Free Republic

MAE SOT, Thailand -- She is branded an enemy by Myanmar's military rulers, but to the thousands who flock to her clinic _ many of them victims of the country's harsh regime _ Dr. Cynthia Maung is the gentle healer in a world of torched villages, squalid refugee camps and sweatshops. After she fled her homeland, the soft-spoken doctor known simply as Dr. Cynthia set up her clinic in a barn, sterilizing syringes in a rice cooker. Eighteen years later, it's a medical center that treats more than 50,000 of her desperate countrymen each year. From her clinic in this...

The Karen Women's Organization is investigating allegations that a 14-year-old Burmese Karen girl was raped by a Thai soldier on Monday, one day after Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had visited her refugee camp. KWO officer Ler Pwe, who has taken responsibility for the case, told The Irrawaddy that the rape occurred near the Mae La refugee camp on the Thai/Burmese border, when the girl, who had only been at the camp for one month, was out herding goats with her 7-year-old brother. A Thai soldier is believed to have approached the pair, raped the girl twice and offered 30...

Bird flu? Burmese authorities burn chicken feet in Rangoon Jan 26, 2006 (DVB) - Although the true extent of the preventative measures against the spread of bird flu in Burma is not known, residents from Rangoon told DVB that piles of chicken feet belonging to a livestock company were destroyed recently in the incinerator of a local crematorium. According to a staff at Rangoon Hteinpin Cemetery, chicken feet were transported to the crematorium in containers. He added that the cremation of human remains was severely delayed by the destruction of chicken feet. Another staff said that it was the only...

MYANMAR (ANS) -- Two soldiers in the Burmese Army who defected to the Karenni forces on April 25 have testified to the widespread use of chemical weapons. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), Myo Min, 15, had been in the Burma Army for one month and Soe Thu, 16, had been in the Burma Army for two months. When asked about 'chemical or poison' weapons, Myo Min told CSW's International President, Dr Martin Panter, that he had to carry boxes of chemical weapons to the front line almost from the day he arrived. Dr Panter visited the region between April...

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council held a discussion of human rights and drug trafficking problems in Myanmar on Friday after months of pushing by the United States and Britain. Some members of the council, especially China, had opposed talking about the reclusive Southeast Asian country, saying its problems did not pose a threat to international peace and security.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysian police squashed a demonstration Wednesday near the venue of the East Asia Summit, detaining 19 activists protesting human rights abuses at home as well as in Myanmar and Thailand. The detainees included four Malaysian opposition activists, and the rest were refugees from military-ruled Myanmar.

The forced appropriation of farmers' land by the municipal authorities of Shanwei City, Guangdong Province has incited a mass protest by the residents. The land appropriation was conducted in order to build a power plant. The local authorities suppressed the protest using thousands of armed police who reportedly shot the protesters using submachine guns and tanks. Dozens are believed to have died. This latest attack on its own people by the Chinese government reminds the West of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and has drawn serious attention globally. On December 10, the official state media finally broke the silence...

Non-government groups fighting for regime change in Myanmar (Burma) have developed a slick approach, putting out books, brochures and compact discs of music besides mass e-mailing media organisations. With supporters like billionaire Hungarian financier George Soros -- whose Open Society Institute and Soros Foundation give support and donations to dozens of global causes -- the message is loud and clear. In contrast, the military regime is markedly less media-savvy, relying mostly on government-owned publications with limited circulation beyond Myanmar to get its message out. That has changed since October, though, with e-mails from Myanmar pouring into government and media in-boxes...

The following draft of the blueprint attempting to address not only the current situation between the government of Union of Myanmar and International Labor Office but also the issue of forced labor in Myanmar: - 1. The ILO liaison officer ad. Interim continues to carry out his functions in Myanmar. ILO does not continue, in its Conventions and Conferences, receiving the reports of those who are neither delegates of a member state nor representatives of the member country concerned, the Union of Myanmar, effectively denying the due respect to Myanmar. 2. The Joint Plan of Action which originates from the...

More heat than of the tropical kind can be felt in Burma's capital these days. Saffron-robed Buddhist monks still walk door-to-door with begging bowls, asking for food. The unemployed still sit idly in tea shops. But Burma's military rulers are probably sweating a bit more in their uniforms. Burma (Myanmar) has suddenly risen up the list of antidemocratic nations needing acute outside attention. In separate but quickly converging actions, the United Nations secretary-general and the Bush administration are trying to throw klieg lights on the suppression of human rights and democracy in a nation too long seen as a strategic...

Indeed, we have just passed the point that marks ten full years of house arrest for Aung San Suu Kyi a Nobel Laureate who remains unlawfully detained. However, while it is important to describe and condemn the human rights abuses in Burma, we also need to acknowledge that the brave Burmese people aspire to and dream of a better life. As Aung San Suu Kyi proclaimed "Justice is a dream. But it is a dream we are determined to realize." We are here today to share what unites us all the dream and determination to see a free and democratic...

Freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi is a precondition for progress In cruel solitude, denied visitors or even a telephone, a frail woman marks ten years as the political prisoner of a vicious and illegitimate military dictatorship. Since 1988, when she returned from Britain to her native Burma and, in response to a massacre of student demonstrators, formed the resolutely non-violent National League for Democracy, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of those 16 years in prison or under house arrest. It is 15 years since the League astounded the junta by winning 80...

Guwahati: Russia has resumed talks on helping Myanmar build a nuclear research facility even as the biggest Russian arms trader is firming up plans to set up an office in capital Yangon, according to Burmese media reports. Russia's atomic energy ministry, or Minatom, has that it has resumed talks with Myanmar's military government on developing a nuclear research facility at Kyaukse in Mandalay division, The Mizzima Journal available here reported. Plans for the facility, to be built by Minatom, were shelved early this year after Russian officials said Myanmar's generals could not afford the project. Meanwhile, Russian arms trader Rosoboronexport...

Burmese protestors travel along Route 130 in their monthlong march from Washington, D.C. to New York City. WASHINGTON — While people went about their daily lives Monday, a small group of strangers walked quietly into town along Route 130, largely unnoticed except for some passers-by who looked curiously at their signs and moved on. Most come from Burma, a place not many are familiar with and even fewer can point out on a map. And though their arrival was unobtrusive and their message is one of optimism and peace, what brought them through Washington is nothing less than horrifying. The...

Dear Secretary General Annan, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Congo, East Timor, Afghanistan, Peru, Burma, Columbia — the litany of countries where women’s bodies have become the battlefield continues to grow. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 Tutsi women survived rape during the genocide in Rwanda. Between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s Not until after conflicts end does the world learn of the scale of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls. Exactly what is it that we learn? Looking at the situation in Darfur one...

Yangon, Aug 26 (DPA) Myanmar's military leader, Senior General Than Shwe, who was earlier this week rumoured to have been ousted in a coup, has been flown to Singapore for medical treatment, a source said Friday. Than Shwe, 73, was flown to Singapore Wednesday for treatment of an unspecified illness, the source close to the military leader said. General Maung Aye - vice chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as Myanmar's military junta styles itself - is leading the country in Than Shwe's absence. Than Shwe has led Myanmar's military regime since 1992. He was last seen...

www.shanland.org    

           Free All Student Political Prisoners View Current Signatures   -   Sign the Petition   To:  Sr.Gen Than ShweChairman State Peace and Development Council Chairman, State Peace and Development Council c/- Ministry of Defence Signal Pagoda Road Rangoon, Burma. Release All Student Political Prisoners in Burma 1. The role of students in Burma has been very significant in Burma's politics, since the students initiated and actively participated in the anti-colonial movements, national independence movements, interna peace and reconciliation movements, and democracy movements. The 1988 pro democracy people power movements in Burma were sparked from the student demonstrations, and...

The deputy and the deposed: is this really the end of Sr. Gen Than Shwe? For thirteen years, Sr. Gen Than Shwe and his family stayed on top of the Burmese military government, featuring prominently in nightly news and steadfastly refusing to hand power to election winner National League for Democracy. Now the man who joined the army at 20 has been forced to retire by Deputy Sr. Gen Maung Aye because of nepotism and corruption, according to sources close to the government.News blackout? The news has not been confirmed but a resident at the China-Burma border insists it...

Recently under the sponsorship of the Indian Embassy in Rangoon, "The Forgotten Hero," the Indian film about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was shown to the public in Burma. It was screened on August 15, (India's Independence Day) free of charge. The $US5 million film partially shot in Burma, illustrates the life of Bose. Directed by Mr. Shyam Benegal, a part of the film was shot in Burma in December 2003 for 20 days. The great Indian war hero Subhas Chandra Bose may have spent his finest and fruitful days in Burma, but its capital city does not have any memorial...