By Kelly Macnamara

AFP

April 8, 2015

By Elliot Brennan

The Interpreter 

April 8, 2015

Myanmar has had a shaky few years of reform. As many commentators have indicated, the process has, at times, seemed to go backwards. That assessment sells short the significant changes the country has made in recent years, yet it highlights the key issues holding the complex process back.

At the heart of the country's problems with reform has been the issue of ethnicity.

As Robert Taylor noted in a March ISEAS paper, ethnicity has long been a powerful theme in a country boasting 135 ethno-linguistic groups. It has driven politics and policy, led by a strong Buddhist nationalist movement, as far back as the 1920s. So it is no wonder that as Myanmar undergoes a difficult process of reform, ethnicity remains a sticking point. 

This has been persistently seen in the deplorable situation of the Rohingya and lack of political will from any part of the Government (including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi) to address the problem. The Government's muted response to episodes of communal violence and hate speech, as well its patchy response to the 250,000 internally displaced (mostly ethnic peoples), speaks to wider attitudes toward ethnic groups.

Perhaps of greatest concern in the ethnicity debates in Myanmar concerns citizenship. This has culminated in recent moves to revoke temporary identity papers known as white cards.

On 11 February, the Myanmar Government announced that it was cancelling white cards, which serve as temporary ID to otherwise undocumented peoples such as the Rohingya, some ethnically Chinese, and many other ethnic peoples. The exact number of white cards is murky, with estimates ranging between 600,000 and 1.5 million. The cancelling of these documents effective 31 March, ahead of a citizenship verification process that may never occur, will render most white card holders stateless.

White card holders were allowed to vote in the 2008 constitutional referendum and the 2010 election. The move to cancel the papers was part of a wider debate on citizenship ahead of the the November elections. The day after the signing of a bill into law that allowed suffrage for white card holders, President Thein Sein issued an executive order that rescinded the same right. The backflip came on the back of a legal challenge by the Rakhine National Party and protests by Rakhine Buddhists. Following the protests, Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy party kicked out 20,000 white card holders from the party's membership. Other parties did the same ahead of scrutiny by the Union Election Commission, which is enforcing requirements that only full citizens are members of Myanmar's 70-odd registered political parties.

The Government is also demanding that white cards be returned by 31 May, which raises the biggest problem. Holders are loath to give up what is for most the only documentation they have. This is a concern first and foremost for the Rohingya, the largest holders of white cards and those under the most pressure to prove their right to citizenship. As the embattled UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar noted, the rescinding of white cards for the Rohingya 'raises more uncertainties and further increases their vulnerabilities'. 

Of similar concern to persistent anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya sentiment is the uptick in anti-Chinese sentiments in Myanmar; many ethnic Chinese hold white cards. Anti-Chinese sentiment is centered on unpopular Chinese-led infrastructure projects. Recent incidents — the death of a 50 year-old woman during protests against a Chinese-backed mine and the re-emergence of fighting between the Government and the Kokang, an ethnic Chinese population in the northeast of Myanmar — have significantly increased anti-Chinese sentiments in the country. 

With white card holders unlikely to return the documents, the question arises: to what lengths will the Government go to get them back? 

Following the expiration of the cards at the end of March, this was answered in part when authorities, supported by security personnel, began collecting white cards from 11 camps on the 1st of April. 

The Government seems to be trying to make some positive moves on ethic issues, though whether they are genuine or just stonewalling will be revealed in due course. Naypyidaw has come under fire for the make-up of the Union Election Commission, the body that oversees the electoral process. The UEC is made up of eight representatives, all of whom are ethnically Burman (see UEC's Strategic Plan here). In what could be a significant development ahead of the November elections, the president last week sent a letter to parliament requesting the addition of eight ethnic members to the UEC (his nominees are reported here). 

With the elections approaching, it is unsurprising that many see the rescinding of white cards and the growing politicisation of ethnicity as a move by the Burman- and Buddhist-majority Government to consolidate their vote. Indeed, much of the current politicking and politicisation of ethnicity is part of electioneering in a country where 31% of representatives will be drawn from ethnic-minority states (44% come from the Burman-majority regions and 25% from the military — Aung Din presents the election math here). 

The politicisation of ethnicity will continue to be a key component of Myanmar's electioneering. White card holders are set to be some of the first casualties, and the spectre of further communal violence looms large.

By Kristin Hulaas Sunde

Amnesty International

April 8, 2014

U Kyaw Hla Aung holding his National Registration Card, a document from the 1950s that proves that he has lived in Myanmar for a long time.

Reuters

April 7, 2015

By Radio Free Asia

April 7, 2014

Myanmar authorities have collected about 40,000 temporary identification cards from displaced and stateless Rohingya Muslims in restive Rakhine state, part of the process of applying for citizenship, an official said Monday. 

Khin Soe, an immigration officer in the state capital Sittwe, said more than 10,000 of the “white cards” were being collected daily in the western Myanmar state, following a declaration by President Thein Sein in February that they would expire on March 31. 

The move came about because of a bill that would have allowed white card holders to vote in a referendum on constitutional amendments, which drew sharp opposition from Buddhist nationalists.

Most of the temporary identification card holders are persecuted Rohingya, a Muslim minority of around 1 million people who live in Rakhine (Arakan) state. The Myanmar government refers to the Rohingya as “Bengali” because it views them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, although many have lived in the country for generations.

“From April 1 to April 5, we collected 44,651 cards,” Khin Soe told RFA’s Myanmar service. “According to that rate, we will collect all white cards within a monthly or slightly longer.”

There are a total of about 700,000 white card holders in Rakhine state, and 37 immigration groups have been collecting the cards around the state, he said.

The Rohingya must turn in all the cards by May 31 so they can apply for Myanmar citizenship by June 1, according to the citizenship law of 1982, he said. 

The citizenship law does not recognize the term Rohingya as an ethnic minority of Myanmar, so that members of the group cannot obtain government documentation by using the term to identify themselves.

Khin Soe said white card holders would have to show proof of a long family history in Rakhine state if they wanted to obtain Myanmar citizenship and have an identity card again, according to a report last week in The Irrawaddyonline journal.

Authorities backed by security personnel visited nearly a dozen camps where the Muslim Rohingya have been housed since they were displaced by a violent and deadly clash with majority Buddhists in 2012, Agence France-Presse reported last week. About 140,000 Rohingya have been displaced by violence since then.

It was unclear whether those who surrendered their cards would be able to begin the citizenship process, the report said, because they do not have any other form of national identification.

But those who give up their white cards receive a “receipt” to prove they had a temporary identity card and can begin the citizenship verification process in June, Khin Soe said, according to The Irrawaddy report.

U.N. criticism

Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur on Myanmar, said the expiration of the temporary white cards raised more uncertainties about the status of the Rohingya and further increased their vulnerability, according to a news release by the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK following a Rohingya panel discussion at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 18. 

Lee also warned that Myanmar was backsliding because of continued discriminatory restrictions on the freedom of movement of Muslim internally displaced persons, which also infringed on other basic fundamental rights, the news release said. 

Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a research and advocacy group that focuses on the northern part of Rakhine state, denounced the citizenship verification process and the cancellation of white cards, because it could lead to a total exclusion of the Rohingya in Myanmar, the news release said. 

She believes that the withdrawal of the white cards goes beyond denial of the right to vote and risks leaving the Rohingya without any legal documentation and the right to reside in Myanmar, it said.

White cards were issued by Myanmar’s former military junta for the 2010 elections, which saw Thein Sein’s nominally civilian government take power from the regime. An army-backed political party won seats in areas with sizable numbers of white card holders.

White card holders in the process of applying for citizenship include members of other ethnic minorities such as the Kokang and Wa, and people of Chinese and Indian descent, in addition to roughly half a million Rohingyas.

In early February, the Myanmar parliament approved a proposal by Thein Sein to allow people with temporary identification “white cards,” most of whom were Rohingya, to vote on a referendum on constitutional amendments to the country’s junta-backed constitution, which could come as early as May.

Hundreds of people took to the streets in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon on Feb. 11 to protest the government’s decision to allow people without citizenship, including Rohingya, to take part in the referendum.

Reported by Min Thein Aung of RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

By John Zaw & Simon Lewis

UCA News

April 6, 2015

Sittwe -- Sixteen-year-old Zaw Myint Tun wants to be an engineer. In mid-March, he sat Myanmar’s national matriculation exams in the hope of going to university and pursuing his goal.

In preparation, he told ucanews.com in an interview, he drew out a study schedule, with different exercises covering the six subjects included in the matriculation exams. 

“I would get up at four in the morning to do the exercises before school,” said Zaw Myint Tun, dressed in a sharp plaid shirt and sporting a strictly-business crew cut. “At seven, I would drink some coffee to wake up a bit, then go to school. After school, I had more tuition until late.”’

Last month, students all over the country took the exams, in which a higher overall score will get you into a more prestigious institution of higher learning, on a more prestigious course. 

For Zaw Myint Tun, only a score high enough to get into a university in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, will do. The closest university to his home in Thetkepyin village, Sittwe University — which has a lower entrance requirement — would not let him in. 

Zaw Myint Tun is a member of the Rohingya ethnic group in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, who since violent riots spread across the state in 2012 have had restrictions placed on their movement, as well as on their access to basic services and education.

His family fled their hometown of Kyaukphyu by boat, reaching the part of the Sittwe peninsula that now forms a sort of open prison of camps and villages for more than 100,000 people.

Zaw Myint Tun has already lowered his expectations from actually studying engineering, which is one of a handful of subjects, also including law and medicine, that can only be studied by Myanmar citizens. Most Rohingya, including Zaw Myint Tun, do not have citizenship as the group is not recognized as an official “nationality” in the country.

“I know I can’t do engineering at a Government Technical College, so I will take mathematics or English,” he said. “Then I will try to find a job at a construction company where I can train to be an engineer.”

If he gets onto a course in Yangon, he will likely still face difficulties. According to Muslim former students in Yangon, even non-Rohingya Muslims have faced discrimination at Myanmar universities, with degree certificates in some cases being withheld if the student cannot present a national identity card.

“I will have to get a permit from the immigration department,” said Zaw Myint Tun, who is in a better position than most Rohingya students as he has been singled out for financial support by displaced people from Kyaukphyu.

Sitting the matriculation exams alongside Zaw Myint Tun last month were 97 other Rohingya teenagers. Their school in Thetkepyin, the only public high school open to Rohingya in all of Sittwe, is just a few hundred meters, across some disused railway tracks, from Sittwe University. When those students allowed to attend the university are on their way to classes, Myanmar police officers are posted along an access road, which goes through a Rohingya neigborhood. 

Another Rohingya student, Kyaw Maung, 18, said he was anxious about how he had done in the exams, the results of which will be released in June.

“I answered all the questions on the paper. I think I did well in four subjects, but physics and chemistry didn’t go that well,” he said. “If I didn't pass, I will take the exam again.

“I have a great ambition to join Sittwe University,” he adds, well aware that this ambition is likely futile. “If I pass with a good grade, I would also like to go to Yangon, but I don’t have any money. 

“I have no hope for finding a job around here, but I will just have to complete my studies and then see what I can do.”

Employment prospects for Rohingya youth in Sittwe amount to manual labor or fishing, volunteering as a teacher — which pays just 50,000 kyat, or US$50, per month — or, most lucrative, finding a job with an international nongovernmental organization.

That was the choice that faced about 400 Muslim students who were enrolled at Sittwe University when rioting ripped the town in two. Their educations were suspended indefinitely with authorities officially declaring that security concerns meant they could not return.

“In the years before the conflict in 2012, inside the university it was friendly and everyone participated in their education, but outside there was already tension,” Sittwe University’s rector, Dr Tin Maung Tun told ucanews.com during an interview in his office. “All religions were working together before the conflict. But after, they are not working together.”

The rector insisted that “there is no policy” that excludes students from the university on ethnic or religious grounds, but admitted that, in practice, Muslim students were not accepted. “All the students now are ‘nationalities’,” he said. 

“The university’s policy is that we follow the rule of the government,” he added, declining to say which government agency ordered the university off limits to Rohingya students. “My opinion is that all of the citizens are always higher [priority] than others [non-citizens].”

The rector insisted that there was an avenue open to Rohingya students wanting to continue their education at Rakhine state’s biggest university — distance learning. Arrangements were made for about 80 Muslims students in the southern Rakhine town of Thandwe, and about 15 in the Muslim-majority northern part of the state, to learn at home and sit exams under Sittwe University’s supervision.

No Muslims in Sittwe had signed up for distance learning however, he said. “They don’t register. They don’t want to learn by distance,” he said. “I think they don’t want this education.”

But no efforts have been made by the university to reach out to young Rohingya people in Sittwe, who would anyway face a difficult task studying at their home — which for most is a crowded temporary shelter.

“After the violence, the students are living in very tough conditions,” said U Khin Maung, the headmaster at Thetkepyin High School. “Their circumstances are unstable, so many are not really interested in studying.” 

Thetkepyin school has only seven government-trained teachers, alongside 51 local volunteer teachers, and some 2,600 students to teach, the headmaster said. Much of the teachers’ work involves building up basic education among a population with high levels of illiteracy and widespread trauma.

However, he insisted, “The teaching is good here. Our students are improving a lot since the violence, but the normal school education level has not been resumed yet. After the violence, many were affected, both mentally and physically.”

Last year, only two students out of 18 who took the matriculation exam passed. One of those made it onto a pharmaceutical course in Yangon, offering a chink of hope to this year’s cohort of 98 who sat the exam.

“I’m hopeful that 10 to 15 will pass this year,” Khin Maung said. “Sittwe University is closed to them, so they have no future here. But we encourage them. If they work much harder, they might get into Yangon University and get out of here.”

By Andrew R.C. Marshall and Simon Webb

Reuters

April 4, 2015

The Globe and Mail

April 4, 2015

By Olivia Enos

The Heritage Foundation

April 3, 2015

Burma’s President Thein Sein has proposed four pieces of legislation that threaten the very fiber of Burma’s already halting democratic reform process. If passed, the Protection of Race and Religion bills would violate religious liberty and institute potentially severe population control measures. The U.S. should maintain its opposition to them.

Religion Laws

The proposed religion bills address religious conversions, interreligious marriage, population control, and polygamy.[1] From the information available, of the four bills, the Religious Conversion Law and the Population Control Healthcare Law pose the greatest threat to individual liberties.

The Religious Conversion Law creates a Registration Board that would require individuals to undergo screening and certification of their religious conversion by the local government. After review, individuals can be denied the right to convert to their chosen religion. The review process and the mere fact that a personal religious decision has to be reported to the government is a major problem.

The Population Control Healthcare Law advocates population control measures including birth spacing—or the practice of leaving a 36-month interval between having additional children. The law calls for a survey to determine population density and its relationship to available resources in Burma. If it is determined that a specific region is deemed to have too large a population, the government would mobilize population control apparatus to that region until it is deemed of suitable population size.

Religious Liberty in Burma

The state of religious freedom in Burma is already bleak. Since 1999 and until today, Burma has been designated by the State Department as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) for engaging in “severe violations of religious freedom.”[2]

Burmese Muslim minority Rohingya face particularly acute persecution. Under Burmese law, Rohingya are not considered citizens of Burma, despite the fact that most Rohingya are born there. The Burmese government attempts to legitimize their claim by referencing a requirement in the 1982 Citizenship Law, which stipulates that ancestors live in Burma prior to the start of British colonial rule.[3]

Since Rohingya allegedly do not meet this requirement, many are rendered stateless, and therefore operate outside the protection of Burmese laws. Rohingya are denied the right to vote, are more susceptible to violence, and increasingly vulnerable to discrimination.

The majority of religious conflicts today in Burma are between Buddhists and Muslims. However, Christians, especially the Kachin minority, are also targeted.[4]

Religion Laws Would Exacerbate Religious Persecution

The passage of these religion laws, particularly the Religious Conversion Law and the Population Control Healthcare Law, would worsen Burma’s already abysmal track record on religious freedom.

Manipulative population control measures and restrictions on religious liberty have already failed in other countries in the region, including China. The Population Control Healthcare Law is remarkably similar to China’s “later, longer, fewer” policies that advocated later marriages, longer birth intervals, and fewer children.[5]

Chinese leadership bought into the Malthusian theory that population grows faster than available food resources. As a result, the Chinese government made the incorrect assumption that poverty under Mao Zedong was attributable to a large Chinese population, rather than to policies of agricultural collectivization and other Communist attempts at redistributing wealth.[6] This assumption was false.

Attempts at artificially reducing population in China had severe economic and humanitarian consequences.[7] Furthermore, China’s draconian population measures took family matters and incorrectly placed them in the hands of the government.

Now Burma seeks to do the same. Should Burma decide to implement population control, it will lead to foreseeable economic challenges. While Burma is attempting to legitimize population control by hearkening to faulty Malthusian logic, the most likely reason for the introduction of the Population Control Healthcare Law is to craftily disguise their intention to target Rohingya.

Religious persecution and population control have worked in tandem in Burma before. In 1994, Burma enacted a law limiting Burmese Rohingya to two children. While the two-child law has been inconsistently enforced, it was resurrected in 2013.[8] In 2013, the international community cautioned against the potential misuse of population control as a tool for persecution. The Population Control Healthcare Law would do just that.

With Burma’s record on religious freedom, legislation requiring Burmese to report religious conversion will only further exacerbate religious persecution. When reporting their religious conversion, Burmese would be required to provide extensive personal information, enabling the Burmese government to target not only the individual, but their extended and immediate family as well.

Personal religious decisions are not a matter for the government to meddle in, especially not when the Burmese government has such a poor track record of safeguarding religious liberty.

Recommendations

> The U.S. government should actively oppose the Race and Religion laws in Burma. The State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Burma should urge Burmese lawmakers to abandon the proposals and instead shore up Burma’s policies on religious liberty. The U.S. government should publicly emphasize that true democratic reform means guaranteeing religious freedom for all peoples in Burma.

> The U.S. should continue to list Burma as a “country of particular concern” in the State Department’s International Religious Freedom report. Last year’s International Religious Freedom report noted some minor improvements to religious freedom in Burma.[9] However, any signs of progress are more than offset by the ongoing religious conflict in Burma, the Burmese government’s introduction of the race and religion bills, and its continued persecution of religious minorities. The U.S. should maintain the arms embargo against Burma and refrain from exercising its waiver authority under the International Religious Freedom Act.[10] Until Burma has demonstrated long-term commitment to promoting religious freedom, it should remain a “country of particular concern.”

> The U.S. should encourage Burma to recognize Rohingya and other displaced minorities as citizens. Burma is home to large numbers of internally displaced and stateless individuals. Displaced persons are at an increased risk for persecution. If Burma seeks to improve its record on human rights and religious liberty, it should guarantee that minority populations enjoy the same legal protections as all other citizens of Burma. Burma should legalize the Rohingya, especially Rohingya that already qualify as citizens.[11]

Conclusion

If Burma wishes to be recognized for its democratic reforms and fully benefit from its reintegration back into the international community, the government must refrain from imposing new repression. The introduction of the four Protection of Race and Religion bills only confirms the international community’s suspicions that Burma is backsliding.

As the leader on international religious freedom, the U.S. should encourage Burma to respect the religious liberty of all its peoples.

—Olivia Enos is a Research Associate in the Asian Studies Center, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Open Doors UK, Burma/Myanmar, ”http://www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/worldwatch/burma_myanmar.php (accessed March 23, 2015).

[2] Press release, “USCIRF Deeply Concerned by Draft ‘Religious Conversion Law’ in Burma,” U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, June 11, 2014, http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/uscirf-deeply-concerned-draft-religious-conversion-law-in-burma (accessed March 24, 2015), and U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Frequently Asked Questions: IRF Report and Countries of Particular Concern,” http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/c13003.htm(accessed March 24, 2015).

[3] U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Burma: Religious Freedom and Related Human Rights Violations Are Hindering Broader Reforms, November 2014,http://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/BurmaReport.ReligiousFreedomAndHumanRightsViolations.pdf (accessed March 24, 2015).

[4] Human Rights Watch, Untold Miseries: Wartime Abuses and Forced Displacement in Kachin State, March 2012, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/burma0312ForUpload_1.pdf (accessed March 24, 2015).

[5] Laura Fitzpatrick, “A Brief History of China’s One-Child Policy,” Time, July 27, 2009,http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912861,00.html (accessed March 24, 2015).

[6] Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

[7] Olivia Enos, “China’s Self-Created Demographic Disaster Is Coming,” The National Interest, September 25, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-self-created-demographic-disaster-coming-11353 (accessed March 25, 2015).

[8] Olivia Enos, “Opposition to Burma’s ‘Two-Child Policy’ Mounting,” The Daily Signal, May 29, 2013, http://dailysignal.com/2013/05/29/opposition-to-burmas-two-child-policy-mounting/.

[9] U.S. Department of State “International Religious Freedom Report for 2013,” http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm#wrapper (accessed March 24, 2015).

[10] Federal Register, “Secretary of State’s Determination Under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998,” Vol. 79, No. 185, pp. 57171–57172, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-09-24/pdf/2014-22769.pdf (accessed March 30, 2015).

[11] Walter Lohman, “A Reverse Roadmap for Burma Sanctions,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2749, December 12, 2012, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/12/a-reverse-road-map-for-burma-sanctions.

By Charles M. Sennott

Huffington Post

April 3, 2015

YANGON, Myanmar -- In a grand ballroom at a fancy hotel here, some 300 journalists and media executives from around the world assembled last week for an International Press Institute (IPI) conference headlined "On the Path to a Free Media."

But protests by local journalists at the entrance to the hotel and placards held up during the three-day gathering underscored that there are still some treacherous turns -- and a few dangerous potholes -- along Myanmar's long road toward establishing greater press freedom.

Myanmar, like many of its neighbors in Southeast Asia, is witnessing serious setbacks for those who hold out hope that a culture of free expression might be emerging.

A leading Burmese magazine, Mizzima Weekly, featured a cover story last week titled "Media Under Threat" and chronicled 20 instances in which journalists have been jailed since 2013. Reporters covering student protests in March were detained for days for trying to document a brutal police crackdown.

In neighboring Bangladesh, reports emerged this week that another dissident, secular blogger was allegedly hacked to death with machetes by Islamic students. It was the second such murder in the last month in Bangladesh, and many bloggers are reportedly fleeing or shutting down their sites.

In Malaysia, three editors and two executives with a news website called The Malaysian Insider were arrested Monday in what critics called a direct assault on press freedom.

In Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos, "the situation of freedom of expression has stagnated," according to the 2014 index published by Reporters Without Borders. The index stated that free speech in Myanmar is "being watched with great interest."

In a region writhing with change and challenges to authoritarian rule, it seems that old habits of intimidation and murder of journalists still cast a shadow over hopes for democratic reform.

In Yangon, at the IPI conference, a scene played out that seemed to drive home the complex mix of hope and despair around the country's struggle for a free press and a new democracy.

Just as Myanmar's Information Minister Ye Htut was commenting Saturday on how far Myanmar had come since a few years ago, when a military junta tightly controlled the media, a man wearing a facemask stood up and interrupted him.

The masked man silently held a protest placard as cameras flashed all around him. The placard read, "Stop beating, arresting and imprisoning journalists!" At another time in this country, this expression of dissent would have likely gotten him arrested. Instead, the anonymous man held up his sign in protest and then quietly slipped away and left the hotel.

And on Friday morning, as the three-day conference got underway, a small group of local journalists assembled in protest handing out stickers that read, "Stop Attacks on the Media!"

Ye Htut seemed eager to respond to the protests by stressing that reform "takes time."

And, he added, "I would like to assure you Myanmar's reform process is unstoppable, and is moving forward."

But many of the local journalists attending the conference seemed unconvinced. While they agreed much progress has been made, they were very quick to add that there is still a very long way to go.

Even if they wanted to believe that the country was reforming in important ways, they were expressing concern that recent crackdowns and the arrests of journalists covering student protests were signs that the old ways of the military junta could be returning in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Outside the conference, in the cramped but buzzing newsroom of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), worked Khin Maung Win, deputy editor of the Democratic Voice of Burma.

"When we came back to this country three years ago, we had high hope that things would change," said Win, who heads up the daily operation of the independent news organization which he operated in exile in Thailand for more than 20 years.

"But last year alone there were a lot of incidents. One freelance journalist was arrested in broad daylight and taken to a military facility and killed during interrogation. And no one has been held accountable for this killing," Win said.

"Last year, 10 journalists were imprisoned, and one of them was ours," he said. "And 17 journalists are now standing trial. On the one hand, they give us freedom, but this freedom is under threat."

He added, "We acknowledge that there is some real change. We can now speak against the government with some limits, but the gains we have made are now very much under threat."

David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, was in Myanmar for the IPI conference and pointed out that there has been "a remarkable depth of change." But he also added the progress "can be hard to see" when there are journalists jailed and threatened.

He urged the government to immediately release all journalists in detention, saying it would be a significant demonstration of Myanmar's commitment to free speech as the cornerstone that it will need to put down in order to build a new democracy.

A test looms this fall, when Myanmar will hold national elections in which the opposition party of longtime dissident and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will participate, though she is still barred from running for president. Many international observers and local political analysts see the election as the first chance at a free and fair vote in Myanmar in nearly three decades.

Whether the government will permit a free press to confidently cover these elections and ask the hard questions could be a major factor in the result of the election. It could also impact international opinion on just how genuine Myanmar's steps toward democracy really are.

Soe Myint, executive editor of the Mizzima Media Group, who returned from exile in 2012 after 22 years working abroad as an opposition journalist, said the stakes are high.

"Myanmar is fast approaching a crucial test in our ongoing transition," Soe Myint told the IPI gathering. "Just how free and fair the election is deemed to be will greatly impact the social, political and investment climate in the country and significantly serve to stabilize or destabilize the reform process."

Charles M. Sennott, Executive Director of The GroundTruth Project, is a board member of the North American Committee of the International Press Institute. GroundTruth, in partnership with the New York-based Open Hands Initiative, led a reporting fellowship with 20 top, young journalist in Myanmar in 2012 and published a GlobalPost 'Special Report' titled "A Burmese Journey."

By Reuters

April 2, 2015

BEIJING -- Myanmar has accepted responsibility and apologized for bombs dropped on Chinese territory last month that killed five people, China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

The incident happened during clashes between Myanmar government forces and a rebel group called the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). Thousands of refugees have fled to China as fighting flared on the Myanmar side of the border in the past month or so.

The Chinese government was infuriated by the deaths in its southwestern province of Yunnan, and warned of a "decisive" response should there be any repetition.

Meeting with his Myanmar counterpart Wunna Maung Lwin, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that a joint team formed to look into the bombing had clearly ascertained what had happened, China's Foreign Ministry said.

Wunna Maung Lwin accepted the results of the probe, which was that bombs from aMyanmar aircraft killed Chinese citizens, and extended his apologies and offered compensation, the ministry said in a statement.

"The Myanmar side will go after and punish in accordance with the law those responsible, and will also strengthen internal controls to avoid such an incident happening again," the ministry added.

It said Myanmar will work with China to ensure stability along their 2,000 km (1,250 mile) border, much of which is remote and hard to access.

The MNDAA, led by ethnic Chinese commander Peng Jiasheng, was formed from remnants of the Communist Party of Burma, a powerful China-backed guerrilla force that battled the Myanmar government until it splintered in 1989.

The group struck a truce with the government which lasted until 2009, when government troops took over their region in a conflict that pushed tens of thousands of refugees into China's Yunnan province.

Media Release from Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK

For Immediate Release 

Thursday 2nd April 2015

Rohingya Denied Right to Vote – New briefing on ‘White Card’ Withdrawal

Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK today publishes a new briefing paper the escalation of repression of the Rohingya by President Thein Sein by withdrawing their right to vote.

The briefing paper: ‘The Rohingya, the Citizenship Law, temporary registration, and implementation of the Rakhine State Action Plan’, is available at http://brouk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Briefing-Paper-on-White-Card.pdf.

On February 11th 2015, President Thein Sein announced that all Temporary Registration Certificates, known as ‘White Cards’, would expire on 31st March 2015, and had to be returned to the authorities by 31st May.

At a stroke, this move has disenfranchised around a million people, mostly ethnic Rohingya, from the upcoming general election due in Burma in November 2015. It also prevents the Rohingya from taking part in a possible referendum on Burma’s constitution, which could take place this year.

The response from the international community to this further attack on the rights of the Rohingya was almost complete silence.

Having stripped the Rohingya of one of the few rights they did have, the ability to vote, President Thein Sein now intends to fully apply the 1982 Citizenship Law on the Rohingya. All Rohingya will now be processed under this law. But the provisions of this law mean that the vast majority, some experts predict well above ninety-percent, will not be able to meet the citizenship requirements of the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law. The intention of the Burmese government is then to place all these Rohingya into what amount to giant concentration camps, and then seek countries for them to be deported to.

The briefing paper also highlights the failure of the British government to take practical action to try to prevent further repression.

Although the British government has provided financial support for aid to internally displaced Rohingya, senior UN officials still describe the situation in the camps as the worst they have ever seen. Despite this, the British government is not supporting calls for higher level international pressure to persuade the Burmese government to allow unhindered international humanitarian access to the camps, such as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon personally taking the lead in negotiating humanitarian access.

The British government is refusing to support calls for a United Nations Commission of Inquiry into human rights violations and government policies against the Rohingya. Instead it says it is calling on the Burmese government to conduct its own investigations, even though they are aware that the Burmese government will not do so.

“It appears that no matter how serious the human rights violations against the Rohingya are, and what new policies President Thein Sein brings in to repress the Rohingya and try to drive the Rohingya out of Burma, it has no impact at all on the British government’s policy of supporting the Burmese government,” said Tun Khin, President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK. 

For more information please contact Tun Khin on +44 (0) 7888714866.