What the papers say

[RAP: DVB looks at some international reporting and commentary of the Burmese "elections".]



... Japan deserves some praise, having broken the trend of silent Asian nations when it spoke of its “deep disappointment” with the polls. But back inside Burma, such sentiments may be wasted among the inured population, who have asked for help so often from the international community but been provided with little. As the listed air that settled over Burma yesterday suggests, expectations these days are nil; that it was only punctuated by gunfire in the east is perhaps even more telling.

http://www.dvb.no/analysis/what-the-papers-say/12723

Activists to attempt elections uprising

From: Dan Withers at DVB

Photo added

An activist network will attempt to spark a mass uprising against military rule in Burma on Sunday, the day of the country’s first elections in two decades, DVB has learned.
Moethee Zun, one of the leaders of the 1988 student uprising which was brutally put down by the army, said the People Action Committee (PAC) believed it could succeed where the ‘88 demonstrators failed. “We have no guns or bullets… but we have enough determination to end the dictatorship and restore democracy,” said Moethee Zun, one of the PAC’s seven leading members.
Sunday’s elections will not be free and free and will merely perpetuate the military regime’s rule, said the long-time activist and former deputy chairman of the influential All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF). “Major parties such as the National League for Democracy and ethnic ceasefire groups have been purged from the political process… they are being besmirched by the regime’s propaganda machine.”
“Only the USDP [Union Solidarity and Development Party] is campaigning freely, using threats, bribes and violence,” he said. He accused the military of blocking the activities of democratic parties, preventing them from meeting in public and denying them the freedom to promote their policies in the media.
The PAC has a central committee of around 50 members, including ‘88 activists, MPs elected in the 1990 elections and ethnic leaders inside the country, said Moethee Zun. Each committee member has a network of activists within Burma ready to disrupt the polls, he said. The network would distribute leaflets and posters, make speeches, shout slogans, and attempt to start marches in crowded areas, he said.
The PAC has already started its activities. On Wednesday its members gave out leaflets in the Yuzana Plaza shopping mall. Tomorrow activists will campaign in 20 townships in Upper Burma, giving out t-shirts, urging the public not to support the election and demanding the release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi. Asked whether Suu Kyi would join the government if the uprising succeeded, Moethee Zun said his group had not held discussions with her.
But political analyst Aung Naing Oo, himself a former member of the ABSDF, was sceptical the group would succeed in its goals. “Democracy is a process…. Even if the opposition groups are able to kick out the military, democracy won’t come to Burma overnight,” he said.
In fact, the PAC was putting lives at risk by inviting a violent crackdown by the army, he said. “I have argued with opposition groups, especially people like Moethee Zun… that he is sending people to their deaths… They [the military] didn’t even spare the country’s most revered institution, the monks,” he said, referring to the 2007 Saffron Revolution, when the military brutally suppressed a mass uprising by Burma’s Buddhist clergy.
Asked if the PAC risked provoking violence in Burma, Moethee Zun’s reply was simple. “We are expecting that response,” he said. “We have no choice.”

http://www.dvb.no/elections/activists-to-attempt-elections-uprising/12577

Burmese migrants indifferent to looming vote

From: Dan Withers at DVB

As Burma prepares to hold its first elections in two decades, the world’s media has trained its fickle gaze on this military-ruled Southeast Asian nation. But, in neighbouring Thailand, most Burmese migrant workers have little interest in polls they believe will do nothing to improve life in their home country.
The Bangkok Post last week claimed more than 2,000 Burmese migrant workers were queuing at the national verification office in Tachilek opposite Mae Sai in Chiang Rai, Thailand, hoping to obtain a temporary passport. “These migrant workers are eager to get their passports so they can travel more freely back to cast a ballot and then return to work in Thailand,” an unnamed source told the Post.
But with estimates of the number of Burmese working in Thailand ranging up to three million, these people are just a tiny fraction of the migrant worker community. Most migrants are in Thailand illegally – and have no intention of risking the journey home to vote in an election widely dismissed as a sham aimed at keeping the military in power.
“I don’t believe in this election,” said Aung Aung, a 22-year-old hospitality worker in the Thai-Burma border town of Mae Sot. “Than Shwe wants to win. I think he will cheat. They’ve been cheating for 20 years up to today.”
Moe Swe, of Yaung Chi Oo Workers Association, said most Burmese in Mae Sot weren’t interested in the polls. “They know the election is not for them,” he said. “They won’t get any benefit… The Burmese people know the election is just about selecting Burmese generals.”
The vast majority of Burmese migrants come to Thailand for economic reasons, working in factories, construction and the fishing industry in the south. Moe Swe said he had talked to Burmese in Phuket and Phang Nga, many of whom had been in Thailand for several years and knew very little about the polls.
“They haven’t been given any information about the parties,” he said. And what they do know, they don’t like: “The NLD is not in the election; Aung San Suu Kyi is not in the election, so migrant workers are not interested. They will not return to Burma to vote,” he said.
In fact, according to advocacy body Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma, many migrant workers are unaware the elections are even taking place. The TACDB recently surveyed 200 people studying at a migrant worker school in Thailand. Of those that responded, just 15.7 percent knew that Burma was holding general elections on 7 November.
Myint Wai, deputy director of TACDB, said there were probably more than two million Burmese migrant workers in Thailand. Of these, less than 200,000 have obtained passports through the Thai-Burmese “nationality verification scheme”. Those with passports are supposed to be able to vote in advance of the polls at the Burmese embassy, but the government has done nothing to inform these people of how to do this, he said.
Jackie Pollock, of the Migrant Assistance Program based in Chiang Mai, said the mainly Shan migrants her organisation works with are also uninterested in the elections. With the polls cancelled in many parts of Shan State, workers felt like the election lacked credibility. “They feel there’s a lot of exclusion anyway. Other ethnic people aren’t allowed to vote, so they feel like it’s not an election that’s inclusive.”
The criticism came as New York-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch released a damning assessment of the election process, four days before the polls.
“Burma’s November 7 elections are being conducted in a climate of fear, intimidation, and resignation,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “These elections are about elite military transformation, not democratic transition, and offer little change to Burma’s deplorable human rights situation.”
There were “growing reports of voting irregularities and inducements to vote for the military-backed parties,” HRW added. Foreign media are forbidden from entering the country to cover the elections, and election watchdogs have been barred from observing them.
Author: DAN WITHERS

http://www.dvb.no/elections/migrants-indifferent-to-looming-vote/12544