Environmental + Community Initiatives Launches by HToo Foundation

This is one of the first articles I've come across which addresses the environment/wildlife situation in the Mandalay region:

From the Myanmar Times
By Zaw Winn

THE Htoo Foundation has launched a series of community development projects to conserve Myanmar’s natural forest and wildlife, as well as local customs, languages and dialects.

The foundation was originally created to provide emergency aid in the wake of cyclone Nargis. “Soon after the storm, we organised all companies under Htoo Trading and started donating to victims. Then we decided to keep on doing community development in other regions,” said the foundation’s project director, U Ye Min Oo.

The project will be carried out in Kachin, Kayah, Chin and Shan states, and Pyin Oo Lwin district in Mandalay Division.

“We have now commenced operations in Kachin, Shan and Pyin Oo Lwin,” he said, adding that operations would start in other regions within months.

U Ye Min Oo said the aim of the project was to conserve Myanmar’s natural forest and wildlife in the regions, to develop local ethnic communities in remote regions, encourage the languages and cultures of Myanmar ethnic groups, including minorities, and to help meet emergency needs in natural disasters.

“A primary school and a small hospital are under construction in Mulashidi village, in Kachin State’s Putao region, and are scheduled to be completed by June,” U Ye Min Oo said.

He said the Htoo Foundation was encouraging the wider use of local dialects. “We will persuade local communities to speak their own dialects,” U Ye Min Oo said.

The foundation would also encourage communities to wear traditional dress, he said. “We will try to persuade them to preserve their national identity by wearing national dress at least once a week, to speak their own dialects occasionally, and to work their traditional crafts,” he said.

Global Justice Center Update

Dear Friends,

We need you to join us in making Nicholas Kristof's wake up call on Burma this week the first step in sending the ruling criminal junta to the International Criminal Court.

On February 4, 2009, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof highlighted the ongoing devastation of the people of Burma by the criminal regime, which has ruled with rape and murder for over forty years. There is now a way to end impunity. The UN Security Council can send Burma to the International Criminal Court for investigation and prosecution of war crimes.

We ask you to not only commend Nicholas Kristof, but respond to his column with a call for justice. Although Mr. Kristof commendably calls for "new approaches" on Burma, there is already an available solution. The International Criminal Court was created by the global community precisely to end impunity and remove criminal dictatorships. Learning from history, criminal dictators do not respond to pleas of envoys or sanctions. Ongoing impunity has made General Than Shwe more powerful than ever. Moreover, the call to the ICC is what all of the exile Burma groups are asking of the international community.

GJC Burma Researcher Phyu Phyu Sann posted one call for criminal accountability on Mr. Kristof's blog this morning:

We do not need a new approach, just the old approach - justice.

We people of Burma deserve it. Many of my friends are in prisons calling for justice. This is the dictatorship that put 20 year olds in prison for 104 years and many others.

Not only me but all of my colleagues of 88 generation and monks are calling for justice. There is the International Criminal Court as a way to bring justice for people of Burma. Why do we need a new approach???? We need "Justice", a very fundamental and old one.

-Phyu Phyu Sann
Member of '88 Students

The '88 Generation Students, International Burmese Monks Organizaton, National Council of the Union of Burma, Women's League of Burma, Burma Lawyers' Council and other representatives of Burma's people are calling for justice, as is the European Union. We are asking for you to do the same.

The people of Burma need our help by responding to Mr. Kristof and letting him know that the "new approach" we need is right before our eyes. The crimes that the SPDC is committing are crimes not just against the people of Burma, they are crimes against the entire world. If we do not stand up for people of Burma we are encouraging the next criminal dictator and endangering the next vulnerable population.

Click here to make your voice heard on how we can end the suffering in Burma!

Thank you,
Global Justice Center

UN envoy meets ministers, diplomats in Myanmar

From the AP/IHT:


YANGON, Myanmar: The United Nations' special envoy to Myanmar met Sunday with government ministers and diplomats in a renewed effort to promote political reform in the military-ruled country, officials and diplomats said.

It remained unclear whether U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari would be able to meet with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his four-day visit, which started Saturday. The trip, his seventh, comes amid criticism that he has failed to produce significant results.

Gambari told diplomats that his objectives are to urge the release of political prisoners, discuss the country's ailing economy and revive a dialogue between Suu Kyi and the junta, a Western diplomat said.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of protocol, said Gambari was also preparing for a possible visit by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, but did not elaborate.

Ban visited Myanmar last May after Cyclone Nargis devastated coastal areas and persuaded the junta's top leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, to ease access for foreign aid workers and relief supplies.

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The clamping down of Christians in Burma

From Compass Direct:

Burmese authorities last week increased restrictions on Christian activity in the capital city of Rangoon and surrounding areas, including the closure of several churches, Compass sources confirmed yesterday.

Orders issued on Jan. 5 had already forced many Christians meeting in residential homes or apartments to cease gathering for worship. Officials last week ordered several major Rangoon churches, including Wather Hope Church, Emmanuel Church and the Assemblies of God Church, to cease holding services and continued enforcing the Jan. 5 ban on meetings held in unauthorized facilities.

In the late 1990s authorities stopped issuing permits for land purchase or the construction of new churches, leading many Burmese Christians to conduct services in rented apartments or office buildings, according to the Burmese news agency Mizzima.

The Kyauktada Township Peace and Development Council on Jan. 5 invited pastors from more than 100 Rangoon churches to a meeting where they were told to sign documents pledging to cease operation of their churches. About 50 pastors attended, according to Mizzima.

The documents threatened punishment, including potential jail terms and the sealing of church facilities, for pastors who refused to obey the closure orders.

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Student gets 104-year sentence

The Burmese government just sentence a student in his 20s to 104 years in prison!
104 years...For going to the Thai border to contact a group in exile.

Students and activists are getting hefty terms for helping Cyclone Nargis victims or rally for Aung San Suu Kyi. How can we protect them?

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MYANMAR RECOVERY TO TAKE UP TO 4 YEARS!

I just saw this on IRIN's website:

YANGON, 15 January 2009 (IRIN) - Cyclone survivors in Myanmar will likely need up to four years to fully recover from the impact of Nargis, according to the UN.

“Full recovery will take three to four years, depending on the availability of funds,” Bishow Parajuli, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, told IRIN in Yangon, the former Burmese capital.

His assessment runs from May 2008 when the cyclone struck to 2011, the recovery period now being envisioned by the upcoming Post-Nargis Recovery and Preparedness Plan, a strategic framework for the international community’s recovery assistance.

More than eight months after Nargis left close to 140,000 people dead or missing when it hit the http://www.blogger.javascript:void(0)com/img/blank.gifAyeyarwady delta on 2 and 3 May, life remains a struggle for thousands of the 2.4 million people affected, many of whom lost their homes, property and livelihoods.

Despite a massive outpouring of humanitarian assistance, recovery will not be quick. Indonesia took four to five years to recover from the Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed some 167,000 people in the western province of Aceh in 2004, Parajuli explained.

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Unsung Heroines - The Women Who Fight For Rights

By Farah Milhar, media officer, Minority Rights Group International

Defending human rights is a risky business, but for women on the job the threat is much greater. In every country, amid the deepest crisis - be it in eastern Congo or Sri Lanka - women human rights activists are at the forefront, challenging governments, military forces, militants, community leaders and men in their societies.

At the Hague, Netherlands, late last week Dutch funding agency CORDAID and Justitia et Pax brought together some 30 women rights defenders from across the world to share experience and generate solidarity for their groundbreaking work.

The women were from diverse backgrounds and struggling for a range of issues including extra-judicial killings, evictions, torture, sexual violence, female genital mutilation and domestic violence. Many were from ethnic and religious minorities and indigenous communities, meaning they face multiple levels of discrimination.

"People see you as the enemy. I had to stop going to my parent's house because it was too dangerous for them," said a pastoralist woman from an east African country. Together with other women in her community, this activist - whose name has been ommitted for her safety - has challenged attempts by her government to forcibly take away their land to build a tourist resort.

The price she paid was severe. A member of her family was killed, she has been questioned and interrogated several times by the police, and she has been forced to cut ties with her parents out of fear of their security.

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