုိင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္သူမ်ားမွအပ က်န္ဘယ္ပုဂၢိဳလ္မ်ဳိးနဲ႔မဆုိ ေတြ႔ဆုံခြင့္ ရိွရပါ့မယ္။ အခု ေရာက္ရွိလာၾကတဲ့ လူႀကီးမင္းတုိ႔ သံုးေယာက္ဟာ တကယ္ေတာ့ အဲဒီ ဥပေဒအရ ေတြ႔ဆံုဖုိ႔ တားျမစ္ထားခံရသူေတြ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီအေျခအေနေတြအရ ကုလသမဂၢကုိ တမင္တကာ အေသေရ ညိွဳးႏြမ္းေစမယ့္ ဘယ္လုပ္ေဆာင္ခ်က္မ်ဳိးမွာမွ က်မ မပါဝင္ခ်င္ပါဘူး။

မစၥတာရာဟင္မ္ (UNDP) ။ ။ ခင္ဗ်ား စိတ္ပူပန္တ့ဲအတြက္ က်ေနာ္ ေက်းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္။ ကုလသမဂၢ အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမွဴးက ခင္ဗ်ားကို ေပးလုိက္တဲ့ ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေရးနဲ႔ အတြင္းေရး မွာၾကားခ်က္ေတြ က်ေနာ့္ဆီမွာ ပါလာပါတယ္။

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္။ ။ အေထြေထြအတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္ကို က်မရဲ႕ အေလးအျမတ္ျပဳတ့ဲအေၾကာင္း ႏႈတ္ခြန္းဆက္သခ်က္ကုိ ေက်းဇူးျပဳၿပီး ပုိ႔ေပးပါ။ ကုလသမဂၢရဲ႕ က႑ဟာ အလြန္ ေရးႀကီးတယ္လုိ႔ က်မ ယံုၾကည္တ့ဲအေၾကာင္းလည္း ရွင္းလင္း တင္ျပေပးပါရွင္။ လြတ္လပ္တဲ့ သတင္းဌာနက ကုိယ္စားလွယ္တဦး အခုလုိ ပါရွိလာတာလည္း အင္မတန္ ေကာင္းမြန္တ့ဲအေၾကာင္း က်မ ယံုၾကည္ပါတယ္။ က်မကုိ အခုလို အက်ယ္ခ်ဳပ္ ခ်ထားတဲ့ ဥပေဒရဲ႕ တရားဝင္မႈကုိ က်မ အသိအမွတ္ မျပဳပါဘူး။ ဒီကိစၥဟာ လံုးဝ မတရားမႈႀကီးတခုပဲ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ေအာက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ မစၥတာရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္က ဒီကို လာႏိုင္တယ္ ဆိုရင္ ကုလသမဂၢကုိ ကိုယ္စားျပဳသူလည္း လာႏုိင္ရမွာေပါ့။ မစၥတာရွယ္ႏြန္ဆိုရင္ အခ်ိန္အခါမေရြး လာသင့္တာေပါ့။ တကယ္လုိ႔ အိမ္ဝင္းထဲဝင္ခြင့္ မရရင္ က်မရဲ႕ ျခံေပါက္ဝမွာ ရွင္ထုိင္ေနရံုေပါ့။

မစၥတာရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္။ ။ က်ေနာ္ ကုလသမဂၢ ဌာနခ်ဳပ္ကုိ ေရာက္ေနတုန္း အေမရိကန္သံအမတ္ႀကီး အလ္ဘရိုက္က ေနလယ္စာ တည္ခင္းၿပီး ဧည့္ခံပြဲ က်င္းပေပးပါတယ္။ အဲဒီပြဲကုိ တက္ေရာက္လာတဲ့ သံအမတ္ အေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားကိုလည္း က်ေနာ့္ရဲ႕ အခု ဒီလာမယ့္ခရီးစဥ္ အေၾကာင္းကုိ ႀကိဳတင္ ေျပာျပႏုိင္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီပြဲမွာပဲ ကုလသမဂၢ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးဆိုင္ရာ ေကာ္မရွင္မင္းႀကီး အသစ္ျဖစ္္တဲ့ အာယာလာလာဆိုကို ခင္ဗ်ားအတြက္ သဝဏ္လႊာတရပ္ ပါးေပးလုိက္ဖုိ႔လည္း က်ေနာ္ ေမတၱာရပ္ခံခဲ့ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ့္နာမည္ကုိ ၾကည့္ရင္ ခင္ဗ်ား သတိျပဳမိမွာေတာ့ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ က်ေနာ္ဟာ တကယ္ေတာ့ စပိန္ႏြယ္တဲ့ ကျပားတေယာက္ပါပဲ။ က်ေနာ့္အေမဟာ စပိန္လူမ်ဳိးတဦးပါ။ က်ေနာ္ ကိုယ္စားျပဳထားတဲ့ မဲဆႏၵနယ္ဟာဆိုရင္ အေမရိကန္ တႏိုင္ငံလံုးမွာရွိတဲ့ မဲဆႏၵနယ္ေတြနဲ႔ စာလုိက္ရင္ အေမရိကန္ႏုိင္ငံသား လူနီအင္ဒီယန္း အမ်ားဆံုး ပါဝင္တဲ့ အရပ္ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ခင္ဗ်ားအတြက္ အီနန္-အင္ဒီယန္း လူမ်ဳိးစုေတြရဲ႕ အႏုပညာလက္ရာ ေျမအုိးေတြကို လက္ေဆာင္အျဖစ္ ယူခဲ့ပါတယ္။

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္။ ။ က်မဟာ မာရီယာလာဘုိတုိ (စပိန္)ရဲ႕ လက္မႈပညာေတြနဲ႔ေတာ့ နီးစပ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ က်မရဲ႕ ေမေမ နယူးမက္ဆီကို ျပည္နယ္က အျပန္ ယူလာတဲ့ ေျမအိုးလက္ရာေတြကို က်မ မွတ္မိေနပါေသးတယ္။

မစၥတာရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္။ ။ မိတ္ဆက္တဲ့အေနနဲ႔ တင္ျပရရင္ က်ေနာ္ဟာ ေအာက္လႊတ္ေတာ္မွာရွိတဲ့ အမတ္အမ်ားစု (ဒီမုိကရက္ အမတ္အမ်ားစု) ရဲ႕ ဒုတိယ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္ ဒီကို လာခဲ့တဲ့ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ကေတာ့ ခင္းဗ်ားကုိ ေတြ႔ၿပီး အေမရိကန္ ျပည္သူလူထု၊ ေနာက္ၿပီး အေမရိကန္ ကြန္ဂရက္ လႊတ္ေတာ္တရပ္လံုး (ေအာက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ႏွင့္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ႏွစ္ရပ္ေပါင္း) နဲ႔ သမၼတႀကီး ကလင္တန္ စသည္တုိ႔ အေနနဲ႔ ခင္ဗ်ားကုိေရာ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ ဒီမိုကေရစီအေရး၊ လူအခြင့္အေရးတုိ႔ အတြက္ကုိပါ ေထာက္ခံ အားေပးေနပါတယ္ ဆုိတ့ဲအေၾကာင္း ထုတ္ေဖာ္ ေျပာၾကားဖို႔ပဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္။ ။ တကယ္ေတာ့ ရွင္ဆိုလိုတာက ဒီမိုကေရစီ လႈပ္ရွားမႈႀကီး တရပ္လံုးကုိ ဆုိလုိတာပဲလို႔ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ပါတယ္။ က်မအေနနဲ႔ ကိုယ္ေရးကိုယ္တာ ေထာက္ခံ အားေပးတာမ်ဳိးကို မလိုလားပါဘူး။ ဒီမိုကေရစီေရးနဲ႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈအတြက္ကုိ ေထာက္ခံ အားေပးၾကဖို႔ကုိပဲ လုိလားပါတယ္။

မစၥတာရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္။ ။ ဟုိေန႔ မနက္တုန္းက က်ေနာ္ ဒု-ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီး ခင္ညြန္႔နဲ႔ ေတြဆံုပြဲမွာ ခင္ဗ်ားနဲ႔ တကြ ႏုိင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသား အားလံုးကို ျခြင္းခ်က္မရွိ လႊတ္ေပးဖို႔ တုိက္တြန္းခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ေနာက္ၿပီး ဒီမိုကေရစီ စနစ္ဆီကို ေျပာင္းလဲေပးေရး အတြက္လည္း တုိက္တြန္းခဲ့ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္ ဒီကို ေရာက္လာတာဟာလည္း ဒီမုိကေရစီ လႈပ္ရွားမႈနဲ႔ ခင္ဗ်ားကို ေထာက္ခံ အားေပးေၾကာင္း ျပသဖို႔ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္နဲ႔အတူ သမၼတႀကီး ကလင္တန္ ကုိယ္တုိင္ ခင္ဗ်ားဆီကို ေရးတဲ့ စာတေစာင္လည္း ပါလာပါတယ္။ ဒီစာထဲမွာ သမၼတႀကီးနဲ႔ ဇနီးျဖစ္သူ ဟီလာရီတုိ႔ရဲ႕ ခင္ဗ်ားအတြက္ ေကာင္းခ်ီး မဂၤလာနဲ႔ ဆုမြန္ေကာင္း ေတာင္းခ်က္ေတြ ပါပါတယ္။

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္။ ။ ေက်းဇူးတင္လွပါတယ္။ ကြန္ဂရက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားကုိလည္း က်မက ေက်းဇူးတင္ပါေၾကာင္း ေျပာၾကားေပးပါ။ အထူးသျဖင့္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္က မၾကာခင္က ခ်မွတ္လုိက္တဲ့ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ အတြက္ အထူး အားရပါေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ ေက်းဇူးတင္ေၾကာင္းေပါ့ရွင္။

မစၥတာရစ္ခ်ဒ္ဆန္။ ။ က်ေနာ္က အတြင္းေရးမွဴး (၁) ဒု ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီး ခင္ညြန္ကုိ ေျပာတ့ဲအခါမွာ က်ေနာ္ အခုလာခဲ့တဲ့ အေၾကာင္းရင္းက အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုဟာ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံရဲ႕ ဒီမုိကေရစီေရးနဲ႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးကိစၥေတြကို ေထာက္ခံ အားေပးမွာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ထင္ထင္ ရွားရွား သိသာဖုိ႔ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္ဆုိတာရယ္၊ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔က ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသား အားလံုးကုိလည္း လႊတ္ေပးေစခ်င္ေၾကာင္း ဆုိတာရယ္ ေျပာျပလိုက္ပါတယ္။ ခင္ဗ်ားကို အခုလို က်ေနာ္ ေတြ႔ဆံုခြင့္ ဘယ္လုိရပါလိမ့္လို႔ ခင္ဗ်ား ေမးခ်င္ေနမွာပါ။ မႏွစ္ ၾသဂုတ္လက က်ေနာ္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံကုိ တေခါက္ေရာက္ခဲ့တုန္းက ခင္ဗ်ားနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ဆံုခြင္ရဖုိ႔ ဒု- ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးခင္ညြန္႔ကုိ ျပင္းျပင္း ထန္ထန္ ေတာင္းဆုိခဲ့ဖူးပါတယ္။ အဲဒီေတာင္းဆိုမႈရဲ႕ ရလဒ္ပဲလုိ႔ က်ေနာ္ ထင္ပါတယ္။

ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္။ ။ ေက်းဇူးျပဳ၍ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ (တျခားကိစၥေတြကုိပါ) ေတာင္းဆုိေပးပါ။

(ဆက္ရန္)

( ဘာသာျပန္သူ - တာရာေ၀ယံ )

New Year

A New Year and Some Old Idiots

Wait, don't smile too fast. They are official...idiots!!

Regime Frees Longest-serving Political Prisoner

Burma’s longest-serving political prisoner, 79-year-old journalist Win Tin, has been freed after 19 years behind bars.

He said: "I will keep fighting until the emergence of democracy in this country."

Win Tin, formerly editor of the influential newspaper Hanthawaddy, vice-chairman of the Writers’ Union, and an active participant in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, was arrested in 1989 and sentenced to 20 years on charges that included “anti-government propaganda.”

Win Tin won international recognition for his pro-democracy involvement, and in 2001 he was awarded the World Association of Newspapers Golden Pen of Freedom and the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

He suffered heart and prostate problems during his imprisonment, and two rights organizations, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association, charged that he had been denied “proper medical treatment” and the opportunity to write.

Since 2006, he had been denied visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The freed political prisoners included another well-known writer, Aung Soe Myint, and four members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD)—Khin Maung Swe, May Win Myint, Win Htein and Than Nyein.

Around 2,000 political prisoners are now believed to be detained in Burma’s prisons.

The Than Shwe Virus

The Burmese Regime’s Cyber Offensive


Marking the anniversaries of the student uprising on September 18, 1988, and the Buddhist monk-led demonstrations last year, the Burmese junta has launched another offensive—a cyber attack—on The Irrawaddy and several other Burmese news agencies in exile.

We at The Irrawaddy quickly learned the attack was linked to the anniversary of the “Saffron Revolution.” Burma’s military authorities obviously did not want any similar sentiments this year and, once again, shot down their enemies.

Exiled media groups, bloggers, reporters inside Burma and citizen journalists played major roles in September 2007 in highlighting the brutal suppression of the monks and their supporters in the streets of Rangoon.

Live images, eye-witness reports, updates and photographs landed on our desks every few seconds. The outside world was able to witness the terror of the Burmese regime on TV and on the Internet.

And so the military regime struck back. On September 27, all connections to the Internet were closed down for four days as the authorities tried to conceal their crimes.

So it was no surprise that they attempted the same tactic this year.

On Tuesday, we received reports that the Internet in Burma was running slowly, suggesting a concerted effort to prevent information from going in or out of the country.

Then on Wednesday, our colleagues and subscribers in the US, Japan and Malaysia notified our Thailand-based office that they were unable to access our Web site.

A few hours later, I-NET, the largest host server in Thailand, confirmed: “Your site has been under distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack since around 5pm.”

I-NET finally decided to shut down our server.

Singlehop, which hosts The Irrawaddy’s mirror site, explained: “Your server is under a major attack. Due to the size of the attack our network engineers had to null route the IP to negate it. When the attack has subsided we will remove the null route.”

Singlehop told us that the cyber attack was very sophisticated.

Currently, our Web site is disabled and we have been forced to launch our daily news in blogs. Fellow exiled news agencies Democratic Voice of Burma and New Era were also disabled.

The attack on our Web sites is persistent and believed to be manually launched from various locations - the attacks on our site including mirror site continue.

It is no secret that in recent years Burma’s regime sent an army of students to Russia for cyber warfare training. They also enjoy a large budget to hire cyber criminals overseas to attack exiled media Web sites.

Burmese dissidents believe that some of the cyber criminals working for the regime are based in the US, Japan and Europe. One IP address identified in the current attack was in The Netherlands.

In Burma, Internet cafes are not safe. They are the substations of subversive activity. In some Internet cafes, users have to provide ID, informers observe students playing video games, and Buddhist monks complain they are treated like criminals if they ask to the Internet.

In this increasing climate of fear where Internet users are frequently suspected of working for exiled media, people in Burma there are naturally afraid to communicate.

Reporters, editors and publishers based in Rangoon are under increasing pressure. Earlier this month, police apprehended some reporters for allegedly working for The Irrawaddy, though they were not.

Our stringers remain undetected, though they say they are nervous.

My friend, a foreign journalist who just came out of Burma, said that the mood was very tense. “It is hard for our Burmese colleagues to report,” she said. “But they are very brave.”

Over the last 20 years, the ongoing battle between Burma’s regime and the pro-democratic forces has shifted from the streets to the jungle and now to the computer.

The Burmese junta will not give in—rather, they will equip themselves and become more sophisticated.

Acknowledging the magnitude of the cyber attack against us, we at The Irrawaddy have to build stronger firewalls and more effective systems to prevent inevitable attacks in the future.

However, the junta is mistaken. Ultimately, the flow of information is unstoppable. The Burmese regime’s cyber criminals cannot penetrate the strongest firewall of all—the spirit of desire for change.

September protests

What a Shame, Burmese Generals !

	Protesters remain at the protest site for the third day.

Thai PM won't use force

The Thai prime minister has said he won't use force to evict the thousands of protesters who have been occupying the main government buildings in Bangkok since Tuesday.

The protesters are demanding that Samak Sundaravej step down, accusing him of acting under orders from the exiled former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

	Thais speak out on protests

Riot police have pulled back from Government House. Mr Samak says he has the legal justification he needs to evict the demonstrators there, but wanted to avoid bloodshed.

He said he had a sword, but had chosen not to use it.

20 years ago

20 years ago, How will we manage if we get the similar situation again?

The 2010 Election Challenges

Burma's conflict is moving into a new phase of intractability. In other words, the conflict will become institutionalized in 2010.

The military has unilaterally set the rules of the new game with the ratification of its constitution and is preparing to hold elections in 2010 as part of its seven-step “roadmap.” But the new constitution will not bring about much-needed state-building, a process in which all parties rally together and make their voices heard.

Instead of entering into the state-building process, Burma ranked 12th out of 177 states in order of their vulnerability to violent internal conflict and societal deterioration in the 2008 “failed state” index, presented by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace. In the 2007 index Burma was designated 14th in failed state rankings. The country is crumbling.

"I can't really see anything happening that will be positive for the country's better future at this stage," said David Steinberg, a Burma expert from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

The incompatible goals of the military elites and the opposition, including ethnic minorities, will not be transformed by the new constitution and the 2010 election.

The opposition will continue to fight for the goal of national reconciliation but is likely to find itself ineffective within the new institutional procedures that favor the military's exclusive domination. As result, the opposition will have to pursue alternative course of actions—such as public mobilization and international advocacy.

On the other hand, since the military continues to impose its one-sided goal of exclusive domination with the new constitution and elections it cannot expect to minimize the cost of conflict. The most visible costs of this approach will be the continuation of international isolation and further damage to the country's economy.

"We do not accept the junta's unilateral solution," said Aung Din, a former political prisoner and executive director of the US Campaign for Burma. "Until and unless there is a negotiated political settlement, made by the military, the National League for Democracy led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and ethnic representatives together, the US-led western sanctions against the junta will not be lifted."

Sein Htay, a Burmese economist in exile, goes further, saying: "No matter whether there are western economic sanctions or not, the regime's policy failure and mismanagement will damage the prospect of development and public welfare. The country's economy will continue to worsen after 2010."

The threat of renewed public uprisings will still be present, since the military's intentions do not facilitate a reconciliation of interests. More repression will result, increasing existing grievances and public hostility towards the military.

"As the generals will use the same method of coercion against the people even after 2010, the existing public anger that reached an unprecedented high level during the crackdown against monk-led protests last year and the regime's negligence of cyclone relief in May will then be compounded," said Win Min, a researcher in civil-military relations in Burma. "Antagonistic civil-military relations will continue."

Apart from being unable to transform incompatible goals and relations, the new, post-2010 regime will not change any salience of the issues that the country has been facing and which have earned it pariah status.

According to the military's new constitution, a military chief will independently administer military affairs, including recruitment and expansion of troops, promotions, troop deployment, budget, military-owned businesses, purchase and manufacture of weapons, etc.

Consequently, the issues of child soldiers, forced relocations, forced labor, landmines, internal displaced person, the flow of refugees to neighboring countries, rape and other rights violations—all of which are associated with the military's unchecked interests and behavior— will continue unresolved, especially in ethnic areas such as the eastern areas of Burma.

Since the elected parliament’s legislative power will be restricted and because it will not be able to oversee the military, no civilian mechanisms will be available to redress the military’s excesses. Military personnel accused of crimes will be tried by a court-martial appointed by the head of the armed forces, the Tatmadaw—effectively allowing the military to continue its violations with impunity.

The 2010 elections could, however, contribute to leadership changes, at least on a nominal level during the initial stage. Two power centers will be created—military and government.

Aside from the 25 percent of parliamentary seats reserved for the military and its power to appoint the three most important cabinet ministers (Defense, Home and Border Area Affairs) in the Cabinet, the generals are determined to fill the remaining government portfolios and parliamentary seats with members of its own civilian thuggish movement, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA).

The election is sure to be marked by vote rigging, intimidation and bullying attacks orchestrated by the USDA and its affiliates against opposing candidates. Given the record of USDA violence against Suu Kyi's entourage in 2003 and opposition activists in subsequent years, the world will witness an election model of goon-squad democracy—comparable to the travesty of recent elections in Zimbabwe.

The new post-election power arrangement will nonetheless create conflict between two power centers over the command structure and personal interests. Even now, various reports confirm that there is serious animosity and tension between military personnel and USDA members regarding the latter's interference with the military's administrative mandate and other issues of self-interest.

Given the military's lack of experience of sharing power, it will be harder for the generals to accept being outshone by the USDA.

"Many officers in the military hate the USDA and believe it will go down when Than Shwe goes," said a source close to the military establishment.

The government's operation with two centers of power—no matter who pull the strings—could lead to either a serious internal split or miserable inefficiency of the ruling body.

Some advocates expect it will take an evolutionary shift toward liberalization. They believe the military's constitution, although flawed, can give reform options to a new generation of military officers. They suggest "using the generals’ flawed model of democracy as a starting point from which to pursue a more acceptable long-term solution."

However, the nature of the power rivalry within a post-2010 regime will not necessarily lead to a new opening and democratization in the long run. Even if it does so, the question is: how long is the long run? It may be too long to have any strategic relevancy for the opposition movement, within the country as well as abroad.

In fact, political transition is not likely to take place within the framework of a military-imposed constitution. Even amendments made to the constitution in the hope of gradual reform will not be possible within military-dominated parliamentary debate and a new power arrangement. It could happen only if the status-quo is challenged by public pressure and a negotiated settlement is reached with the military. Otherwise, the post-2010 prospect remains bleak.

The UN-led international community, therefore, must double its efforts to push for an inclusive political resolution in Burma before 2010, mediating for meaningful political dialogue among all key stake holders by using coercive diplomacy, rather than pleading to the regime to conduct elections that are just "credible and inclusive".

The international community must be fully aware that the result of the election will be in accordance with the military's constitution. Otherwise, it will make the same major mistake committed by EU leaders at their July 19 summit in Brussels when they called on the military junta "to ensure that the elections announced for 2010 will be prepared and conducted in a way that contributes to a credible and fully participative transition to democracy." Without considering contextual and consequential dangers, the EU leaders just pushed for the 2010 election and perhaps felt they were serving the cause of Burmese democracy. Moral misery and strategic blunder!

UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who is planning to return to Burma soon, should be especially cautioned not to lend legitimacy to the regime's constitution and elections in 2010. The UN, which once supported the junta's seven-step “roadmap” as a potential for an inclusive transition, must now say clearly that the map is no longer relevant since it has failed to incorporate key stakeholders.

In brief, the UN-led international community should not give up its attempt to enforce an inclusive political resolution in Burma before 2010.

MAY 20, 2008: WHAT'S NEW

Friday Evening

	Some 2.5 million people have been affected by the cyclone

Listen to Audio

Ban: Burma to allow aid in

The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, says Burma's military leadership has agreed to let in all foreign aid workers to help cyclone victims.

Mr Ban's announcement followed a meeting with Burma's secretive leader, General Than Shwe.

UN officials said the general agreed that aid workers would be allowed into the worst-affected Irrawaddy Delta region.

The UN described this as a significant move in principle.

Aid agencies have cautiously welcomed the apparent breakthrough -- coming three weeks after the cyclone struck -- but observers say Burma has reneged on past promises to the UN.

Burma's military leaders greet UN head Ban Ki-moon

Our Reports also include:

- View of Sitagu Sayadaw Ashin Nyanissara on current development of government response to international aid offers.

- Responses of international aid agencies on Burma's decision on accepting international aid workers.

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African aid helicopters scrambled to Burma

	USS Essex navy ship stationed near Burma, ready to help cyclone victims

It's unclear whether the Burmese offer applies to military aid workers -- and whether American naval helicopters stationed off the Burmese coast can join the relief effort.

Burma earlier this week gave permission for just ten UN helicopters to begin relief flights.

But most of these are in Africa, and the UN has asked the US, Britain, Canada and Australia to help transport these large helicopters to Burma.

A BBC correspondent says the helicopters need to be dismantled first and reassembled upon arrival. He says this could take a week.

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Also in the news..

- Account of a Burmese medical doctor who has been helping cyclone's victims in the delta region.

- U Nyan Win, a spokeperson of NLD said the extension of the house arrest of beyond May 30 would not be in accordance with current law.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained since 30 May Depayin attack five years ago.

Also in the programme..

Burma Perspective By U Maung Maung Than

"Political landscape of Burma after the Constitutional Referendum"

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Cautious Optimism over Than Shwe-Ban Agreement

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By WAI MOE

Friday, May 23, 2008

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The leader of Burma’s ruling junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, has finally agreed to allow in “all aid workers” after meeting with the head of the United Nations in the country’s capital, Naypyidaw. But given the regime’s history of mistrust towards non-governmental organizations and UN agencies, most greeted the news with cautious optimism.

“I had a very good meeting with the Senior General and particularly on these aid workers,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “He has agreed to allow all aid workers regardless of nationalities.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (L) met with Burma's junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe on Friday in Naypyidaw. (Photo: AP)

Ban Ki-moon also said it was “an important development” that Than Shwe agreed to make Rangoon the logistics center of the aid operation.

Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), called the news a positive step, provided the junta keeps its promises.

“We will be very glad if that news comes true,” Nyan Win, a spokesman for the NLD, told The Irrawaddy on Friday. “But the good news should have come for survivors immediately after the cyclone hit the country. Now it has been three weeks.”

Several Bangkok-based aid workers who were waiting to get a visa to enter Burma also responded cautiously to the announcement, noting that the regime has a history of not keeping its promises.

Foreign aid workers already inside Burma need permission to travel outside of Rangoon—another hurdle that will need to be cleared before an effective response to the disaster is possible.

But some Burma watchers regarded Than Shwe’s decision to allow foreign aid workers into the country—after weeks of refusing to even respond to telephone calls from the UN secretary general—as a genuine concession.

Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst, said that Than Shwe needed to make a compromise after facing weeks of unrelenting pressure.

He said that this pressure was both internal and external, leaving the junta’s top general with no other choice than to end his resistance to calls for a larger international aid effort.

“I heard even Burmese military officials are displeased with the junta’s poor relief distribution system in the delta region and slow response to international aid,” he said.

Many local Burmese aid workers who have been to delta region said that doors that have been opened slightly can just as easily be closed again. “This is the nature of the Than Shwe regime,” they said.

Larry Jagan, a British journalist who writes on Burma affairs, said he was rather doubtful that Ban Ki-moon’s remark represented a major breakthrough.

“I cannot believe that Snr-Gen Than Shwe is going to allow thousands of foreigners to delta region,” he said.

Some analysts said that Than Shwe may be worried about the possibility of the Burma issue being raised again at the UN Security Council.

France said on Thursday that it would push for a Security Council resolution authorizing the aid delivery to Burma’s cyclone victims “by all means necessary” if pressure from Ban Ki-moon and neighboring countries doesn’t work.

The French ambassador to the UN, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said that France will wait to hear from Ban Ki-moon and John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief, as well as from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to see if there is any concrete progress on the issue of access to the victims.

“If not, we will have to go back to the Security Council,” said the ambassador.

Authorities Tighten Restrictions on Private Aid Efforts

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By MIN LWIN

Friday, May 23, 2008

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Private aid convoys from Rangoon, which have provided a lifeline to victims of Cyclone Nargis in some hard-hit areas of the Irrawaddy delta, are facing tighter restrictions by local authorities, who say that the government now has the situation under control.

At a checkpoint near the Panhlaing Bridge in Rangoon’s Hlaing Tharyar Township, trucks and other vehicles carrying supplies to the delta are being stopped and inspected, according to local nongovernmental organizations and other private donors.

“The security officers told me not to distribute things along the road and gave me a pamphlet,” said a relief worker who passed through the checkpoint, where guards recorded license plate numbers of vehicles traveling to Kungyangone and Twante Townships located in the Irrawaddy delta.

According to the relief worker, the pamphlet claimed that the government had completed its emergency operations in the area, and was now undertaking efforts to rehabilitate the local population. It added that private donations were disrupting these efforts, as they made people in the area less willing to work.

Relief workers who have visited some of the hardest-hit areas deny that the government’s efforts have been effective in dealing with the crisis, which they say remains far from over.

Meanwhile, private donations—of money, food, water, clothing and other basic necessities—continue to be collected throughout the country.

Much of this informal aid effort is being handled by Buddhist monks, who are overseeing the distribution of scarce resources to cyclone survivors in areas that have seen little assistance from the government.

“I am afraid that the victims won’t receive the assistance,” said one donor, explaining why he declined to make donations through the government.

THE GLEANER (JAMAICA'S LOCAL NEWSPAPER)

Burmese to stage protest in Jamaica
published: Monday | May 12, 2008

Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

Burmese expatriates in Jamaica will today stage a peaceful march to show solidarity with their countrymen who were devastated by a cyclone last week and have received negligible aid because of tight controls by the military dictatorship.

The protest will commence outside the United States Embassy in St Andrew at 9 a.m.

Spokesperson for the group, Dr Soe Naung, told The Gleaner the Burmese would march from the embassy to the offices of the United Nations.

"The march is to express our sympathy and condolences to those who died in Cyclone Nargis and to show solidarity, concern and care for those who live and are trying to survive there (in Myanmar)," the medical doctor said.

Showing gratitude

In addition, he said the group wants to show gratitude to two nations - the United States and France and two organisations, the European Union and the United Nations.

"Even though the junta is refusing to allow aid workers access into the country, we are urging these nations and organisations to do even more," said Naung.

The death toll in the Asian nation remains uncertain. Up to press time, media reports claimed the death toll had jumped to 28,000.

British aid group Oxfam was also quoted on Sunday as saying that the death toll could rise to 1.5 million if people do not get clean water and sanitation soon.

"Over two million are homeless, and are facing the aftermath of tropical diseases," said Naung, who still has relatives living there.

Bloody hands

One of the most important issues on the expatriates' agenda is to ensure that the Jamaican Government and all other countries attending the Law of the Sea Conference here in June do not welcome or "shake the bloody hands" of the two military Burmese representatives who are billed to attend the event.

"We are requesting that those attending the conference will use their own liberty to promote the need for ours and help us rejoin the family of free nations," urged the Burmese doctor.

Myanmar (formerly called Burma), which got independence from Britain in 1948, was placed under military rule in 1962 during a staged coup by the late General Ne Win.

Second-generation military leader, General Than Shwe, has been running the country since Ne Win's death.

04 May, 2008; News Update

Saturday Dawn

	The US has ships with aid standing by in the Gulf of Thailand

Listen to Audio

Burma warned over cyclone delays

The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has warned that hundreds of thousands of Burmese lives could be at risk, unless the military government removes all restrictions on foreign aid following Cyclone Nargis a week ago.

The UN has appealed for almost two hundred million dollars in aid from member countries.

The Burmese ambassador to the UN (Kyaw Tint Swe ) said his country would accept help from any quarter.

His government has said it is not ready to allow in foreign search and rescue teams but the UN's head of humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, said he believed Burma could become more flexible after the constitutional referendum this weekend.

Burma: diseases start to take hold

	Thousands of people in the area have received no aid

Two BBC correspondents who've travelled to the Irrawaddy delta, the area worst-hit by the cyclone, say tens of thousands of bodies are strewn across the landscape, with houses toppled and trees uprooted.

They say diseases like dysentery are already starting to take hold, and although some aid has arrived there is still no relief effort to match the size of the catastrophe.

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Burmese referendum underway despite cyclone

	Burmese referendum underway despite cyclone

A constitutional referendum is underway in Burma, despite appeals from the United Nations for a postponement because of the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis a week ago.

Voting is taking place in most of the country although the poll has been delayed for two weeks in the worst-affected areas (including the main city, Rangoon.

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Also in the news:

- Early morning preparations for referendum across the country.

- Prayer vigils, donations around the World for Cyclone victims of Burma.

PLEASE CLICK THE BELOW TO ENLARGE...

It is time for Burmese people to show their real wish.

"The time has now come to change from military rule to democratic civilian rule," said the announcement for the 2010 polls, broadcast on state TV and radio.


We're frankly very skeptical. We're not persuaded that this [Burma junta's election plan] is anything more than a cynical sham.
—Stephen Smith, Australian Foreign Minister


A statement from the British Foreign Office in London said "a genuine and inclusive process of national reconciliation" was necessary for a transition to democracy, and called for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

Last week, the United States broadened financial sanctions against junta members and their families and friends, blaming the military's poor human rights record and failure to hand power to a democratically elected government.

"The announcement is vague, incomplete and strange," NLD party spokesman Nyan Win said Saturday night.

"Even before knowing the results of the referendum, the government has already announced that elections will be held in 2010," he said, also implying the government was certain the draft constitution would get approval.

Tun Myint Aung, a leader of the 88 Generation Students group, said citizens must study the proposed constitution carefully, since pro-democracy groups were excluded from the drafting process.

He noted the junta announced a decree, known as 5/96, in 1996 that prohibits criticism of the national convention. If convicted, a person can receive a life sentence.

“Unless 5/96 is withdrawn, the referendum in May will not be free and fair,” said Tun Myint Aung. “That means the Burmese people could face a bloodbath in the future because there is no meaningful resolution in the junta’s plans, and there will be mass protests again if the people do not get a real democracy.”

A veteran politician in Rangoon, Chan Tun, said the junta’s decrees were vague and unclear whether the voting would be democratic and transparent. “The junta must be clear what it will do if the people vote ‘no,’ and if the referendum is free and fair,” he said. “In the 1990 election, the Burmese people chose a democratic government, but the junta ignored the election results.”

Larry Jagan, a British journalist who specializes in Burma issues, said that until the details of a constitutional referendum and general election are known, it is impossible to say whether the junta has made a significant step towards a real democracy.

The junta was badly defeated in the 1990 general election, he noted, and the generals may have tricks to use against the NLD and other candidates, including limiting their ability to field candidates, raise money and run a campaign.

Simply announcing the referendum and general election dates does not enhance the junta’s credibility, he said.

Jagan said the real issue is true dialogue which is not taking place.

“How can the constitution be representative and legitimate without the participation of all-important sectors of Burmese society, including pro-democracy opposition groups, Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic groups?” he asked.

"I am not interested in their referendum because the results are known already," said 48-year old noodle salad seller Mar Mar Aye, echoing the popular belief that the government is confident its constitution will be approved.

Singapore's Foreign Ministry hailed the move by Burmese military government to set a timeframe for a referendum on a new constitution and elections as a "positive" one.

Burma's announcement of new elections

(Burma's regime faced widespread protests last year)

The Burmese opposition has described as vague, incomplete and strange the military government's decision to hold a referendum on a new constitution in May.

The generals said a multi-party election would follow in 2010, two decades after they annulled the last election.

The surprise announcement comes just months after the brutal suppression of last September's pro-democracy protests.

Britain said Burmese political leaders had not been consulted, and called for a genuine process of reconciliation.

But Singapore's Foreign Ministry hailed the move by Burmese military government to set a timeframe for a referendum on a new constitution and elections as a "positive" one.

The pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under house arrest, and hundreds of political prisoners are in jail.

No Fear—The Tiger’s Toothless

No Fear—The Tiger’s Toothless