Tomas Ojea Quintana spent five days in Burma, the first time he's been given a visa since February last year. 

He says there is currently a window of opportunity for change, but thinks there have been few concrete signs of meaningful reform. 

Mr Quintana once again called for political prisoners to be released and warned any exiles who take up the invitation of the President's invitation to return to the country may face the risk of arbitrary arrest.

ဘဂၤလာေဒခ်္႕ အစိုးရက သူႏိုင္ငံအတြင္း ေရာက္ရွိေနေသာ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသားမ်ားကို လက္ခံ ယူရန္ ျမန္မာ အစိုးရႏွင့္ ေဆြးေႏြးရာတြင္ ျမန္မာဘက္က အျပဳသေဘာ တုန္႕ျပန္ခဲ့သည္ဟု ေက်ညာခ်က္ ထုတ္ျပန္ေသာ္လည္း အဆိုပါကိစၥႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္ျပီး အစိုးရပိုင္ ျမန္မာ သတင္းစာမ်ားတြင္ တလံုး တပါဒမွ် ေဖၚျပထားျခင္း မရွိေၾကာင္း သိရသည္။ 

Myanmar Ahlin


Kyaymon

NewLight of Myanmar

This story is part of an AlertNet special report on statelessness

LONDON (AlertNet) - Tuesday marks the 50^th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Maureen Lynch, an expert on statelessness, explains the plight faced by people who have no country to call home.

Stateless individuals live and die as almost invisible people. According to the 1954 Convention, a stateless person is someone who has no legal tie to any government, which means they don’t have any of the protection or rights associated with citizenship.  It affects most rights we take for granted – an identity, basic education, access to health, freedom of movement, the right to own property, even something like a cell phone. It affects people across their entire life span.

It’s very hard to paint a mental image of statelessness. When you say the word ‘refugee’ we can picture it in our minds. But when you say the word ‘stateless,’ until you’ve met someone who is stateless, and even afterwards, it’s hard to get your mind around the concept and how it impacts a person’s life. And statelessness can be complicated. Many cases are just not so simple to solve. There may be elements of deeply ingrained discrimination, whether racial, religious or ethnic.

One of the most painful things to witness in the case of statelessness is the way it denies a person the chance to develop. I’ve met people with untapped talents and amazing potential who want to help the country where they believe they are citizens. Being denied the ability to contribute, and seeing their life going to waste is one of the most disturbing things. It’s heart-wrenching actually because they could do so much for the global good.

One story that comes to mind is the denationalised Kurds in Syria.  One highly educated man I met hauls refrigerators on his back. A trained lawyer was selling tea on the street.  And a promising young athlete was forced to borrow a friend’s name and ID to compete.

Each context is slightly different, but generally speaking there are not a lot of protections.

One of the challenges with statelessness is that these people don’t have a voice – particularly a political voice – because they are afraid of making their situation even worse. So they can’t even speak for themselves in a way we would find among other marginalised populations.

We saw in the case of Bangladesh, for example, that it took well into the third decade of the Bihari, or the Urdu speaking population, for the young people to be able to say, ‘this is where I was born, this is the language I learned to speak and this is my country.’ And they were able to find someone to represent them in court.

But in so many cases you can’t take nationality issues to the courts. That is the problem in Kuwait for the bedouns (stateless Arabs).

The UNHCR (U.N. refugee agency) is closely monitoring developments in Sudan to guard against a stateless situation arising following South Sudan’s independence.

The United States is also paying very close attention to this. The main concern is for individuals from the South living in the North. It could be that the North says, ‘you have your own country now, we’re not going to let you be nationals of this country.’

There’s also more attention being paid to statelessness in the United Kingdom because of what’s happening with failed asylum seekers who can’t be returned to the country they came from – either because that country refuses them as a national or for other reasons – so they are left de facto stateless.

Governments must uphold the nationality rights of everyone – to recognise citizenship in cases where it should be recognised, and at least as a minimum to evaluate cases where it is unclear.

They must also work towards gender equality in nationality laws – that’s another huge one. In many countries women can’t pass on their nationality to their children. Governments must also ensure birth registration of all children. That not only reduces statelessness, it’s also a means of prevention.

Governments must ensure access to education for all people, including stateless people.

We should also pay particular attention to trafficking. People can either be trafficked because they are stateless, or become stateless because they are trafficked.

Detention is another issue that is often overlooked. People who are stateless and detained are doubly invisible. They have even less of a voice. Very little is known about their situation. I don’t think anyone has an estimate as to how many are behind bars. That’s part of the problem. And there is almost no one focusing on that.

It’s very difficult to put one group in front of another. Because statelessness affects different populations in different ways, it’s very hard to compare. Large stateless groups such as the Rohinyga certainly warrant special attention, as do groups like the Kuwaiti bedoun who can’t take their case to the court. We have an extra responsibility to work on their behalf.

The European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma calls upon the European Union to officially support a United Nations Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity, and include its establishment in the United Nations General Assembly resolution on Burma. The Burma resolution is drafted by the EU.

The creation of such an Inquiry was recommended by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Burma in March 2010. The European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma is deeply concerned about the failure of the EU to endorse and act upon this recommendation, despite the apparent increase in human rights abuses in Burma.

For decades the dictatorship in Burma has acted with impunity, committing gross violations of international law. Abuses taking place include military attacks against civilian villages, arbitrary detention and torture, rape and gang rape, including child rape, forced labour, forced relocation, denial of humanitarian assistance, and many others.

As twenty previous UN General Assembly resolutions testify, the United Nations is fully aware that these actions have been taking place, yet has taken no practical steps to put an end to them.

The European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma is concerned that the continuing failure of the European Union to support a UN Inquiry is encouraging the dictatorship to continue to believe it can act with impunity.

The European Parliamentary Caucus on Burma reminds European governments that they have repeatedly been lied to and deceived by the dictatorship in Burma. Promises of reform have never been delivered. The promises made to visiting diplomats still stand in stark contrast to their actions.

As the recent Arab Spring should have taught us, when dealing with brutal dictatorships, policies of appeasement and pursing reforms through gentle persuasion do not work. The European Union must take a united, robust and principled stand in support of human rights and democratisation in Burma.

Source : Burma Campaign for UK 

စက္တင္ဘာ လဆန္းပုိင္း အတြင္း EU ဥေရာပ သမဂၢအဖြဲ႔ အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာျပည္ဆုိင္ရာ မူ၀ါဒ ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲ ရွိတာေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ ဆိုင္ရာ ဥေရာပ ပါလီမန္ အမတ္မ်ား သမဂၢက အခုလို ေၾကညာခ်က္ ထုတ္ျပန္ တုိက္တြန္း လိုက္တာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ Burma Campaign U.K အဖြဲ႔၀င္ မဇိုယာဖန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။

 
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ အရပ္သား အစိုးရသစ္ တက္လာၿပီ ဆုိေပမယ့္ ႏုိင္ငံေရး ျပဳျပင္ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ မျမင္ရေသးသလို စစ္တပ္နဲ႔ ေဒသခံ အာဏာပုိင္ေတြရဲ႕ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈေတြ ဆက္ရွိေနေသး တာေၾကာင့္ ဥေရာပ ပါလီမန္ အမတ္မ်ား သမဂၢက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ ဆုိင္ရာ ကုလသမဂၢ စုံစမ္းေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ ေစလႊတ္ေရးကို တုိက္တြန္း ေတာင္းဆုိ aနရတာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း အဲဒီအဖြဲ႔ရဲ႕ ေၾကညာခ်က္ ထဲမွာ ေဖာ္ျပ ထားပါတယ္။ 

Credit :RFA Burmese

       

လြတ္လပ္တဲ့ သတင္းစာနဲ႔ သတင္းမီဒီယာ လုပ္ငန္းမ်ားဟာ ႏိုင္ငံတိုင္းနဲ႔ လူမ်ဳိးတိုင္း အတြက္ အင္မတန္ အေရးႀကီးတယ္ ဆိုတာကို တစ္ကမၻာလံုး သိၾကတယ္။ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ႏိုင္ငံေတြမႇသိတာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ အာဏာရႇင္ေတြလည္းသိ၊ ဖက္ဆစ္ေတြလည္း သိတယ္။

သိတဲ့အတြက္ ဘယ္ႏိုင္ငံမႇာမဆို အာဏာသိမ္းပြဲတစ္ခု ျဖစ္ၿပီ ဆုိရင္ သတင္းစာနဲ႔ အသံလႊင့္ဌာနေတြကို အစိုးရ႐ုံး သမၼတအိမ္ေတာ္၊ လႊတ္ေတာ္တို႔နဲ႔အတူ အရင္ဆံုး သိမ္းပိုက္ၾကတယ္။ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အစိုးရေတြက 

သတင္းမီဒီယာရဲ႕တန္ဖိုးကို သိေပမယ့္  တန္ဖိုး သိပ္ထားေလ့ မရႇိၾကဘူး။ သူတို႔အတြက္ အသံုးခ်လို႔ ရ႐ုံေလာက္သာ ေနရာေပးၾကတယ္။ အာဏာရႇင္ေတြနဲ႔ နာဇီေတြ ဖက္ဆစ္ေတြကေတာ့ သတင္းမီဒီယာရဲ႕ တန္ဖိုးကို 

ေကာင္းေကာင္းသိသလို ေကာင္းေကာင္းလည္း အသံုးခ်ၾကတယ္။ ဂ်ာမန္အာဏာရႇင္ႀကီး ဟစ္တလာဟာ သတင္းမီဒီယာကို အသံုးခ်တဲ့ ေနရာမႇာ စံတင္ေလာက္ေအာင္ ေတာ္တဲ့သူ ျဖစ္တယ္။ စစ္အတြင္း နာဇီ အသံလႊင့္ဌာနက လႊင့္လိုက္တဲ့ သတင္းေတြဟာ နာဇီတို႔ရဲ႕ စစ္ေရး ေအာင္ျမင္မႈေတြကို အမ်ားႀကီး အေထာက္အကူ ျပဳခဲ့တယ္။ ဒီအသံလႊင့္ခ်က္ေတြေၾကာင့္ ဂ်ာမန္ေတြ ေရလက္ၾကားကိုျဖတ္ၿပီး နက္ျဖန္ပဲ လန္ဒန္ၿမိဳ႕ႀကီးကို ေရာက္ေတာ့ မလိုလို၊ သန္ဘက္ခါပဲ ေလထီးတပ္ေတြ ေရာက္လာေတာ့ မလိုလိုနဲ႔ အဂၤလန္ တစ္ကြၽန္းလံုး ထိတ္လန္႔ေခ်ာက္ခ်ား ျဖစ္ကုန္ၾကရတယ္။ စိတ္ဓာတ္ စစ္ဆင္ေရးနဲ႔ ၀ါဒျဖန္႔ခ်ိေရး တာ၀န္ခံ ျပန္ၾကားေရး၀န္ႀကီး ''ဂိုဘယ္''ကို ဂ်ာမန္ျပည္သူေတြ အားလံုးနဲ႔ နာဇီတပ္ေတြကပါ ဖိန္႔ဖိန္႔တုန္ေအာင္ ေၾကာက္ၾကရတယ္။

အာရႇတိုက္က ဂ်ပန္ဖက္ဆစ္ေတြလည္း အလားတူ အသံလႊင့္၀ါဒျဖန္႔ လုပ္ငန္းကို ေကာင္းေကာင္းႀကီး အသံုးခ်ခဲ့တာပါပဲ။ ''အာရႇတိုက္ သာတူညီမွ်ေရး'' နဲ႔ ''မဟာအာရႇ ထူေထာင္ေရး''ဆိုတဲ့ တိုက်ဳိ အသံလႊင့္ဌာနရဲ႕ ၀ါဒျဖန္႔ခ်ိေရး မႈိင္းလံုးႀကီးေတြဟာ ၿဗိတိသွ်ရဲ႕ ကိုလိုနီ ထမ္းပိုးေအာက္က ႐ုန္းထြက္ဖို႔ နည္းမ်ဳိးစံုနဲ႔ ႀကိဳးစားေနခဲ့ၾကတဲ့ အာရႇႏိုင္ငံအားလံုး အေပၚမႇာ အမ်ားႀကီး ႐ိုက္ခတ္ခဲ့တယ္။ကြၽန္ေတာ္တို႔ဆီမႇာ ဘယ္ေလာက္ထိ ၾသဇာလႊမ္းမိုးခဲ့သလဲ ဆိုရင္ ပါး႐ိုက္နား႐ိုက္ အလုပ္ခံေနရတဲ့ၾကားကေတာင္ လက္သီးဆုပ္ကို ဆန္႔တန္းၿပီး ''နီပြန္ဘိ႐ုမာ ဘန္ဇိုင္း၊ ဘန္ဇိုင္း''လို႔ ေအာ္တဲ့အထိ ျဖစ္ခဲ့ရတယ္။ ဂ်ပန္စကား မတတ္ေပမယ့္ ျမန္မာလူမ်ဳိးတိုင္း ''ေယာေရာရႇိ'' နဲ႔ ''ဘန္ဇိုင္း''ေတာ့ ေကာင္းေကာင္း ေျပာတတ္ေနၾကတယ္။

စစ္ေအးကာလ တစ္ေလွ်ာက္လံုးမႇာလည္း အေရႇ႕ဥေရာပ ႏိုင္ငံအားလံုးမႇာ သတင္းမီဒီယာလုပ္ငန္းကို ေကာင္းေကာင္း အသံုးခ်ခဲ့တယ္။ ပရာဗဒါလိုတပ္စ္လို သတင္းစာနဲ႔ သတင္းဌာနႀကီးေတြရဲ႕ အယ္ဒီတာခ်ဳပ္ေတြဟာ ၀န္ႀကီးေတြေလာက္နီးပါး အာဏာ ရႇိခဲ့ၾကတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံျခားကို ေစလႊတ္တဲ့ သတင္းေထာက္ေတြ ဆိုရင္လည္း သံအမတ္ႀကီးေတြနဲ႔ တန္းတူေလာက္ သေဘာထားၾကတယ္။ တခ်ဳိ႕ သတင္းေထာက္ေတြဆိုသံအမတ္ႀကီးေတြထက္ေတာင္ ၾသဇာ ရႇိၾကတယ္။ စိတ္ခ်ရတဲ့ လက္ေရြးစင္ေတြကိုမႇ ေရြးၿပီး ႏိုင္ငံျခား သတင္းေထာက္ အျဖစ္ ေစလႊတ္တာ ျဖစ္တယ္။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ ဒီလူေတြဟာ ေတာ္လည္းေတာ္ၾကတယ္။ ႏႇေျမာစရာေကာင္းတာက လူေတာ္ေတြရဲ႕ အရည္အခ်င္းေတြ လုပ္ရည္ကိုင္ရည္ေတြဟာ ျပည္သူလူထု အတြက္ ျဖစ္ရမယ့္အစား သူတို႔ပါတီရဲ႕ အက်ဳိးစီးပြား အတြက္ သက္သက္ အေဟာသိကံ ျဖစ္ၿပီး ဆံုး႐ႈံးသြားရတာပဲ။

ဒီမိုကေရစီ ႏိုင္ငံေတြက သတင္းစာဆရာ စစ္စစ္ေတြကေတာ့ သူတို႔ကို သတင္းစာဆရာအျဖစ္ သတ္မႇတ္ေလ့ မရႇိၾကဘူး။ ၀ါဒါျဖန္႔ခ်ိေရး အရာရႇိေတြလို႔ပဲ သေဘာထားၾကတယ္။ သတင္းသမား ဆိုတာ ျပည္သူလူထုမႇ တစ္ပါး ဘယ္သူ႔သစၥာခံမႇ မျဖစ္ရဘူး ဆိုတဲ့ ျပ႒ာန္းခ်က္ကို သိပ္အေလးထားၾကတယ္။ သတင္းသမားစစ္စစ္ဟာ ျပည္သူလူထုရဲ႕ မ်က္ႏႇာကလြဲၿပီး ဘယ္သူ႔ မ်က္ႏႇာမႇ မၾကည့္ရဘူး။ အစိုးရရဲ႕ မ်က္ႏႇာကို မၾကည့္ရသလို ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီ အဖြဲ႕အစည္းေတြရဲ႕ မ်က္ႏႇာကိုလည္း မၾကည့္ရဘူး။ ဘယ္သူ႔ အေထာက္အပံ့ကိုမႇလည္း မခံယူရဘူး။ တစ္စံုတစ္ဦး ဒါမႇမဟုတ္ တစ္ပါတီ တစ္ဖြဲ႕တစ္စည္းရဲ႕ အေထာက္အပံ့ကို ရယူ လက္ခံမိရင္ ဘယ္နည္းနဲ႔မႇ ေျဖာင့္မတ္မႇန္ကန္တဲ့ သတင္းသမား မျဖစ္ႏိုင္ေတာ့ဘူး။ ေထာက္ပံ့ ကူညီတဲ့ အဖြဲ႕အစည္း ဒါမႇမဟုတ္ လူပုဂၢဳိလ္ရဲ႕ မ်က္ႏႇာကို ငဲ့ၾကည့္ရေတာ့မႇာ အေသအခ်ာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ေထာက္ျပေလ့ ရႇိၾကတယ္။

ဒီလို က်င့္၀တ္ေတြကို လိုက္နာ ေစာင့္ထိန္းတဲ့ သတင္းမီဒီယာေတြ ဆိုရင္ စာဖတ္ပရိသတ္ ျပည္သူလူထုကသာ မဟုတ္ဘူး အစိုးရေတြနဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံေရးသမားေတြကလည္း တန္ဖိုးထား ေလးစားၾကတယ္။ ထိုက္တန္တဲ့ေနရာကို ေပးၾကတယ္။ ေရႇးက နယူး ေယာက္တိုင္း၊ ၀ါရႇင္တန္ပို႔စ္တို႕လို သတင္းစာေတြနဲ႔ တိုင္းမ္မဂၢဇင္းလို သတင္းမဂၢဇင္းႀကီးေတြက အယ္ဒီတာေတြ သတင္းေထာက္ေတြ ေမာ္စကို သြားရင္ ကရင္မလင္က ေခါင္းေဆာင္ႀကီးေတြ ကိုယ္တိုင္က လက္ခံ ေတြ႕ဆံုေလ့ ရႇိတယ္။ ျမန္မာျပည္မႇာလည္း ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေန၀င္း အစိုးရ လက္ထက္က က်င္းပတဲ့ အလုပ္သမား ညီလာခံ ေတာင္သူလယ္သမားညီလာခံ ဆိုတဲ့ ညီလာခံႀကီးေတြမႇာ ဆရာႀကီးေရႊဥေဒါင္းလို၊ ဆရာဇ၀နလို၊ ဆရာလူထုဦးလႇလို အယ္ဒီတာႀကီးေတြကို ေရႇ႕ဆံုးတန္း ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေန၀င္းေဘးမႇာ ေနရာေပးၿပီး ထိုင္ေစတာ ျဖစ္တယ္။

အခု အစုိးရ လက္ထက္မႇာလည္း သမၼတသစ္ ဦးသိန္းစိန္ရဲ႕ တုိင္းျပည္ကုိ ေျပာၾကားတဲ့ ပထမဆုံး မိန္႔ခြန္းမႇာေတာင္ စတုတၴမ႑ိဳင္ရဲ႕ အေရးပါပုံကုိ အသိအမႇတ္ျပဳ တန္ဖုိးထားၿပီး ေျပာၾကားသြားခဲ့တယ္။ ေနာက္ေျပာၾကားတဲ့ မိန္႔ခြန္းတုိင္းမႇာလည္း စတုတၴမ႑ိဳင္ အေၾကာင္း အျမဲလုိလုိ ပါခဲ့တယ္။ အစုိးရကုိယ္တုိင္က အခုလို အေလးအနက္ထား ေျပာၾကားေနခ်ိန္မႇာ သတင္းမီဒီယာသမားမ်ား ဘက္ကလည္း သီလ၊ သမာဓိ၊ သိကၡာရႇိရႇိနဲ႔ ကုိယ့္တာ၀န္ ကုိယ္ေက်ပြန္စြာ ထမ္းေဆာင္ဖုိ႔ လိုအပ္ပါတယ္။ ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေန၀င္းေဘးမႇာ ေနရာေပးခံခဲ့ရတဲ့ သတင္းစာဆရာႀကီးေတြလုိ သတင္းသမား ဒီေန႔ ဘယ္ႏႇေယာက္မ်ား ရႇိသလဲသုိ႔ ကုိယ့္ဟာကုိယ္ ဆန္းစစ္ၾကည့္ၾကဖုိ႔ လုိတယ္။ အနာေပၚတုတ္က် ျဖစ္ၾကရင္လည္း မတတ္ႏုိင္ဘူး။ မႇန္တဲ့အတုိင္း ေျပာရမယ္ ဆုိရင္ လက္ခ်ဳိး ေရၾကည့္တဲ့အခါမႇာ လက္တစ္ဖက္ေတာင္ ျပည့္ေအာင္ မရႇိပါဘူးလုိ႔ပဲ ေျပာလိုက္ပါရေစ။

အစုိးရက အသိအမႇတ္ျပဳ ေနရာေပးတယ္ ဆုိရင္ ကုိယ့္ဘက္ကလည္း ထိုက္တန္ေအာင္ေတာ့ ႀကိဳးစားရမႇာ ျဖစ္တယ္။ အစုိးရ လုပ္သမွ်အားလုံး ေကာင္းပါသည္ခင္ဗ်ား လုပ္တုိင္း အစုိးရက သေဘာက်ၿပီး ေနရာေပးလိမ့္မယ္ မထင္နဲ႔၊ ဘယ္သူမႇ ဒါေလာက္ မည့ံဘူး။ ေကာင္းတာကုိ ေကာင္းတယ္ေျပာ၊ မေကာင္းတာကုိ မေကာင္းဘူးေျပာ၊ မႇန္ရင္မႇန္တဲ့အတုိင္း၊ မႇားရင္မႇားတဲ့အတုိင္း သိကၡာရႇိရႇိ ေျပာတဲ့ ေရးတဲ့ သူမ်ားကုိသာ လူေတြက ေလးစားၾကမႇာ ျဖစ္တယ္။ သတင္းသမားေကာင္းလုိ႔ သတ္မႇတ္ၾကမႇာ ျဖစ္တယ္။ ဥပမာအေနနဲ႔ ေျပာရရင္ ဒီေန႔ အစုိးရက လက္နက္ကုိင္ ပဋိပကၡေတြ ရပ္စဲဖုိ႔ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး အတြက္ ေတြ႕ဆုံ ေဆြးေႏြးဖုိ႔ ဖိတ္ေခၚကမ္းလႇမ္းတာဟာ ေကာင္းတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ေကာင္းတယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာရဲရမယ္ ေရးရဲရမယ္။ ဧရာ၀တီျမစ္ဆုံမႇာ တည္ေဆာက္မယ့္ ဆည္ႀကီးေတြ ကိစၥကုိ ျပန္လည္ သုံးသပ္ေလ့လာေနပါတယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာတာ ေကာင္းတယ္။ ေကာင္းတယ္လုိ့ ေထာက္ခံရဲရမယ္။ သမၼတဦးသိန္း စိန္က ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ကုိ လက္ခံေတြ႕ဆုံတာဟာ အင္မတန္ ေကာင္းတယ္။ ေထာက္ခံႀကိဳဆုိရမယ္။ အထူးသျဖင့္ ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ဓာတ္ပုံ ခ်ိန္ဆြဲထားတဲ့ ေနရာမႇာ ဓာတ္ပုံတြဲ ႐ိုက္ၿပီး တုိင္းျပည္က သိေအာင္ျပလုိက္တာဟာ အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ခ်စ္ၾကည္ရင္းႏႇီးလုိစိတ္ ရႇိေၾကာင္း ျပသတဲ့ လကၡဏာတစ္ရပ္ ျဖစ္တယ္။ ၀မ္းသာအားရ ႀကိဳဆုိ ေထာက္ခံရမယ္။

အလားတူပဲ မသင့္ေလ်ာ္ဘူးလုိ႔ ထင္ျမင္ ယူဆစရာမ်ား ရႇိရင္လည္း မေၾကာက္မရြံ႕ ေထာက္ျပရမႇာ ျဖစ္တယ္။ ဥပမာ စက္မႈ(၁)က ေမာ္ေတာ္ကားေရာင္းတဲ့ကိစၥမ်ဳိး ဆုိပါေတာ့။ ေလာေလာဆယ္ လႊတ္ေတာ္ ကုိယ္စားလႇယ္ေတြကုိ ေရာင္းေပးတယ္။ ေနာက္က်ရင္ တတ္သိ ပညာရႇင္ေတြ၊ ပါေမာကၡေတြ၊ ဆရာ၀န္ေတြ၊ စာေရးဆရာေတြနဲ႔ စာနယ္ဇင္းသမားေတြကုိ ေရာင္းေပးမယ္ ဆုိတဲ့ ကိစၥမ်ဳိးဟာ ဥပေဒရဲ႕အထက္မႇာ ဘယ္သူမႇ မရႇိေစရဘူး။ အခြင့္ထူးခံ လူတန္းစား မရႇိေစရဘူး ဆုိတဲ့ သမၼတႀကီးနဲ႔ လႊတ္ေတာ္ ဥကၠ႒တုိ႔ ေျပာၾကားခဲ့တဲ့ စကားေတြနဲ႔ ဆန္႔က်င္ေနတယ္။ ဒီမုိကေရစီရဲ႕ အႏႇစ္သာရနဲ႔လည္း ဖီလာ ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ ဒီမုိကေရစီ စနစ္မႇာ အခြင့္ထူးခံ လူတန္းစားဆုိတာ လုံး၀ မရႇိရဘူး။ စာေရးဆရာမုိ႔ စာနယ္ဇင္းသမားမုိ႔ သာမန္ ျပည္သူေတြထက္ ပုိၿပီး အခြင့္အေရး မယူသင့္ဘူး ဆုိတာကုိ ေထာက္ျပရမယ္။

ပလက္ေဖာင္းေပၚက လမ္းေဘးေစ်းသည္ေတြ အားလုံးကုိ ရႇင္းလင္း ဖယ္ရႇားပစ္ေနခ်ိန္မႇာ မီဒီယာေကာ္နာဆုိတဲ့ ဆုိင္ႀကီးေတြက ထီးထီး က်န္ရႇိေနတာက မတင့္တယ္ဘူး။ အခြင့္ထူးခံေတြလုိ ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ အေၾကာင္းအမ်ဳိးမ်ဳိးေၾကာင့္ ျပည္ပ ေရာက္သြားသူေတြကုိ ျပန္လာခြင့္ ျပဳမယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာေပမယ့္ ကုိယ့္တုိင္းျပည္၊ ကုိယ့္လူမ်ဳိးကုိခ်စ္လုိ႔ ဘယ္မႇထြက္မသြားဘဲ ေနရစ္ခဲ့သူေတြကုိ ျပန္လာခြင့္ မေပးေသးတာကေတာ့ မသင့္ေတာ္ပါဘူးလုိ႔ ေထာက္ျပရမယ္။ ဒီလူေတြကုိ အိမ္ျပန္ခြင့္ ေပးလုိက္မယ္ ဆုိရင္ တုိင္းသူျပည္သားအားလုံး စိတ္ခ်မ္းသာ ကုိယ္ခ်မ္းသာ ျဖစ္သြားၾကရမႇာ ဆုိတာကုိလည္း ေရးရဲရမယ္။

က္ဆုံး ေျပာခ်င္တာကေတာ့ လြတ္လပ္စြာ ထုတ္ေဖာ္ ေျပာၾကားခြင့္၊ ေရးသားခြင့္ ဆုိတာက ႐ိုး႐ိုး အရပ္သူ၊ အရပ္သားမ်ားသာ ခံစားခြင့္ရႇိတာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။ တုိင္းသူျပည္သားေတြထဲမႇာ ပါ၀င္ေနတဲ့ အရာထမ္း 

အမႈထမ္းေတြမႇာလည္း ခံစားခြင့္ရႇိေၾကာင္း ၀န္ထမ္းႀကီး ၀န္ထမ္းငယ္ အားလုံး သိရႇိေအာင္ လုပ္ေပးဖုိ႔ လုိေၾကာင္း ေထာက္ျပသင့္တယ္။ ရပ္ကြက္တစ္ခုမႇာ လူသတ္မႈ၊ ဒါမႇမဟုတ္ လုယက္မႈ ျဖစ္တယ္ ဆုိရင္ ရပ္ကြက္မႇာတာ၀န္ယူထားရတဲ့ ရဲစခန္းကုိ သတင္းေထာက္က သြားေမးလိမ့္မယ္။ အဲဒီအခါ ရဲစခန္းက တာ၀န္ရႇိသူ ဘယ္သူမဆုိ ျဖစ္စဥ္အတုိင္း ဒါမႇမဟုတ္ ''ပထမ သတင္းေပး တုိင္ၾကားခ်က္(FIR)မႇာ ေရးမႇတ္ထားတဲ့ အတုိင္း ေျပာခြင့္ေပးထားလုိက္ရင္ အထက္ဆင့္ေတြထိ မလုိအပ္ဘဲ အလုပ္႐ႈပ္စရာ မလုိေတာ့ဘူးေပါ့။

အလားတူပဲ ရပ္ကြက္ထဲက မီးေလာင္တဲ့သတင္းကုိ သက္ဆုိင္ရာ မီးသတ္ဌာနက တာ၀န္ရႇိသူက ေျဖလုိက္ေပါ့။ ဒီမုိကေရစီႏုိင္ငံေတြမႇာ ဗဟုိက ခ်ဳပ္ကိုင္တဲ့ သတင္းထုတ္ျပန္ေရး အဖြဲ႕ ဆုိတာမ်ဳိး ထားေလ့မရႇိပါဘူး။ ဌာနဆုိင္ရာ ၀န္ထမ္းတုိင္း သူတုိ႔ရဲ႕ ၀တၲရားနဲ႔ တာ၀န္ယူမႈကုိ မႇန္မႇန္ကန္ကန္ က်င့္သုံးတတ္ေအာင္ အေလ့အက်င့္ ျပဳလုပ္ေပးဖုိ႔ လုိအပ္ပါတယ္။ လြတ္လပ္စြာ ေျပာဆုိခြင့္ဆုိတာ ၀န္ထမ္းေတြနဲ႔လည္း အက်ဳံး၀င္ေၾကာင္း ေထာက္ျပသင့္တယ္လုိ႔ ေထာက္ျပ လုိက္ရပါတယ္။

Credit :weeklyeleven

နိုင္ငံေရးသတင္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ေဆာင္းပါးမ်ားကို ဦးစားေပးေဖာ္ျပေနသည့္ အပတ္စဥ္ထုတ္ ျပည္သူ႔ေခတ္ 


သတင္းဂ်ာနယ္တြင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ေဆာင္းပါးတစ္ပုဒ္ကို စာေပစိစစ္ေရးမွ ေဖာ္ျပခြင့္ ျပဳလိုက္သည္ဟူေသာ သတင္းမ်ား အင္တာနက္စာမ်က္ႏွာမ်ားတြင္ ထြက္ေပၚပ်ံ႕ႏွံေနေသာေၾကာင့္ The Voice Weekly မွ ျပည္သူ႔ေခတ္သို႔ ဆက္သြယ္ေမးျမန္းရာ အတိုင္ပင္ခံ အယ္ဒီတာျဖစ္သူ သတင္းစာဆရာ ေမာင္ဝံသက အဆိုပါေဆာင္းပါးကို စာေပစိစစ္ေရးမွ ခြင့္ျပဳခ်က္ရရွိရန္ ေစာင့္ဆိုင္းေနဆဲ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ျပန္လည္ေျဖၾကားသည္။


အဆိုပါေဆာင္းပါးကို ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္မွ ျပည္သူ႔ေခတ္ဂ်ာနယ္သို႔ လြန္ခဲ့ေသာ ရက္သတၱပတ္ သုံးပတ္ကတည္းက ေပးပို႔ထားျခင္းျဖစ္ၿပီး စာေပစိစစ္ေရးမွ ယခုဆက္သြယ္ေမးျမန္းသည့္ ည ၉ နာရီအခ်ိန္အထိ ဆိုင္းငံ့အျဖစ္ သတ္မွတ္ထားဆဲ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ၎က ဆက္လက္ ေျပာၾကားသည္။
" ေဆာင္းပါးကို ေဖာ္ျပခြင့္ ျပဳလိုက္ၿပီဆိုၿပီး ဆက္သြယ္လာမဲ့ တယ္လီဖုန္းသံကို ေစာင့္ေနတာပါ၊ အဲဒီလို ဆက္သြယ္လာရင္ေတာ့ သတင္းေကာင္းေပါ့ဗ်ာ၊ ျမန္ျမန္ ခြင့္ျပဳေစခ်င္တယ္၊ ျမန္ျမန္ေဖာ္ျပလို႔ ရတာေပါ့ " ဟု ၎က ဆိုသည္။


ယင္းေဆာင္းပါးႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ျပည့္သူ႔ေခတ္ဂ်ာနယ္ အယ္ဒီတာခ်ဳပ္ စာေရးဆရာ ေဖျမင့္ကလည္း " အခု အင္တာနက္မွာ ပ်ံ႕ႏွံ့ေနသလို၊ အခု ၾကားေနၾကသလို ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ အခုထိ မသိေသးဘူးဗ်၊ လြန္ခဲ့တဲ့ တစ္ပတ္ေက်ာ္ေလာက္ကတည္းက ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ တင္ထားတယ္ေပါ့ဗ်ာ " ဟု The Voice Weekly ၏ ဆက္သြယ္ေမးျမန္းခ်က္ကို ေျဖၾကားသည္။

ယင္းေဆာင္းပါးသည္ ျပည္သူ႔ေခတ္ဂ်ာနယ္အယ္ဒီတာအဖြဲ၏ ေတာင္းခံခ်က္အရ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္မွ ျပည္တြင္း ပုံႏွိပ္မီဒီယာတစ္ခုသို႔ ပထမဦးဆုံးအႀကိမ္ ခ်ီးျမႇင့္ေသာ စာမူျဖစ္ေၾကာင္းဆရာေမာင္ဝံသက ေျပာၾကားသည္။


" တစ္ျခား ပုံႏွိပ္မီဒီယာေတြကို ေပးထားမထားေတာ့ မသိေသးဘူးဗ်၊ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ကို ေပးထားတဲ့ ဒီစာမူကို ျမန္ျမန္ ခြင့္ျပဳေစခ်င္ပါတယ္၊ စာေပစိစစ္ေရးက ခြင့္ျပဳလိုက္တယ္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့ သတင္းေကာင္းပါ " ဟု ၎က ထပ္ေလာင္းေျပာၾကားသည္။


ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ ၿပီးခဲ့သည့္ ဇြန္လ ၂၈ ရက္ႏွင့္ ဇူလိုင္လ ၂၅ ရက္ေန႔မ်ားတြင္ ထုတ္လႊင္ခဲ့သည့္ 2011 BBC Reith Lectures (ႏွစ္စဥ္ ထုတ္လႊင့္ေနၾက ထင္ရွားေသာ ေခတ္ၿပိဳင္အေၾကာင္းအရာမ်ား) က႑တြင္ ပါဝင္ခဲ့ကာ သူ၏ ပို႔ခ်ခ်က္ႏွစ္ခုကို BBC World service ႏွင့္ BBC Radio 4 အသံလႊင့္အစီအစဥ္မ်ားတြင္ ထုတ္လႊင့္ခဲ့ၿပီး Youtube ရွိ BBC Channel မွလည္း ထုတ္လႊင့္ေပးခဲ့သည္။

Credit : The Voice Weekly

A public hearing on the dispute concerning delimitation of maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal will begin on September 8 at a UN tribunal in Hamburg, Germany.

Bangladesh lodged objections with the UN regarding the claims of India and Myanmar on October 8, 2009, as it has disputes with both the countries on "natural prolongation of the continental shelf and the baseline." 

India and Myanmar have unfairly cut off a significant portion of Bangladesh's maritime area in the Bay. Both the neighbours have drawn line in the Bay in such an unlawful way that apparently sandwiched Bangladesh, officials in Dhaka said.

Bangladesh's objection to Myanmar's claim was lodged with the UN's International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. And its objection to Indian claim was filed with the UN's Permanent Court of Arbitration based in The Hague, Netherlands. 

On September 5, the UN tribunal will have a public sitting at which Thomas Mensah, Judge ad hoc chosen by Bangladesh, and Prof Bernard H Oxman, Judge ad hoc chosen by Myanmar, will make the solemn declaration required under Article 9 of the Rules of the Tribunal.

Foreign Minister Dipu Moni will lead the Bangladesh delegation at the hearing scheduled to begin at the ITLOS on September 8. She along with experts including Rear Admiral (retd) Khurshid Alam, additional foreign secretary, will leave Dhaka on September 7 to attend the hearing.

The ITLOS is an independent judicial body established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to adjudicate disputes arising out of interpretation and application of the convention. It is empowered to settle such disputes between states.

The tribunal will hear the first round of oral arguments from Bangladesh on September 8, 9, 12 and 13 while Myanmar will place its arguments on September 15, 16, 19 and 20.

In the second round, Bangladesh will present its oral arguments in favour of its claim on September 21-22 and Myanmar on September 24.

The hearing will be held in the main courtroom of the tribunal, and is open to the public, according to a press release of ITLOS. 

Officials at the foreign ministry said Dhaka hopes to get the final verdict on the case with Myanmar by March next year.

Bangladesh favours a principle based on "equity" while India and Myanmar favours "equidistance" system to get bigger maritime areas.

Under a UN charter, the principle of "equity" takes into account a country's population, economic status and needs, GDP growth, and other human issues, while the "equidistance" system marks the boundary through geometric calculations.

According to UNCLOS, any such dispute should be resolved on the basis of equity, and in the light of relevant circumstances. And that makes Bangladesh's demand for equity-based demarcation justified.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh presented its claim on the continental shelf in the Bay at the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) at the UN Headquarters in New York on August 24.

Dhaka's claim on the continental shelf extends up to 400-460 nautical miles (850 km) southwards from the country's coastline. It says it has full rights over the undersea natural resources within this area.

On December 14, 2009, the case relating to delimitation of the maritime boundary between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay was lodged with the tribunal through notification of a special agreement between the two states.

Dhaka and Naypyitaw (Myanmar capital) duly filed their written pleadings within the time-limits prescribed. Dhaka filed its Memorial on July 1 last year and Myanmar its Counter-Memorial on December 1 last year. Dhaka's reply was given on March 1 this year and Naypyitaw's rejoinder on July 1.

Bangladesh has appointed 21 internationally reputed counsels for the legal battle with Myanmar and India.

Ever since Burmese resistance leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released from her house arrest last year by the ruling military junta, I have been trying to understand why she hasn’t given the people of Burma any clear calls for acts of resistance. For Burmese people around the world opposed to the regime, she is an unparalleled source of spiritual authority. Lately, I’ve been thinking of this especially in light of her recent Reith Lectures, which were controversial for her statements that the movement may possibly have to be violent as well as nonviolent. Why would she say this? Is it a tactical threat to the regime? Or is it part of her grand strategy to embrace armed ethnic nationalities? Having been a part of the effort to rid Burma of its oppressors since the nationwide uprising in August of 1988, I took this as a shock. She hadn’t ever spoken quite like this.



The first thing to understand, I think, is that she’s addressing audiences both inside and outside of Burma—and mainly inside. In the lectures, she identified her cause with the full spectrum of dissidents—violent and nonviolent—thereby connecting with ordinary people, including the ethnic nationals, inside the country.

Right now, she’s walking a very thin line between the military and the pro-democracy movement. She could end up back under house arrest or in jail at any time if she does or says anything that causes people to mobilize or take action against the regime. She cannot speak directly to the people inside Burma to stage nonviolent acts. No domestic journalists would publish such a thing, for fear of censorship and imprisonment. The regime, however, allows her to speak with outside media for two reasons: first, there is tremendous international pressure to do so, and, second, ordinary people inside Burma will have a hard time even gaining access to them, much less use them to start a revolution.

Nevertheless, I believe she’s using speeches and interviews with foreign media to indirectly communicate with the people of Burma. But that isn’t to say that people inside the country are getting her message clearly. They probably don’t even realize that she’s talking to them. After seeing Daw Suu’s lectures at Reith multiple times, the question that came to my mind was this: how many people inside Burma are even aware of this, and how many actually got a chance to see or listen to her lectures? This is the only chance she has to speak freely to them.

To the outside world, she’s publicizing the poor conditions and challenges that dissidents and pro-democracy movement inside Burma have been facing since 1988. The majority of Burma’s 55 million people are barely surviving on under $1 a day, the country’s media is utterly controlled by the regime, and less than 2 percent has access to the (severely censored) internet. They have been gravely smashed by one of the most brutal, oppressive, and corrupt regimes in the world for many decades.

Meanwhile, she’s also reaching out to several generations of Burmese people inside the country, encouraging them to participate in this pro-democracy movement by following the paths of iconic and courageous dissidents and pro-democracy leaders. To this end, she took time to mention prominent leaders and members of the National League for Democracy, most of whom have been imprisoned multiple times, and spoke of the recent history of the NLD. This older generation stood against the regime and, despite all they’ve suffered, is still trying to. By invoking them, she’s reminding the Burmese people what resistance looks like, and that they should not be afraid to exercise their freedom. She discussed what drives a person to dissent, even knowing the sacrifices involved. She also spoke about the NLD youth who come to the office each day, reminding them that now it’s their turn.

And while she didn’t denounce the possibility of violence, she stressed that the movement’s true weapons are the fates of its people, and that their true armor is their passion—our passion. While she won’t disown those who have tried military options, what she calls for now is a movement built on something stronger than that.

With Daw Suu free again, and keeping in mind her reminder to keep working for freedom, I think it’s time for the Burmese pro-democracy movement to develop new kinds of tactics. We need to see the situation strategically, on a large scale, and formulate our tactics accordingly, rather than improvising actions on the fly. Daw Suu isn’t in a position where she can tell us what to do, specifically or directly. We have to figure it out for ourselves and act collectively.

There are many pillars that are supporting the military regime’s power in Burma, and we need to carefully and seriously study them, understanding their relationships and dynamics. More importantly, we need to find ways to educate and mobilize young people in Burma about this. How, at the individual and community levels, do we each help keep the regime in place? What can people do, both inside and outside Burma, to weaken its structure of support?

I have one idea, at least. Currently, I’m developing a project to bring thousands of low-cost radios to rural and remote areas in Burma, on which people can listen to broadcasts coming from overseas, thanks to networks like the BBC, VOA, RFA, and Democratic Voice of Burma. But there’s so much more that needs to be done. I hope that, for all the controversy it has caused, Daw Suu’s lectures will remind the people of Burma that the power is ours to take back.

By Zin Linn,

Recently, Burma’s new government has released a number of statements indicating its willingness to reach settlement with ethnic armed-groups and political opponents, domestic and exile. Regrettably, those offers have been considered inconsistent.

According to the speech delivered by President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Burma) U Thein Sein at the first Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Union Parliament) second regular session, he and his government has been gearing up to work with the international community.

For instance, the president said, “Our government has inherited traditional foreign policy which has never been harmful to international and regional stability and security and it is maintaining friendly relations with global nations. What’s more, we are trying to stand tall as a dutiful member of the global family in international and regional organizations. For this reason, we have officially proposed to take the ASEAN chairmanship in 2014. We are extending the hand of friendship to all global nations and all international organizations including the ASEAN.”

It is obvious that President Thein Sein’s government has set its sights on being allowed to hold the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2014, a year before the country’s next scheduled polls.

Although Thein Sein’s government seems to make softer its political stance against its opponents in recent weeks, it fails to do more tangible improvement. For example, the release of political prisoners and approval of settlements with ethnic armed-groups are still delayed as yet.

However, Thein Sein emphasized that his new government was working for “citizen rights.”

“We are ready to co-operate with the international community,” he underlined.

Even though, the Thein Sein government turns a deaf ear to calls for the release of political prisoners. Besides, the government repeatedly declares the National League for Democracy, led by Suu Kyi, an unlawful party.

In addition, Thein Sein told members of parliament that his government will pay attention to oppositions’ suggestions. He said the government has already prepared to talks on peace with armed ethnic groups since the progress of the frontier areas is dependent on stability.

But, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) has rejected an offer of new peace talks from the government. On August 18, the government proposed joining in peace talks towards ethnic armed groups. But, it was dumped by the KIO and the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), because the government uses merely bilateral meeting which really is a divide-and rule policy towards ethnic groups without considering the Panglong Agreement.

Lar Nan, Joint-General Secretary-2 of the KIO, said it will not talk bilaterally any more with the government since such negotiation failed in the past. Talks between the KIO and the Burmese government were also abortive in 1963, 1972, and 1980 respectively; they all failed to get to the bottom of the political standoff between the two sides.

Currently, KIO declared that it will talk through the ethnic alliance, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), keeping on the spirit of the Panglong Agreement.

On the contrary, the military-backed Burmese government announced its rejection of peace talks based on the principles of the 1947 Panglong Treaty to the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) on the weekend, according to the Kachin News Group. The government sticks to the 2008 controversial constitution as the guideline for the peace talks.

On August 15, in response to charges during August 12 press conference by information minister Kyaw Hsan, the Restoration Council of Shan State / Shan State Army (SSPP/SSA) issued a statement urging all parties concerned to revitalize the 1947 Panglong Agreement signed by the Burmese leader Aung San and leaders of the (then known as) Frontier Areas, Shan Herald Agency for News said.

SSPP/SSA says in its statement, “Instead of regarding ethnic peoples as enemies and accusing them as subversive elements, it’s high time national reconciliation was being forget by the present authorities on the basis of equality, justice and the Panglong Agreement.”

The historic agreement basically guaranteed self-determination of the ethnic minorities and offered a large measure of autonomy, including independent legislature, judiciary and administrative powers. However, the dream of equality and a federal union is far from being realized some six decades after signing the Panglong Agreement.

Burma’s new Constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum, is inundated with misleading principles. It says the country must be united under one military command. To bring the ethnic groups in line with this proviso, the military regime has ordered all armed rebel groups to become part of Burma’s border guard force ahead of the 2010 election.

Ethnic minorities have been suffering through five decades of brutal military operations in the name of national unity. Attacks on these rural civilians continue on a daily basis. There is a constant demand from Burma’s ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament. It must also include provisions against racial discrimination.

At the June-2004 National Convention, 13 ceasefire groups submitted a political proposal demanding equal access to the plenary session. But the convention’s convening committee dismissed the proposal as improper. When the 2008 Constitution came out, none of the political points proposed by the ethnic representatives were included.

There is a big gap between the military junta and the NLD led by Aung San Suu Kyi. To the military autocrats, allowing the ethnic minorities to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights is a hazard to national unity and sovereignty. To the NLD and ethnic alliance parties, granting equal rights to ethnic minorities will guarantee peace, stability and prosperity of the country.

In his latest speech, President Thein Sein said, “We know what happen to people and what people want. And we are striving our best to fulfill their needs to the full extent. To conclude my speech, I promise that our government as a democratically-elected government will do our best for the interests of the people.”

If the president really knows what people want, he should think about amending of the controversial constitution in which none of the political aspirations suggested by the ethnic representatives was integrated. If the current government truly committed to start political reforms, the first thing it should take into consideration is providing access to debate on constitutional flaws in the parliament.

Without a debate on the 2008 Constitution by all stakeholders, Burma will not win through its political catastrophe.

If the president wanted to do his best for the interests of the people, he should not be a dogmatist sticking to the unreasonable bill which will prolong the ongoing civil war