Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Individual Documents
Description:
"The majority of lawmakers voted on Monday to defeat a bid by Myanmar’s military-backed former ruling party and military-appointed lawmakers’ to impeach the Parliament’s house speaker over his handling of the constitutional reform process.
A total of 243 members of the Lower House (62 percent of those in attendance) voted down the proposal by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and military appointees to remove Union Parliament Speaker U T Khun Myat. The accusation alleged that he violated the Constitution and parliamentary laws by favoring Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in its Charter reforms attempts, launched last year, and also on several other occasions. Military-appointed lawmaker Lieutenant Colonel Myo Htet Win said that the speaker broke the law by allowing the National League for Democracy (NLD) to submit an urgent proposal to form the Constitutional Amendment Committee in January 2019 and by blocking full parliamentary debate on charter amendment proposals submitted by military lawmakers and the USDP.
“The head of the legislative body’s failure to abide by the law harms the Parliament’s image,” the lieutenant colonel said.
In addition to accusing the speaker of thwarting debate on their charter-amendment proposals, the USDP and military-appointed lawmakers also accused U T Khun Myat of misusing his power to deny some of their motions on Monday during debate over their impeachment proposal..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-06-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Laws, decrees, bills and regulations relating to the judiciary (commentaries), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
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Sub-title:
Some feel Covid-19 restrictions on gatherings will hurt smaller campaigns, entrench incumbent advantage
Description:
"Union elections will take place in 2020, a Union Election Commission (UEC) spokesperson has said.
Myint Naing told an MRTV interview on a May 4 broadcast that, despite concerns over the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, elections must be held this year.
It is a divisive issue among Myanmar’s many political parties. Some say holding elections while large gatherings are banned will give the upper hand to the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), as smaller parties will have a tougher time getting their message out.
The NLD government’s efforts to support out-of-work laborers during the Covid-19 pandemic can appear as its own form of campaigning, while out-of-power parties can do little campaigning of their own at the moment, said Thein Htun Oo, spokesperson for the opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party.
“The ruling party has a lot of advantages right now,” he told Myanmar Now.
He declined to offer an alternate date for the elections, saying only that “public health should be the top priority.”
Dr Myo Nyunt, an NLD central executive committee member, declined to weigh in but said his party will strictly follow the commission’s decision.
Other party officials told Myanmar Now that, if elections do need to be delayed because of the pandemic, delays should not last more than a few months.
“If the next government and parliament are not ready to assume office by the time the current term expires, there will be political instability” said Thet Thet Khine, a former NLD member who left the party and since become chairwoman of the People’s Pioneer Party..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-31
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
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Sub-title:
NLD members are in hiding and Rakhine nationalists from the ANP have gone off the radar after being released on bail as rivalries turn ugly in Taungup
Description:
"In 2012, 12 Muslim men were dragged off a bus and murdered by a mob while travelling through Taungup in southern Rakhine. It was the start of a bout of sectarian riots that helped plunge the state into the chaos it faces today.
But despite this grim mob killing, the township has since been largely peaceful and stable compared to other parts of Rakhine.
The armed conflict and hostile nationalist politics that have scarred the north - where the Arakan Army (AA) is battling the Myanmar military for greater autonomy - have mostly spared the state’s south.
But events in recent weeks suggest this is changing.
It started on May 5 when 53-year-old Than Shwe, who worked closely with the NLD and served his village’s Covid-19 prevention committee, was abducted in the early hours of the morning.
A military statement later that afternoon claimed that he had been snatched by “knife-wielding” AA members as he slept in his home in Bu Shwe Maw village.
Two days after the abduction, the Sittwe-based Development Media Group reported that several NLD members in Taungup had gone into hiding after a group of people posing as police officers tried to arrest them.
“Who else will have to run?” asked former Rakhine municipal affairs minister Min Aung, who lives in Taungup and is an NLD member, in a Facebook post. “They’ve abducted U Than Shwe and he’s just a normal civilian in Bu Shwe Maw. We don’t know if he’s been killed or not.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-31
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Armed conflict in Rakhine (Arakan) State, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
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Sub-title:
China was initially suspicious of Suu Kyi, a pro-democracy icon and her late British husband who was a Tibetologist maintaining contacts with Tibetans in exile
Description:
"In a series of twists and turns in Myanmar politics leading to the November elections, which may differ in view of COVID-19 pandemic, China seems to be playing to its own advantage. Political analysts are of the opinion that the first and incumbent State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) will win again but not in a landslide victory as it did in the 2015 elections, because of her party losing significant support in ethnic areas of the country.
What remains crucial for her electoral victory is how she and her party juggles between the autonomous army of the country and the powerful northern neighbour China. China was initially suspicious of Suu Kyi for having a pro-democratic approach and her late British husband who was a Tibetologist maintaining contacts with Tibetans in exile. Suu Kyi was under house arrest when the military was ruling Myanmar. The Military then had good relations with China as the latter supplied arms as well as provided diplomatic support at the United Nations.
However, a significant reversal can be seen in today's politics in Myanmar. Suu Kyi, the harbinger of democracy in Myanmar is seen becoming close with China, while the military which once maintained close ties with China is now wary of China's growing advances in the region.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, has been stripped of awards, one after the other, many of which she earned during her long non-violent struggle for democracy against the abusive military rule. Once a darling of the west, now she has often been condemned by the international community concerning the human rights violations under her rule including the Rohingya ouster, jailed journalists and locked up critics.
In 2017, at the time when the world condemned the Suu Kyi government for siding with the army for the Rohingya ouster, she was given a red carpet treatment by China. Although Myanmar Army's Senior General Min Aung Hlaing visited China a week before Suu Kyi, things didn't seem to go well between the Myanmar Army and China, despite Chinese President Xi Jinping calling the China-Myanmar Military relations the best ever..."
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-29
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
It is the first attempt to impeach a speaker in a decade
Description:
"The military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) filed a motion on Thursday to impeach the NLD-backed lower house and assembly speaker T Khun Myat - the first time in a decade lawmakers have sought to impeach a speaker.
The motion was signed by 110 MPs and submitted to deputy speaker Tun Tun Hein on Wednesday, then discussed the next day when T Khun Myat was absent. Tun Tun Hein chaired the discussions in his place.
The signatories have not yet been announced, though most or all are USDP or military MPs.
T Khun Myat’s 2018 bid for speakership was backed by the NLD government. Military-appointed MPs and the USDP make up the NLD’s largest opposition in parliament.
Sai Tun Sein, a USDP MP and signatory to the motion, accused T Khun Myat of permitting multiple constitutional violations as speaker.
He called the speaker’s approval of NLD attempts to amend the union charter while blocking several USDP and military amendment proposals “unconstitutional.”
The speaker’s rejection of USDP lower house MP Maung Myint’s proposal to convene the National Defence and Security Council to address the Covid-19 crisis also went against the charter, he said.
Sai Tun Sein also voiced concerns that a USDP proposal to lower the price of electricity rates after the NLD raised was blocked by the speaker..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-29
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Laws, decrees, bills and regulations relating to the judiciary (commentaries)
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Suu Kyi is now close to old adversary China while long-ruling military is skeptical of Beijing's intent ahead of pivotal polls
Description:
"Elections are scheduled for November in Myanmar, and there is no indication so far that the polls will be postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis. Neither is there much doubt about the outcome.
Most political observers believe that State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) will win again, though not in the same landslide fashion as in 2015 as recent by-elections show she and her party have lost significant support in ethnic areas.
But the bigger electoral question is how her party’s delicate relationship with the autonomous military will play out and in that context how her government’s ties to its powerful northern neighbor China will be portrayed and potentially politicized on the campaign trail.
An entirely new paradigm has emerged in Myanmar, one where Suu Kyi is now seen as a trusted ally of Beijing and the military as a nationalistic bulwark against China’s strong advances. That’s a significant reversal, one that could have implications for stability in the lead-up to polls.
When Suu Kyi was under house arrest during military rule or active in non-parliamentary politics, China viewed the long-time pro-democracy icon with suspicion. That was at least in part because her late British husband, a Tibetologist, maintained ties with many Tibetans in exile..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), “One Belt, One Road” initiative, Burma's economic relations with China, China-Burma relations
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Sub-title:
Parliament decided a 10bn kyat public vote was not worth it to tweak language referring to the elderly and people with disabilities
Description:
"It took more than a year of embittered parliamentary debate, large amounts of the legislature’s time and energy, and further strained State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s relationship with the military.
Yet when the National League for Democracy’s attempt to change Myanmar’s constitution drew to a close in March, they had almost nothing to show for it; just four relatively minor changes to the charter’s wording.
Now they have even less. On Thursday, parliament decided that it would be too costly to go ahead with the nationwide referendum required to approve two of the changes, and postponed the vote indefinitely.
The national vote was needed to update language used to refer to the elderly and people with disabilities in sections 32a and 32b. But the Union Election Commission (UEC) estimated a referendum would have cost around 10bn kyat, roughly $7.1m.
Than Aung of the UEC argued in parliament Thursday that the two articles were of marginal significance to the government’s ventures.
He proposed saving the money for a future referendum when there are other constitutional amendments to approve at the same time.
Aung San Suu Kyi promised in her 2015 election campaign that she would try to wrest power from the military by changing the charter. But the bid was doomed to fail because unelected soldiers in parliament can veto any changes even though her party commands a supermajority..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"In Rangoon’s Drug Elimination Museum, a sprawling hall of half-truths and hilarious fantasy, there are subtle clues to past power plays within the Defence Services, or Tatmadaw. In a section of the museum extolling the questionable commitments to drug eradication of the previous military regimes, displays of drug burnings and press conferences have full pages of the now-defunct Working People’s Daily. But one key figure in this record has been airbrushed from history, almost Soviet style. Except in clumsier form. A thin sheet of brown paper and tape covers several entire photographs. But the revisionists failed to conceal the photo captions underneath, including the name of the senior official depicted: General Khin Nyunt, the Chief of Military Intelligence (MI) and principal protector of some of Burma’s biggest drug dealers.
The scholar Andrew Selth’s latest book is an examination of one of Burma’s most powerful and feared figures of the past forty years. Since his purge in late 2004, Khin Nyunt has been eclipsed by history, ostracized from the military, largely unknown to the outside world since the ‘transition’ to democracy in 2011, and remembered only by his many victims. Selth’s study, Secrets and Power in Myanmar, is less a political biography of Khin Nyunt, and more a technical examination of the intelligence services, producing skilful navigation through the maze of the opaque world of intelligence gathering by one of the most esteemed chroniclers of modern Burma.
The book’s introduction outlines the fearsome place MI and other intelligence agencies, notably the Special Branch (SB) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, have played in generations of military rule starting from the Tatmadaw’s coup d’etat of March 1962, through nearly three decades of Socialist military rule, and the corresponding culture of a surveillance apparatus. Selth could have explored further the devastating impacts on the psyche of Burmese society during this period, but he wisely draws from Christina Fink’s 2001 book Living Silence to support his claims..."
Source/publisher:
"Teacircleoxford" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role
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Sub-title:
explores the reasons behind the Tatmadaw’s stronghold over Myanmar politics.
Description:
"Having endured more than a half-century of military rule, Myanmar appeared to be the least likely candidate for democratic transition in Southeast Asia. Although the prospects for Myanmar’s democratization resurged with the landslide victory of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the 2015 election, this political change has been a top-down transition in the system–-from military rule to electoral authoritarianism–-not in the military’s dominance in politics. The military’s continued dominance was institutionalized by the “roadmap to democracy” engineered by the military regime in 2003. Most notably, this included the drafting of a new constitution in 2008 which allots a quarter of the seats in both houses of Parliament to the military. As the civilian control of the military is a necessary precondition for a democracy, the persistence and entrenchment of Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, has led to a late and limited democratic transition.
Myanmar’s continued military dominance despite its recent transition is not only a divergent pattern in the world, but also in Southeast Asia, as the Tatmadaw has outlasted its Filipino and Indonesian counterparts. This raises the following question: how can the enduring strength of the Tatmadaw be explained? The essay argues that Tatmadaw’s persistent hold on power results from its continuous elimination of democratic forces, its substantive involvement in the national economy, and its management of longstanding centre-periphery conflicts over the course of a half century of military rule; this has established the Tatmadaw as the country’s predominant political, economic, and even cultural elites, overshadowing any other contending force. Today, other than the Sangha, the military is the most deeply embedded institution in Myanmar’s politics, economy and society..."
Source/publisher:
"Teacircleoxford" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role
Language:
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Sub-title:
The new Asia Barometer Survey finds greater tolerance of diversity but also growing political division and disenchantment with democracy since the last survey in 2015.
Description:
"No country in Southeast Asia has experienced more intense political, economic and social changes over the past five years than Myanmar. The changes are evident in everything from the Yangon skyline to ubiquitous mobile phone use, from the COVID-19 response to televised debates of parliament.
Despite this, opportunities to quantify broad political, social and economic change remain relatively rare in Myanmar. The Asia Barometer Survey seeks to fill this gap. Its new report details the findings of a nationally representative survey of 1,620 respondents carried out in September and October 2019 through face-to-face interviews across the 14 states and regions (excluding conflict zones).
Significantly, this report is able to compare public perceptions and political behaviour against an earlier study conducted in Myanmar in 2015, and also see how Myanmar fares against other countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam (Cambodia and Singapore surveys are ongoing this year). The latest survey reveals an often contradictory but overall worrying picture of democracy in Myanmar. First, though, let’s start with the good news: There has been a significant rise in confidence in political institutions, from the parliament and judiciary to the election commission and police force. This higher trust in political institutions across the board is accompanied by greater confidence in the capacity of government to address the problems Myanmar is facing. In all of the ABS research over the past 20 years, no other country in the 14 East Asian countries/territories surveyed has seen such an increase in institutional trust in such a short period of time. The chart below shows that positive views of trust by institution over the two surveys..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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Sub-title:
Officials claim recent mysterious deaths are not Covid-19 related and that citizens are protected by nation's unique diet and lifestyle
Description:
"If Myanmar’s nominal leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to be believed, her country stands out as a global exception without a single reported case of Covid-19.
“Until now no one in our country is infected with Covid-19,” Suu Kyi said in a nationally televised address which to date remains the government’s official position.
Zaw Htay, a government spokesman, said at a March 14 press conference that “Covid-19 is still not present in Myanmar and there have been doubts about that. The government and the Ministry of Health are publishing true news…the lifestyle and diet of Myanmar citizens are beneficial against the coronavirus.”
That official assessment mirrored a March 6 Health Ministry press conference at which spokesperson Khin Khin Gyi said, “[China’s] Hubei province is 1,200 miles away from our country. This geographical factor is preventing the disease from spreading to us. We are fortunate.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Myanmar’s governing National League for Democracy (NLD) receives frequent criticism for failing to repeal repressive legislation and for supporting the military’s persecution of the Rohingya ethnic minority. The NLD still fails to understand the grievances of ethnic minorities throughout Myanmar and its national reconciliation process lacks transitional justice mechanisms. But the party’s increasing centralisation and inability to institutionalise internal democratic processes adds further repercussions for Myanmar. The NLD’s most important party organ is its 21-member Central Executive Committee (CEC). It is led by Chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar’s State Counsellor), Vice Chairman Win Myint (Myanmar’s President) and a second Vice Chairman Zaw Myint Maung (Chief Minister of the Mandalay Region). Many CEC members are also part of the NLD’s legislative and executive branches, resulting in an overlap between the party’s central office and the party in public office.
Myanmar’s constitution mandates that members of the union level executive refrain from engaging in party business. But the party’s highest executives in public office can influence party business through the state and region ministers. Indeed, the party’s highest executives in public office — most importantly Aung San Suu Kyi — are calling the shots.
But the true source of power still lies within the CEC. Zaw Myint Maung explained that ‘both the parliament and the government are below the party. I am in this position because the party assigned me in this way. Who assigned me? The party. So, the party is above all of us. Below the party is the parliament. Below the party is the government’..."
Source/publisher:
"East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of entry/update:
2020-05-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
36.43 KB (4 pages)
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Sub-title:
New military-steered Covid-19 task force has given cover to a wide-reaching clampdown in the name of national stability
Description:
"After weeks of implausible official denials, Myanmar is finally facing up to the reality of its Covid-19 outbreak.
The nation may also soon face a new political reality as the powerful military, or Tatmadaw, leverages the situation to roll back recently restored democratic rights and reimpose strict social and media controls harking to its previous junta rule.
On April 2, Myanmar acknowledged 16 coronavirus cases and one death from the pneumonia-like disease. But with only a few hundred people tested nationwide and in sight of the country’s abysmally poor medical infrastructure, even health officials believe those figures are likely only the tip of the Covid-19 iceberg.
In mid-March, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s government formed a 21-member committee she now heads to broadly manage the country’s Covid-19 situation..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-04-28
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
COVID-19 (Coronavirus), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
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Description:
"Myanmar’s State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has issued a statement saying she is happy rice is being shipped to Paletwa in Chin State, which has been isolated for a couple of months amid fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army (AA).
The government has development plans to boost livelihoods when stability is restored to the township, her statement said. It also condemned the AA as a “terrorist” group for committing subversive acts in Rakhine and Chin states while the government, residents and volunteers worked together to fight COVID-19. The State Counselor’s statement praised the Tatmadaw or military for protecting residents’ lives and property.
She pledged support for civilians affected by the fighting and to continue to strive for peace.
Her statement drew mixed reactions. The Irrawaddy’s reporters Min Aung Khine and Zin Lin Htet asked political analysts, state government ministers and members of ethnic armed organizations for their reactions..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-04-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Armed conflict in Rakhine (Arakan) State
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"This book of proceedings is based on several papers presented at the
seminar Political Instability in Southeast Asia, organized by the
Department of Asian Studies and the Center of Asia-Pacifc Studies at
Metropolitan University Prague on April 19th, 2013. This relatively small
academic gathering was held as part of the series of workshops
organized in the framework of the RESAREAS project, ofcially entitled
the Cooperation Network for Research of Non-European Areas. This
was the third seminar of the series and had originally been entitled
Political Instability in Asia. Interestingly, all the papers which responded
to our Call for Papers dealt with the region of Southeast Asia. Our team,
based around the Department of Asian Studies at MUP, took this as
a good omen that our eforts and area of focus – i.e. a concentration on
Pacifc Asia with a strong dedication to Southeast Asian afairs in our
research and teaching activities – is heading in the right direction.
Therefore, focusing on Southeast Asia in this little edited volume makes
it both more specifcally focused and realistic. Furthermore, of course,
this region deserves much more attention than it is actually getting. And
I daresay this statement bears even more validity in Czechia as well as
within post-Communist Central Europe in general. The simple fact is that
Southeast Asia has so far been heavily understudied in the Czech Republic.
This is something of a paradox since Charles University and other notable
institutions have had a long tradition of (mainly linguistic) Oriental Studies
programs such as Indology, Sinology, as well as Japanese and Korean
Studies. Also Middle Eastern Studies there and at the Oriental Institute of
the Academy of Science of (still regarded geographically, if not always
culturally, as part of Asia) have been well established for decades. Palacký
University in Olomouc and Masaryk University in Brno also have
departments which give lectures on East Asian languages and cultures..."
Source/publisher:
European Social Fund (Evropský sociální fond)
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, ASEAN-Burma relations
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
174.47 KB (142 pages)
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Description:
"After 58 years of military rule, Myanmar’s parliament will today close debate on how to amend its third and current constitution, which was written in 2008.
In a lightly reported step, on February 20, the Burmese parliament approved a joint military-civilian committee to debate constitutional changes. The negotiations arise from the barring of Myanmar’s powerful National League for Democracy’s Aung San Suu Kyi from the presidency due to foreign family ties.
Myanmar’s constitution privileges the military with a special status by reserving 25% of parliament and several key national executive appointments for military officers. The Burmese military had curtailed foreign influence in the domestic economy and political statecraft with six decades of absolute power, but as the country transitions to civilian rule, the ruling officers do not want to see their influence over Myanmar’s future dissipate. Having already stated their acceptance of a reduced role in Burmese politics, the military is looking to maintain a say in Myanmar’s statecraft.
With a population expected to reach 65 million by 2050 and an economy quadrupling to $200 billion by 2030, the constitutional negotiations will determine whether Myanmar will transition to a stable civilian rule or retain an outsized military influence.
Wake up smarter with an assessment of the stories that will make headlines in the next 24 hours. Download The Daily Brief..."
Source/publisher:
"Foreign Brief"
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
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Sub-title:
The United Wa State Party (UWSP) will cooperate with the Union Election Commission (UEC) to ensure the success of the November elections in the four townships in the Wa self-administered division, a party spokesperson said.
Description:
"A UEC delegation led by its chair, U Hla Thein, came to Panghsang, the capital of the Wa region in Shan State, to meet with Wa leaders on the elections last week, said U Nyi Rang, UWSP spokesperson.
“In the poll, we will help the UEC, though we cannot say yet whether voting would be held in the four townships. We need to hold more talks,” he added.
Of the six townships in the Wa region, four are controlled by the UWSP and two by the government. In the 2010 and 2015 general elections, the UEC did not hold voting in the Wa-controlled townships of Pangwaing, Mine Maw, Panghsang and Narhpan.
U Hla Thein urged the leaders of the Wa state government to work together with the poll body in the 2020 elections. He talked about the right to vote and to elect poll representatives.
The UWSP submitted eight demands to the UEC, but U Nyi Rang refused to provide details.
Xiao Mingliang, vice chair of the UWSP, said the Wa government hopes Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would visit the Wa region, which has often invited the State Counsellor to visit..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Wa (cultural, political, economic)
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Members of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw are preparing to vote on a series of amendments to the constitution but it is unlikely that any of them will be approved.
Description:
"PROPOSALS to amend the 2008 Constitution are finally being discussed in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and the debate has been lively. There have been heated exchanges between members of the politically dominant National League for Democracy and unelected military MPs and lawmakers from the Union Solidarity and Development Party, who oppose the NLD’s proposals for charter reform. Debate has been so robust at times that the speaker has directed that some outbursts be expunged from the parliamentary record.
After its landslide victory in 2015, the NLD waited until January 2019 – almost three years after taking office – to begin implementing its election campaign pledge to reform the constitution. The NLD took a similar approach to that adopted by Thura U Shwe Mann in his capacity as speaker of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw during the USDP government, and appointed a constitutional amendment joint committee, which was tasked to prepare a draft bill to amend the charter.
The unelected Tatmadaw MPs objected to the 45-member committee as being unlawful. While the NLD was trying to draft a constitutional amendment bill that incorporated the opinions of all parties in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, USDP and Tatmadaw MPs submitted five of their own amendment bills. In early February, the NLD-controlled joint bill committee finalised two amendment bills and sent them to parliament for debate alongside the five USDP and military bills. One bill contains changes that would also require approval at a national referendum, while the other contains those changes that only require Pyidaungsu Hluttaw approval. We can learn from these seven bills about the changes sought to the constitution by the NLD and ethnic parties on one side, and by the Tatmadaw and USDP lawmakers, on the other..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role
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Summary:
"In 2010, the first elections were held in Myanmar after 22 years of direct military rule.
Most Western observers had decided in advance that the polls would be a travesty. The
regime had been...
Description:
"In 2010, the first elections were held in Myanmar after 22 years of direct military rule.
Most Western observers had decided in advance that the polls would be a travesty. The
regime had been sanctioned and isolated following its refusal to transfer power to the
winner of elections held in 1990, the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung
San Suu Kyi. Instead the regime had pursued its own, visibly flawed “roadmap to
democracy.” The 2008 constitution was largely designed by the military and was imposed
through an implausible “referendum” – a 93.8% “yes” vote on a 98% turnout – in the
middle of a major natural disaster, Cyclone Nargis. The NLD boycotted the 2010
elections, though smaller opposition parties did participate. Unsurprisingly, the militarybacked Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) secured approximately 60% of
the seats in both houses of parliament and captured all but one of the regional assemblies,
while the military took 25% of the seats in both national-level assemblies and one-third in
all the regional assemblies, as mandated by the constitution. Little change was expected
from what appeared to be a purely superficial exercise.
Yet, one year later, major reform was underway. The NLD had triumphed in byelections in April 2012, bringing Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament. Peace talks had begun with ethnic-minority insurgents. Peaceful gatherings and trade unions had been
legalised. Internet censorship eased..."
Source/publisher:
Journal of Contemporary Asia
Date of entry/update:
2020-03-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, The Burmese military's role in the economy
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
174.47 KB (27 pages)
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Description:
"Scholars at the University of Oslo (Norway) and Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia) have
since 2012 conducted collaborative research on “Power, Welfare and Democracy (PWD)”,
based on previous studies with research organisations in civil society, and funded by the Royal
Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta. The PWD project has examined the character and challenges
of democratisation in Indonesia, and how it relates to power relations and social welfare in
society. The project has included a baseline survey on the development of democracy; a
thematic study on politics of citizenship; a thematic study on welfare regimes; a thematic study
on local regimes; and comparative anthropological studies of UN-REDD+ (Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). As this research project comes to an
end in 2017, a two-days conference will be held at the University of Oslo to summarise major
findings and to discuss the implications for domestic and international policy making..."
Source/publisher:
University of Oslo (Norway)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-29
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
700.88 KB (164 pages)
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Description:
"Myanmar’s history has been intertwined with the issues of postcolonial state building
since it gained independence from British colonialism in January 1948. The policies and
administration pursued by the British proved instrumental in deterioration of contact and
cooperation between the diverse ethnic peoples of Myanmar while ethnic conflict was
fostered.
1
The historical struggles of ethnic minorities for recognition and representation
are vital to understanding the current transition to democracy and struggles for
legitimacy in Myanmar.
Undoubtedly, the initial phase of independent Myanmar, following the assassination of
General Aung San on the eve of independence, was characterized by unstable but
occasionally democratic governments punctuated by interventions by the Myanmar
military. The last significant bid for democracy ended, however, following a military
coup by General Ne Win on 2 March 1962.
2
The new military ruler led the country, first
under his Revolutionary Council and then under his Burma Socialist Programme Party
(BSPP), into a 26-year era of isolation following his ‘Burmese way to socialism’, an
admixture of Buddhist, Marxist and nationalist principles that ethnic minorities in the
country interpreted as ‘Burmanization’, which saw Myanmar decline “from a country
once regarded as amongst the most fertile and mineral rich in Asia to one of the world’s
10 poorest nations.”3..."
Source/publisher:
Southeast Asia Research Centre (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
692.19 KB (27 pages)
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Description:
"The United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmar’s largest ethnic armed organization, on Wednesday confirmed it had acquired a helicopter, making the northeast-based rebel group the nation’s first to possess such an aircraft.
A UWSA spokesman denied speculation that the group’s latest acquisition—which was reportedly ordered and delivered from China—would be used for military purposes, insisting it is only for “personal and leisure use.”
U Nyi Rang, the UWSA’s liaison officer, confirmed that the UWSA had acquired a four-seater helicopter, adding that it was purchased late last year and is already in use.
It is the first time the UWSA has bought a private helicopter, he added.
“It is just for personal use and for leisure, and is not for any other purpose,” he told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, saying rumors about the UWSA owning military helicopters were false.
The UWSA, which has an estimated 30,000 soldiers and 20,000 auxiliary troops, showcased its sophisticated arsenal of military hardware during a parade in April last year. U Nyi Rang declined to divulge the price of the helicopter, where it was bought, or whether the group paid tax on the purchase to the government.
However, local news sources have reported the aircraft is Chinese made and was purchased in September 2019.
Depending on the model, the price tag for a four-seater private helicopter is in the range of US$250,000–$1,700,000 (about 360 million-2.5 billion kyats), according to two finance and aviation websites..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Wa (cultural, political, economic), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has expanded its senior management in a move the party says will facilitate its preparations for the 2020 general election.
The military proxy opposition party has appointed two vice-chairs and three additional members to its central executive committee, the party said at a press conference on Friday. “The election is drawing near, and as we need to campaign on a wide scale, we have reinforced with two vice-chairpersons,” said USDP spokesperson Dr. Nanda Hla Myint.
The new vice-chairs are former national police chief U Khin Yi and former Minister of the President’s Office U Hla Tun.
U Hla Tun facilitated the transfer of power from the previous government, led by the USDP, to the current National League for Democracy (NLD) government following the 2015 election. Dr. Nanda Hla Myint said the USDP has appointed U Hla Tun as vice-chair in the hope that he will facilitate the process again if the USDP wins the election.
U Hla Tun is also a retired major general and served as an ordnance director before the USDP government leadership appointed him minister of the President’s Office. U Khin Yi was the chief of the Myanmar Police Force and is a retired brigadier general of the Myanmar military. He served as the Union minister for immigration and population in the USDP government..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Military enterprises, ostensibly set up to feed and supply soldiers,were some of the earliest and largest Burmese commercialconglomerates, established in the 1950s. Union Myanmar EconomicHoldings Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation
(MEC) are two profit-seeking military enterprises established by
the military after the dissolution of the Burma Socialist Programme Party in 1988, which remain central players in Myanmar’s post-2011 economy.• Military conglomerates are a major source of off-budget revenuefor the military and a main employer of retired soldiers. Yet
few veterans receive more than a small piece of the profits
from UMEHL. The vast bulk of formal dividends instead
disproportionately benefit higher ranking officers and institutions
within the Tatmadaw. Military capitalism entrenches the autonomy of the Tatmadawfrom civilian oversight. Despite this, obligatory or semi-coerced
contributions from active-duty soldiers are a source of cash fow for
UMEHL, effectively constituting a transfer from the government
budget to the military’s off-budget entities. The most significant
source of livelihoods support for most veterans is the service pension dispersed by the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MoPF).• Despite delivering suboptimal welfare outcomes for most soldiers
and veterans while eroding the legitimacy of ceasefires, successive
governments since 1988, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s NationalLeague for Democracy (NLD) administration, have entrenched military capitalism by encouraging commercial activities of armed
groups that enter into ceasefire agreements..."
Source/publisher:
Yusof Ishak Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Burma/Myanmar's relationship with the Global Economy
Language:
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pdf
Size:
1.55 MB (49 pages)
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Description:
"In the wake of the Cold War authoritarian regimes around the world adapted to the new
political climate by embracing the form – though not necessarily the substance – of
democracy. The outcome has been an increase in electoral authoritarian regimes, in which
political positions are filled through multiparty elections. The defining feature of these
regimes is that they hold regular elections that are not entirely free, fair, and competitive. On
the contrary, the playing field under these regime is often tilted in favor of the ruling party
(Schedler 2002b:3). These “hybrid regimes” defy simple classifications, challenge existing
theories of democratization, and call into doubt some of the basic premises of the classic
transition paradigm, which primarily revolves around elite-level bargaining (O’Donnell and
Schmitter 1986). The global rise of these regimes has triggered a wave of scholarship
interested in explaining how such regimes fully democratize, how ruling parties are defeated
at the ballot box (Levitsky and Way 2002; Bunce and Wolchik 2010), and whether the
repeated holding of elections leads to further democratization (Staffan 2006; 2009). The
central puzzle revolves around the following key questions: Why do elections serve to
stabilize certain electoral authoritarian regimes yet undermine others? How do they matter?
And how do elections stabilize or liberalize political regimes? This article contributes to this ongoing debate by exploring the case of Myanmar. As a case
study, Myanmar helps us to identify further contextual factors and broaden our existing
knowledge on electoral authoritarianism. Up till now, the fate of electoral authoritarian
regimes has primarily been discussed with the help of statistical analysis and probability tests.
Additionally, certain paradigmatic cases such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Mexico have been
highlighted. By using the case of Myanmar, I am following Morse's lead of employing case
studies to add more analytical leverage for theory building (Morse 2012). Myanmar’s long-
standing military regime has seen impressive political changes since it held its first elections
in 2010 after 22 years of direct military rule..."
Source/publisher:
Southeast Asia Research Centre (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2015 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
429.24 KB (36 pages)
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Description:
"A northern Shan rebel armed group, the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP), says they may sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) this year if necessary to work with the Myanmar government towards political reform.
SSPP leaders held a meeting from Feb. 4-18 at their headquarters in Wang Hai, northern Shan State, to discuss the possibility of signing the NCA and finding compromises with the Myanmar government.
“If we need to sign [the NCA] for our group, we will do it. But first we want to discuss it with our members of our alliance,” said SSPP Colonel Sai Su. The NCA was first signed in October 2015.
Col. Sai Su also said that if the government and the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, are wise, they will choose to compromise with the ethnic armed group coalition known as the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) and all of its members will sign the NCA.
The FPNCC includes the SSPP, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Mong La’s National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Kokang’s Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Arakan Army (AA).
According to the SSPP, the FPNCC does not have a common stand on signing the NCA and the groups need more time to discuss it.
Col. Sai Su said that if the SSPP signs the NCA, they will explain the decision to ethnic Shan people.
The SSPP was a member of the now-defunct United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), which worked to draft the NCA, but resigned from the group in 2017. The SSPP then joined the FPNCC, which continues to negotiate with the Myanmar government regarding the NCA..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand) via reliefweb (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Key figures on the national political scene and foreign specialists and observers alike have
been puzzled by the rapid transformations taking place in Myanmar1
since 2011. What is
happening in this country that was isolated for so long and dominated by its armed forces (or
Tatmadaw in Burmese) totally resistant to change or contact with the outside world? In recent
months, diplomats from the UN, Asia and the West have rushed to Naypyitaw2
and above
all to Yangon to meet with the main opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been free
since her (third) release from house arrest in November 2010 and has been a member of the
national parliament (hereafter referred to as Parliament) since the by-elections held in April
2012. Strikes and public demonstrations, as well as unions and opposition political parties, are
now perfectly legal. The censorship board has been dissolved. The Internet and cell phone
industry are booming. The vast majority of the 2,200 political prisoners counted in early 2011
have been released. A human rights commission was even created in September 2011. Foreign
journalists and critics have no problem obtaining visas, and tourists are flocking in. Burmese
dissidents in exile have begun to return in order to take part in rebuilding an economy still on
the sidelines of globalization. Foreign investors and multinational corporations have started
to prospect in a “gold rush” atmosphere, as one of Asia’s richest regions in natural resources
appears to be opening up..."
Source/publisher:
"SciencesPo." (France)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
432.75 KB (32 pages)
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Summary:
"THE NORTHERN Chin State town of Thantlang has been chosen as the venue for inaugurating the 72nd Chin National Day on February 20, which is celebrated throughout the mountainous state bordering...
Sub-title:
Formerly banned by the military, Chin National Day has been proudly celebrated since a bilateral ceasefire was signed in 2012, but efforts to observe it this year in southern Chin State have been thwarted by armed conflict.
Description:
"THE NORTHERN Chin State town of Thantlang has been chosen as the venue for inaugurating the 72nd Chin National Day on February 20, which is celebrated throughout the mountainous state bordering India. Though the residents of Thantlang are likely excited to be hosting this year’s inaugural events, they were not originally supposed to play host.
That honour was meant to go to the town of Paletwa, in far southern Chin bordering Rakhine State, but the state government decreed last October that the events be shifted to Thantlang because of fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army.
This happened the last time Chin National Day was supposed to be inaugurated in Paletwa, in 2017, and for the same reason. The venues for the last two years were Falam and Hakha.
After the Chin National Front and the Union government signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement in 2012, the venue for inaugurating the state-wide celebrations has been rotated to give each of the state’s nine main towns an opportunity to host..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Chin State, Chin (Zo)- economic, social, cultural, political, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Several ethnic Shanni organizations in northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing Division have objected to an ethnic Naga politician’s move to have Hkamti and Homalin townships incorporated into the Naga Self-Administered Zone (SAZ).
U Aung Khin, chairman of the Shanni Solidarity Party (SSP), told The Irrawaddy on Monday that his organization objects to the actions of respected Naga politician U Ki Shi Mu, who asked Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to make Hkamti and Homalin part of the Naga SAZ during the State Counselor’s trip to the area from Jan. 21-23. “Our residents will protest if the government recognizes Homalin and Hkamti as part of Naga,” he said. “It will become an ethnic conflict if the government recognizes our region as part of theirs.”
Homalin and Hkamti townships both fall within Hkamti District in Sagaing Division. The Shanni recognize the area as their territory and it was historically ruled by Shanni saophas, or rulers. Their culture is still alive in the region, but the Shanni say this would be thrown into question if the area is incorporated into the Naga SAZ.
There are 80,000 Shanni in Homalin and 10,000 in Hkamti, according to the SSP..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Nagaland (Naga), Nagas (cultural, political), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma's ethnic opposition
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Nation building processes in tumultuous times
Description:
"The study of the role historiography and public memory play within nation-building processes in
Southeast Asia continues to see a steady rise of interest with scholars, governments and in
growing numbers also the public eye. In face of continuous local resistance towards national
integration, the struggle to define a national identity by converting multiple pasts into a single
national narrative remains crucial to authoritarian and post-authoritarian regimes alike. The
question of belonging to one nation has yet to be resolved by various communities throughout
the region (Aung-Thwin M. , 2012). Especially Myanmar’s challenged government tries hard to
create a general Myanmar identity that includes not only the Bamar majority, but also all of the
people living on Myanmar territory – with the current exclusion of the Muslim Rohingyas.
1 This
nation-building attempt is naturally on terms of the government. The streamlining of regional or
ethnic histories and narratives poses new threats and worries to the already suspicious minorities
amidst the pacification and reconciliation attempts of Naypyitaw. Successive regimes and leaders
have tried to both exploit the ideological groundwork laid in the dynastic, colonial and
independence eras and to develop innovative new strategies to convince Myanmar’s inhabitants
to overlook what divides them and prioritize what they have in common (Metro & SalemGervais, 2012)..."
Source/publisher:
Dr. Martin Großheim
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
1.21 MB (47 pages)
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Description:
"Responding to news that three members of the Peacock Generation poetry troupe were convicted and sentenced to six months in prison for “online defamation” today for sharing their performances on social media, Amnesty International’s Regional Director Nicholas Bequelin said:
“It beggars belief that these young, brave people are behind bars for sharing videos and photos online. Their performances are all about aspirations for a better future. The fact they’ve been subjected to these outrageous trials and convictions shows just how vindictive the Myanmar military is.
“The authorities would rather punish the youth than reflect on the criticisms presented peacefully through their performances. These convictions and sentences should be quashed, detained members of the group immediately and unconditionally released, and all further charges against them dropped.
“With elections around the corner, Aung San Suu Kyi and the ruling NLD party are running out of time to repeal or amend draconian laws and fully protect freedom of expression. It is time to consign these laws to history once and for all.”..."
Source/publisher:
Amnesty International (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Amnesty International reports on Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Masculinities, gender and social conflict in Myanmar
Description:
"The Union of Myanmar is a complex country context marked by ethnic, religious and linguistic
diversity. It has been affected by decades of an authoritarian, isolationist regime and numerous
interconnected conflicts, ranging from national-level ethnic political and armed conflicts and a
pro-democracy struggle, to broader social-level land conflicts. It has also seen conflicts at the
household level, such as domestic violence. In Myanmar, as in other countries, these numerous
forms of violence affect men, women, boys, girls and those with diverse gender identities in
different ways.
There is increasing awareness that gender is important in understanding conflict and working
towards peace and social cohesion. A growing number of development programmes are
dedicated to addressing this. In practice, such programmes have largely focused on women’s
participation in political and peacebuilding processes. This focus on increasing women’s
meaningful participation in arenas and activities formerly dominated by men is an important
aspect of peacebuilding. However, there is another ‘side’ to the gender inequality dilemma, which
is less well understood – one that deals with the experiences of men and boys. Social expectations
around masculinity are often overlooked (or oversimplified). Masculinities, that is, the social
expectations of men to act or behave in certain ways because they are men, can be drivers of
conflict or violence. However, limiting work on this to ‘men-engage’-type approaches focusing
mainly on mobilising men to prevent sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) can mean
overlooking how social expectations of masculinities can also lead to increased vulnerability for
men and boys, which is often not recognised or addressed by peacebuilding programming.
Understanding masculinities is important, because these masculinity norms – these social
expectations – can be mobilised to manipulate the taking of violent actions. For instance, society
may invoke the expectations on men to be protectors of their community from perceived external
threats, including land confiscations for development projects. Where this means confronting
more powerful actors such as state agencies, frustration and pressures can turn into violent
action..."
Source/publisher:
Paung Sie Facility, International Alert (London), Phan Tee Eain
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
928.79 KB (52 pages)
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Description:
"This report is the culmination of a year-long research project into the activities of civil society in
and around the ongoing Myanmar peace process. This includes the negotiations taking place in
the Union Peace Conference (UPC, also known as the 21st Century Panglong Conference
(UPC/21st CPC) the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), and the Joint Implementation
Coordination Meeting (JICM). It also includes civil society peacebuilding outside of the peace
negotiations and parallel structures. The research project aimed to identify:
• the drivers of confict in Myanmar,
• the civil society actors involved in peacebuilding in Myanmar,
• the types of peacebuilding activities performed by these CSOs, and to classify these activities into types,
• the contributions of these activities to ofcial and unofcial peacebuilding,
• as well as any factors enabling and constraining civil society peacebuilding.
The research was funded by the Joint Peace Fund Myanmar, and was conducted in partnership
between the Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) and the Inclusive Peace and
Transition Initiative (IPTI).3 The research team conducted interviews with 160 individuals from 123
organizations, including from civil society (including CSO networks and local and international
CSOs), donors, members of parliament, as well as representatives of EAOs, members of the Union
Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), members of political parties, and government representatives.4
The CSO sample was built by asking CSOs to nominate other CSOs working on peacebuilding,
hence the sample is shaped by these individuals’ understanding of peacebuilding in Myanmar. The
research was guided by the Civil Society and Peacebuilding (CS&PB) framework, developed by
Pafenholz and colleagues.5
In the context of Myanmar, the term peace process is generally used to refer to a sequence of
high-level peace negotiations and associated consultations and other supporting institutions. This
process began in 2011, under the government of U Thein Sein, and led to the Nationwide Ceasefre
Agreement (NCA) in 2015. The structure and sequence of the current negotiations were set out in
the NCA and the Framework for Political Dialogue (also negotiated and signed in 2015). These
negotiations are projected to lead to a permanent ceasefre, disarmament and demobilization of
non-state armed groups, government and constitutional reforms. Since 2015, the main forum for
these negotiations has been the UPC (21st CPC). The UPDJC acts as the secretariat for the UPC and
has responsibility for important aspects of the process such as pre-negotiations and consensus
building on issues to be brought before the UPC. This means that many issues are essentially
decided by the UPDJC, with the UPC frequently acting to confrm decisions taken in the UPDJC
(although this is not the sum total of its role)..."
Source/publisher:
Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) (Yangon) and Inclusive Peace & Transition Initiative
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Panglong Peace Conference, Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
3.31 MB (101 pages)
more
Sub-title:
Avenues for reform and decentralization and steps towards a federal system.
Description:
"Ever since the Panglong Agreement was signed on February 12, 1947, only two weeks after
the Aung San - Attlee Agreement on Burma’s Independence of January 27, 1947, the issues of
federalism, minority rights and self-determination have been central to Myanmar politics, confict
and military-civilian relations. Accordingly, relations between the center and the periphery are
at the core of the constitutions of 1947 and 1974, as well as the 2008 Constitution. Yet, by any
standards, the Myanmar state has been unitary, and indeed centralized to an extreme degree,
since independence in 1948, leading to 70 years of confict.
To a large degree, the confict explains the other defning trait of the Myanmar state: for most
of the last seven decades, it has been dominated by the military. Relations between the military
and state institutions have been shaped by the relationship between the central government and
Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs).
The issues of democracy, federalism and the role of the military cannot be separated, and
together they form the basis for modern Myanmar politics. In this context, it is not surprising
that organizations representing the interests of ethnic nationalities spent the last two decades of
military rule, after the emergence of the democracy movement of 1988 and the NLD’s victory in
the 1990 elections, calling for a “tripartite dialogue” among the NLD, the military and themselves.
It is no coincidence that these were also the decades when the military was drafting the 2008
Constitution.
The current peace process was initiated by President U Thein Sein in 2011, the year Myanmar
embarked on its transition to democracy. Although democracy and the pursuit of peace are
undoubtedly two of Myanmar’s most pressing issues, the fact that two distinct processes – which
will be referred to in this paper as the political process and the peace process – developed from
there raises a number of issues..."
Source/publisher:
Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung Ltd (Yangon)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-17
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Panglong Peace Conference, Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
368.39 KB (82 pages)
more
Description:
"Myanmar President Win Myint on Thursday warned the country’s powerful military to limit its involvement in politics, citing a mandate issued decades ago by independence hero General Aung San, during a ceremony inaugurating a new statue of the general and father of leader Ang San Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw.
Touching on a sensitive fault line in Myanmar politics as the country prepares for year-end elections, Win Myint said that Aung San issued a directive that members of the armed forces should refrain from participation in government administration, politics, and political party activities.
“I have read that he issued guidelines for the Burmese revolutionary military that they were not to interfere in the administration or in politics, while the military officers and soldiers were not to interfere in political parties and administrative activities,” he said in a speech marking what would have been Aung San’s 105th birthday.
“They are to work on the unity of the state,” Win Myint added.
Myanmar’s military known as the Tatmadaw, ran the country for five decades after a 1962 coup. Its political power is enshrined in the 2008 constitution drafted by the then ruling military junta, and efforts to amend the charter remain an uphill battle.
Military lawmakers who are appointed, not elected, control a quarter of the seats in parliament and retain a critical veto over proposed constitutional amendments. The military also controls three security and defense ministries..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, Panglong Peace Conference
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"The current government, led by the National League for Democracy (NLD), is not the first to attempt to amend the undemocratic 2008 Constitution. In 2013, its predecessor, led by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), gave it a try. But the USDP’s two-year attempt—widely viewed as lacking the will for genuine reform—ultimately proved fruitless, failing to amend even a single article of the Constitution.
Since it was launched early last year, the NLD’s push for constitutional reform has faced strong resistance from unelected military lawmakers and their allies in the USDP. Despite strong public support for charter change, the success of the NLD’s effort is far from guaranteed. The main hurdle for constitutional reform is the effective veto wielded by the military, for which the Constitution reserves 25 percent of Parliament seats. Under Article 436, proposed changes to the charter require the support of more than 75 percent of lawmakers, meaning no change is possible without military approval.
Let’s look at the differences between the USDP and the NLD’s approaches to charter change. On July 25, 2013, the then-ruling USDP established a joint committee with 109 members from all parties in Parliament to examine the country’s Constitution and consider changes to it..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The Military's political role
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Civil Society: Civil Society is defined broadly as the space between the family and the state, but does not include political parties, professional unions and associations, private businesses, and Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs). For the purpose of this Discussion Paper, research was directed predominantly, but not entirely, to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) at Union and sub-national level and their emerging networks. Research also included ethnic literature and culture associations. It is important to note that many people “wear several hats” in Myanmar, meaning that the affiliations of individuals are not always limited to one organisation. The roles of as key stakeholders often change roles over time. Due to their importance in Myanmar, faith-based networks are also included in civil society. Civil society is not synonymous with communities. It is inherently heterogeneous; its diversity relates to a range of different ethnic, linguistic, religious, gender, and class identities among which ethnicity stands out as a particularly prominent marker of identity in Myanmar.
Social cohesion: A cohesive society is one that works towards the wellbeing of all, creates a sense of belonging, promotes trust, and offers everyone the opportunity to prosper and advance peacefully.
Peacebuilding: Peacebuilding is defined as initiatives that foster and support sustainable structures and processes that strengthen the prospects for peaceful coexistence and decrease the likelihood of the outbreak, reoccurrence, or continuation of violent conflict.1 Within this Paper, civil society engagement in peacebuilding refers to civil society-led initiatives that seek mitigate inter- or intra- ethnic, faith, and communal tensions and promote social cohesion.
Peace process: For the purposes of this research, the ‘peace process’ is defined as the national tri-lateral negotiations related to the ethnic armed conflict. Peace process architecture relates to government-led initiatives since 2011, spanning bi-lateral ceasefires, the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), the Union Peace Conferences (UPCs), Joint Monitoring Committees (JMCs), and the national dialogue process. For the purpose of this Paper, participation in the peace process has been categorised into direct participation (contribution to decision-making and supporting roles within peace architecture), and indirect contributions, which are equally critical, that lie outside of the peace process and political structures.
Gender: The socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that determine our understanding of masculinity and femininity. The question of gender difference and the construction of masculine and feminine is not universal, but culturally specific and strongly influenced by other factors such as ethnicity, religion, race, and class.2
Youth: Myanmar’s National Youth Policy defines young people as between the ages of 15-35. The United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2250 considers young people to fall between 18-29 years..."
Source/publisher:
Paung Sie Facility
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Panglong Peace Conference, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Burma/Myanmar's political parties
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
8.24 MB (90 pages)
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Description:
"Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Wednesday that the country’s unresolved political problems are the root cause of failure to end hostilities between the government military and ethnic armed groups as Myanmar continues to strive for permanent peace.
“The governments of the successive periods have tried their best to put an end to the armed conflicts and restore peace to our motherland, but have not yet achieved the goals of peace,” she said in her capacity as chairperson of the Central Committee for the Development of Border Areas and National Races at the 73rd Union Day ceremony in Panglong, also known as Pinlon, in Myanmar’s southern Shan state.
As state counselor, Aung San Suu Kyi has made ending Myanmar’s armed conflicts and forging peace the cornerstone of her administration, but the peace process has been stymied by ongoing fighting between Myanmar forces and rebel armies in outlying ethnic regions and by the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state.
Her civilian-led government has held three sessions of the 21st-Century Panglong Conference attended by delegates from the government, military, and ethnic armed organizations..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
About Aung San Suu Kyi, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
NLD government has prioritized graft-busting but the business-minded military is still immune
Description:
"Myanmar was widely viewed as one of the most opaque and mismanaged countries in the world throughout decades of abusive and unaccountable military rule.
That was supposed to change with the transition to democracy in 2015, with Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party resoundingly voted into power on a promise of change and reform.
Now, as Myanmar enters a new election season pitting her NLD against the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the NLD’s anti-corruption record is expected to feature on the campaign trail. Certain international measures are on the NLD’s side. Global graft watchdog Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perception Index saw Myanmar move up two positions, from 132nd in 2018 to 130th out of 180 ranked countries in 2019.
That ranking has slowly but steadily improved since Suu Kyi assumed electoral power in 2016, when Myanmar ranked 136th on the index. That’s quantifiable international recognition of her government’s anti-graft battle, a campaign of new laws, high-profile arrests and sackings, and improved collaboration on graft issues with the private sector..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
About Aung San Suu Kyi, Corruption, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"In Taunggyi, the capital of Myanmar’s ethnically diverse Shan State, students, nurses and marching bands lined the streets to welcome State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on her way to to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of Union Day on February 12.
This was the day, in 1947, that Suu Kyi’s father General Aung San signed the Panglong Agreement, a preliminary accord with several ethnic groups (but crucially, not all) that has since been viewed as a touchstone of betrayal among Myanmar’s minorities toward central government rule and its unmet promises of federalism.
Since taking power in early 2016, Suu Kyi has reformulated Union Day and its associated Panglong “spirit” as a vehicle for uneven ethnic peace-building and unification based on ethnic Burman domination. At this year’s event, the government fused military-era propaganda with Suu Kyi’s iron-discipline homilies and vague appeals to peace, “genuine Democratic Federal Union” and protecting the youth from the evils of drugs, crucially “(t)o strive with the collective strength of all ethnic nationals for rule of law, a fair justice system and the security and safety of all citizens.”
Suu Kyi’s concept of “unity”, it appears, is to celebrate ethnic diversity by commodifying and controlling it, not by seeing ethnic communities as equals or granting political concessions, economic equality and ending entrenched discrimination..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, About Aung San Suu Kyi, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Hundreds of Myanmar nationalists rallied in the country’s commercial capital on Sunday in a show of support for the military, amid tensions between the civilian government and the army ahead of elections expected later this year. Around a thousand protesters marched from Yangon’s famed Shwedagon pagoda to City Hall downtown to accuse the administration of Aung San Suu Kyi of allegedly failing to protect the country’s Buddhist majority and for proposing constitutional amendments that would reduce the power of the military.
The proposed reforms have led to tensions between Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and military lawmakers, who hold a veto over amendments. Speaking at the rally, nationalist activist Win Ko Ko Latt criticized those planning to push through the reforms, comparing them to the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China.
“We can see how deadly the Wuhan virus is,” he said, referring to the Chinese city where the outbreak was believed to have originated. “I declare from here that those people who are trying to change (the constitution) are more frightening than the Wuhan virus.”
Government spokesman Zaw Htay and NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt did not respond to calls from Reuters seeking comment..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Campaigns, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Exiled Activists in Myanmar's Political Reforms
Description:
"Myanmar’s tumultuous post-colonial history has been characterized by
decades of direct and indirect military rule and corresponding political
mobilizations that have ranged from armed ethnic and ideological
insurgencies to mass protests, student movements, and non-violent
pro-democracy uprisings. The nationalization and mismanagement of
the economy, the militarization of the state, political surveillance and
oppression, and the closure of universities are all factors that have triggered
the flight from Burma of millions of Burmese. Several main waves of exit
can be distinguished, following major political events—(1) the 1962 military
coup; (2) the installation of direct rule by the Burma Socialist Programme
Party in 1974 and the U Thant funeral crisis; (3) the 1988 mass uprisings;
and (4) the 2007 “Saffron Revolution” protests, respectively. The largest o the extreme sensitivity surrounding this subject, in the past very few
organizations inside Myanmar were able to operate openly on human rights
issues. Exile organizations based in Thailand and India are widening the
scope of their existing capacity-building initiatives for the documentation
of local human rights issues and improving the knowledge and skills of
those who defend human rights, while also expanding their (underground
and above-ground) networks across the country..."
Source/publisher:
Kerstin Duell
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf
Size:
213.52 KB (15 pages)
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Description:
"At the end of August 2018, as this book was about to go to press,the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) released its
report summarizing the main endings and recommendations of its
Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. Thereport outlines serious human rights violations and abuses in Kachin,Shan and Rakhine States. It recommends that six senior military
agures be investigated for genocide against the Rohingya, including
Myanmar’s armed forces commander-in-chief Senior General MinAung Hlaing, and that the case be taken up by the InternationalCriminal Court (ICC), or alternatively that an ad hoc internationalcriminal tribunal be created (Human Rights Council 2018).
1
The
report notes that “The role of social media is significant. Facebook has
been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a contextwhere for most users Facebook
is
the internet. Although improved inrecent months, Facebook’s response has been slow and ineffective” p. 74). Facebook quickly responded to the report’s release byremoving the accounts of eighteen high-profile army figures in
Myanmar, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and fifty-two
Facebook pages, which had a combined total following of close totwelve million users (Facebook 2018).A few days later, two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw
Soe Oo, were sentenced to seven years in prison under the Official
Secrets Act over accusations of holding secret government documentsthat they intended to share with international media and the ethnicarmed group Arakan Army (Sithu Aung Myint 2018). The two werearrested in December 2017 after investigating a massacre of Rohingyamen and boys in the coastal town of Inn Din in northern Rakhine
State. After responding to a call from police officers, who met them in
a restaurant and handed them documents, the journalists were arrestedfor having the documents in their possession. As they were beingtaken away from the court after the sentencing, Wa Lone was quotedas saying, “We know we did nothing wrong. I have no fear. I believein justice, democracy and freedom” (Shoon Naing and Aye Min Thant2018, 122). The arrest and subsequent sentencing were met with nationaland international condemnation, as was the rejection of their appealin early 2019. At a public protest to call for their release, organizer EiEi Moe, from the pro-democracy youth movement Generation Wave,described their jailing as “blocking the eyes and blinding the ears ofthe public” (Dunant and Su Myat Mon 2018, 115).
2
These events underscore the complexities of Myanmar’s muchlauded “transition”. Celebrated early on for the release of imprisoned journalists and the end of pre-publication censorship, hopes forincreased freedom of expression and media freedom were tempered by the crackdown that followed. Much has happened in the mediasector since the controversial elections in 2010 organized by themilitary junta and boycotted by Aung San Suu Kyi and the NationalLeague for Democracy (NLD), including reforms to laws that hadrepressed the media for decades. Some argue that these changes area continuation of the military government’s Seven Step Roadmap toDisciplined Democracy, announced in 2003 (see the interview withThiha Saw, this volume; Lall 2016; Rogers 2012)..."
Source/publisher:
Academia.edu (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Discrimination against the Rohingya, International Criminal Court (Myanmar), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
1.29 MB (56 pages)
more
Summary:
"The political landscape of Myanmar has changed signifcantly since
former dictator Than Shwe paved the way for a series of wide‐ranging
reforms in 2011. A nominally civilian government was sworn in...
Description:
"The political landscape of Myanmar has changed signifcantly since
former dictator Than Shwe paved the way for a series of wide‐ranging
reforms in 2011. A nominally civilian government was sworn in and
political prisoners were freed. Most visibly, long‐term opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi has ascended to power after her long‐banned
opposition party – the National League of Democracy (NLD) – won
the historic elections of 2015 by a wide margin. The country’s vibrant
civil society also benefted from the lifting of restrictive laws on media
and public mobilisation. Despite these remarkable transformations,
Myanmar’s transition has seemingly slowed down and the space for
progressive social and political action has contracted once again.
Particularly worrying is the situation in the country’s borderlands, where long‐running sectarian conficts have escalated since 2011. In
order to understand the challenges that persisting authoritarianism,
state violence, and civil war pose to civil society in Myanmar, this article
situates contemporary social and political action within a historical
analysis of political transition. It asks about: (a) the nature of political
transition in Myanmar, (b) the challenges that the trajectory of political
transition poses for civil society actors, and (c) the implications for
international development and peace‐building initiatives.
This article argues that Myanmar’s political transition should not
be understood as a process of democratisation that is driven by
pro‐democratic forces and which might eventually lead to liberal
democracy. Viewing the country’s transition through the lens of
democratisation is not only misleading but deeply problematic.
Political reforms were planned and executed by the country’s military:
the Tatmadaw. The emergent hybrid civil–military order safeguards
authoritarian rule and military dominance. This top‐down nature
of political transition poses signifcant challenges for civil society. In
combination with fragility and confict, liberalising the public sphere
has not only benefted progressive social and political action but has also
enabled the growth of uncivil society,3 whose pursuit of exclusionary
identity politics fuels sectarian violence..."
Source/publisher:
IDS Bulletin
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Sustainable/alternative development in and for Burma, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
222.04 KB (22 pages)
more
Description:
"Myanmar’s election authority has announced that political parties will continue to be barred from campaigning inside military cantonments ahead of this year’s election, and that —in a departure from previous elections—military personnel and their family members will have to cast their votes outside military barracks.
Union Election Commission (UEC) spokesman U Myint Naing said at the commission’s press conference in Naypyitaw on Thursday that “it is still impossible to campaign inside cantonments” due to security reasons. He also reaffirmed that polling stations will not be operated inside military barracks in the November election.
In October last year, the UEC submitted draft amendments to electoral bylaws to the Union Parliament. The commission proposed a provision to mandate that polling stations for military personnel and their family members be placed outside the barracks, for them “to be able to cast votes together with civilian voters and to be transparent, where candidates, observers and party representatives can freely enter and monitor.”
Military spokesperson Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told The Irrawaddy that electoral campaigning will not be allowed inside barracks due to the constitutional provision that civil servants must be free from party politics..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Workers and farmers say they will contest the 2020 general election as independent candidates in order to better promote and protect their rights.
Ten civil society organizations, including the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) and Myanmar Infrastructure, Craft and Service (MICS), as well as labor rights defenders held a press conference in Yangon on Wednesday to unveil the election campaign.
The independent candidates will contest seats in both houses of the Union Parliament and in Hlaing Tharyar Township in the Yangon regional parliament. The township houses the largest industrial zone and migrant population in Myanmar, according to CTUM president U Maung Maung.
The National League for Democracy had largely ignored the rights of farmers and workers in amending labor and farmland laws since taking office in 2016, said U Maung Maung. And lawmakers had not done enough to improve their constituencies, he said.
“It is important that lawmakers take the lead role in improving their constituencies, bearing in mind the requirements of their constituents. Those who are committed to labor issues will contest the election,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
In a message ahead of Myanmar’s general election in 2020, Cardinal Bo reminds fellow citizens that voting is a sacred duty. While calling for defending democracy and human rights, he also addresses other challenges facing the nation.
Description:
"Myanmar’s prominent Catholic Church leader has appealed to the government to scrap the constitutional provision which prohibits members of religious orders from voting in elections.
Cardinal Charles Bo lamented Article 392(a) of the constitution that prohibits Buddhist monks and nuns, Catholic priests, nuns and religious, other Christian clergy, Muslim clerics and others from the right to vote.
In a written appeal released on Thursday, Archbishop of Yangon appealed to the government of Myanmar to change.
Voting, a “Sacred duty”
“As a cardinal, I can make statements and speeches and encourage citizens to vote,” he said but pointed to the irony that he himself is “barred from voting”. “This is an extremely unusual arrangement. I am not aware of any other democracy in which this is a requirement,” he said.
Cardinal Bo’s statement comes in view of the general elections, expected in late 2020, as the Southeast Asian nation is in transition to democracy after decades of military rule.
Describing voting as “a sacred duty” and “a sacred pilgrimage of human dignity” of the people of Myanmar, he warned that “those who shirk this sacred responsibility do at their own peril”.
For the people of Myanmar, he said, voting is “a sacred pilgrimage in this golden land to strengthen their human dignity and common good”.
Cardinal Bo, who is also president of the Confederation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), said that as a religious leader, it was not his duty to identify parties or leaders to support..."
Source/publisher:
"Vatican News"
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burmese political culture - general
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
A recent incident served as yet another reminder of the complex and contested dynamics of civil-military relations in the country and the sensitivities therein.
Description:
"On Monday, reports surfaced that a Myanmar military spokesman had hit out at comments made by a minister in the country about civil-military control. While the incident may appear minor relative to wider developments in Myanmar and Naypyidaw’s broader challenges, it nonetheless served as a reminder of the complex dynamics underlying civil-military relations in Myanmar and the sensitivities in navigating them.
As I have observed before in these pages, governance in Myanmar remains a complex and contested affair, with the National League for Democracy (NLD) ruling the country but the military, known as the Tatmadaw, still exercising significant political influence in the country in official and unofficial ways, including a quota of seats in parliament and control of key ministries: defense, border, and home affairs.
Over the past week, we have seen these complex and contested civil-military dynamics at play with a spat in Myanmar’s domestic politics. The spat emerged from comments made by Myanmar’s Union Minister for Religious Affairs and Culture U Aung Ko, who suggested at an interfaith event in Yangon last month that that the military had control of the police. On Monday, in a sign of fallout from those comments, Myanmar news media outlets reported that military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun had urged the government to take action against the minister and added that the Tatmadaw would file a complaint with the government according to legal procedures..."
Source/publisher:
"The Diplomat" (Japan)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
Language:
Local URL:
more
Summary:
"There are about 3 million migrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand, with perhaps an additional million dependent family members. Some 2 million of these people are officially registered with the...
Description:
"There are about 3 million migrant workers from Myanmar in Thailand, with perhaps an additional million dependent family members. Some 2 million of these people are officially registered with the Thai authorities. A large proportion are from ethnic nationality communities, such as the Mon, Karen, Karenni and Shan, who have suffered disproportionately from decades of conflict and violence in Myanmar. In many cases, they fled to neighboring Thailand in desperation, because their livelihoods and basic security were threatened at home.
In the 2015 elections, only 20,000 overseas Myanmar citizens voted—of whom 19,000 were living in Singapore; only 600 people voted in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, where there is a Myanmar consulate. Myanmar overseas workers were effectively disenfranchised. In 2015 this fact was little noted, amid the euphoria of a National League for Democracy (NLD) win after decades of military rule in Myanmar. In the interests of equity, and to ensure that the 2020 election results are deemed credible by minority communities, it is crucial that the forthcoming polls are seen to be free and fair.
Therefore, the Union Election Commission (UEC) should establish procedures for overseas-based Myanmar citizens to vote. At a minimum, arrangements should be made for them to vote at Myanmar embassies abroad. In order that the elections are seen as just and inclusive, such an initiative should be broader and permit migrant workers to vote in or near their place of work, as it is expensive and potentially illegal and risky for migrant workers in Thailand (for example) to travel to Bangkok, if they are not based there..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Legislation under consideration, adopted, amended or repealed
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"The military-appointed home affairs minister, Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe, will resign from government and return to the army pending approval from the president, government spokesperson Zaw Htay said Friday.
“The president has been informed of his resignation,” Zaw Htay said at a press conference in Naypyitaw. “He will proceed according to the constitution.”
The home affairs ministry is one of three whose ministers are nominated by the commander-in-chief, rather than the President. The other two ministries are border affairs and defense.
Zaw Htay declined to say who would replace Kyaw Swe. “You will know when it is announced,” he said..."
Source/publisher:
"Mizzima" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
more
Summary:
"Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe will retire from his post, an anonymous government source confirmed to The Irrawaddy.
The source told The Irrawaddy that there will be a change...
Description:
"Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe will retire from his post, an anonymous government source confirmed to The Irrawaddy.
The source told The Irrawaddy that there will be a change in the home affairs minister position and that the order will be issued soon. Lt-Gen. Kyaw Swe turned 60 in November 2019 and has reached the retiring age for civil servants in Myanmar. He will have to submit a request for retirement to the President and then seek the approval of the Union Parliament.
Under the 2008 Constitution, three ministries—Defense, Home Affairs and Border Affairs—are controlled by the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw. The heads of the three ministries are nominated by the military chief and the President appoints them with the approval of the national legislature.
Chief of Military Security Affairs Lieutenant General Soe Htut and Chief of Bureau of Special Operations Lieutenant General Aung Soe are both possible nominees to become the next home affairs minister..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-02-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Myanmar’s military continued to carry out serious human rights violations in 2019, while the government made no progress addressing the pervasive impunity of soldiers who committed abuses, London-based Amnesty International said Thursday in a new report on repression in Asia.
The military’s violations included war crimes in Kachin, Rakhine, and Shan states where government forces have been engaged in armed conflict with ethnic armed groups, the rights organization said.
Civilians, state lawmakers, and local officials have reported soldiers detaining and sometimes torturing villagers suspected of aiding the enemy or of being rebel fighters themselves in the conflict zones, especially in northern Rakhine state.
“The military committed serious violations against civilians, including unlawful attacks, arbitrary arrests, torture and other illtreatment, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and forced labor” in Rakhine state, where government forces have fought the rebel Arakan Army (AA) in heightened hostilities over the past year, the report said.
“Many of them constituted war crimes,” it said..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-31
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The Military's political role, Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first)
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Myanmar university students staged a rare protest during a speech by the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi at an education sector event in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday, criticizing the civilian-led government’s decision to extend the academic year by one month.
She was giving the opening speech at an education sector development workshop at the Myanmar Convention Center when students from the Yangon University Union, Sagaing University Student Union, and Educational College Union stood up with signs objecting to the Ministry of Education’s extension of the school year to March.
Other students demonstrated in a hallway outside the room where Aung San Suu Kyi was speaking.
They also blasted a decision by the ministry to cut in half the current 10-day classes for students enrolled in distance-learning courses.
Students from Mandalay’s Yadanabon University protested against the move in October, saying it would create additional expenses and hassle by requiring them to be physically present on campus for on-site classes two different times before taking their exams beginning with the 2020 school year, the Myanmar Times reported..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-29
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, About Aung San Suu Kyi, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Summary:
"Organizing a national-level political dialogue before the next peace conference will be one of the key issues to discuss during next week’s meeting between the government and the ethnic armed...
Description:
"Organizing a national-level political dialogue before the next peace conference will be one of the key issues to discuss during next week’s meeting between the government and the ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) that signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA).
The national dialogue began in 2017 but not all the signatories were able to convene. These included the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) because of objections from the Tatmadaw (military) about the location and the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) in Rakhine State, citing security concerns. The RCSS and ALP were missing from the dialogue in 2017 and 2018 and their input was therefore missing from the process to establish a federation.
With the formal peace process stalled, the national political dialogue has been abandoned for nearly two years.
Sai Ngern, the head of the EAOs’ negotiation team on the political dialogue framework and a secretary of the RCSS, said every NCA signatory “must be able to organize the national-level political dialogue under a new framework”.
“We tentatively plan it to be able to hold talks in late March. It will be on the agenda of the talks with the government on Jan. 28-29,” he told reporters after the 10 NCA signatories’ Peace Process Steering Team (PPST) meeting in Chiang Mai on Saturday..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
more
Summary:
"Myanmar’s parliamentary committee tasked with proposing changes to the 2008 Constitution has finished drafting two amendment bills.
Nearly 30 members from the National League for Democracy (NLD)...
Description:
"Myanmar’s parliamentary committee tasked with proposing changes to the 2008 Constitution has finished drafting two amendment bills.
Nearly 30 members from the National League for Democracy (NLD) and various ethnic parties on the committee approved the amendment bills on Monday. But all military representatives on the committee were absent from the meeting, said the committee’s secretary U Myat Nyana Soe, an Upper House lawmaker from the NLD. The Constitution Amendment Committee — the mechanism that the NLD and ethnic parties chose for reforming the military-drafted Constitution — was formed last February with 45 members from 14 political parties, independent representatives and members of the military bloc in Parliament.
The NLD holds 18 seats on the committee, the military has eight and the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) was given two.
The USDP, Arakan National Party and the National United Democratic Party quit the committee late last year. The military rejected the existence of the committee and its works as unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the military members submitted two amendment bills and three bills jointly with the USDP to the Parliament last year..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Legislation under consideration, adopted, amended or repealed, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Myanmar’s efforts to reverse a legacy of isolation began with the quasi-civilian government led by then-president U Thein Sein. From 2011–2015, his government undertook a series of political, economic and social reforms that built the foundation for future democratic development. Key reform initiatives under his administration included renewed engagement with ethnic armed forces, a relaxation of press censorship, liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, increased autonomy of the Central Bank of Myanmar and improvement of the budgetary and taxation system. The government also attempted to improve private sector development by reducing red tape to ease business costs and attract foreign investment.
During U Thein Sein’s presidential term, Myanmar became one of the fastest growing economies in ASEAN, with an average growth rate of 7.3 per cent. The country also achieved the Human Development Index’s medium-ranked member status.
Major challenges remain despite these positive developments: land disputes, informal settlements in cities, inadequate basic infrastructure and most importantly an unstable political situation due to conflict in Rakhine, Shan and Kachin states.
The political landscape of Myanmar changed dramatically after the second general election in 2015 when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a majority of seats in the people’s parliament, national parliaments and sub-national parliaments.
The new government was immediately confronted by existing and new challenges. A few months before the elections, 12 out of 14 regions and states were affected by flooding that damaged 1.9 million acres of farmland causing the price of rice to increase. A 20 per cent drop in net inflow of FDI and a growth rate sinking to 5.9 per cent (from the average 7.3 per cent growth rate of president U Thein Sein’s administration) also made 2016 a difficult year for the new government..."
Source/publisher:
"East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Development in Myanmar - various texts, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's relationship with the Global Economy, Burma/Myanmar's Foreign relations, general
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
35.7 KB
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Summary:
"Myanmar is gearing up for elections this year. The general election, tentatively scheduled for some time in November, will essentially pit Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League...
Description:
"Myanmar is gearing up for elections this year. The general election, tentatively scheduled for some time in November, will essentially pit Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) against the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the country’s two major political parties.
As the country inches closer to D-Day, one thing political analysts and observers will be keeping a close watch on is social media – especially popular platform, Facebook. According to statistics from global social media agency, We Are Social, Myanmar doesn’t do too shabbily when it comes to social media penetration in the country. While there is certainly room to grow, the numbers are already significant.
As of January 2019, Myanmar had 21 million active social media users – a 39 percent penetration rate for its 54.1 million population. This is an increase of three million (17 percent) compared to the same period in 2018. Of that number, Facebook has an audience of 21 million, coming in first place for social media platforms in Myanmar. In comparison, Instagram was second with an audience of just 810,000.
We Are Social also noted that Facebook is the third most visited website by Myanmar netizens after Google and YouTube which came in first and second, respectively..."
Source/publisher:
"The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
About Aung San Suu Kyi, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Nearly a decade ago, Myanmar threw off its military dictatorship. But what has happened since is troubling
Description:
"When Thant Myint-U was eight he travelled from the US to Burma with his parents to bury his grandfather U Thant, the first non-European secretary general of the United Nations. But the funeral was not a family affair. A group of students and Buddhist monks seized Thant’s coffin and demanded a state ceremony from the country’s military overlords: the corpse became a rallying point for protests. Burmese troops overran the Rangoon University campus where Thant’s body had been held and killed many protesting students. Riots broke out against the army regime and hundreds were killed or imprisoned in the retaliatory crackdown. Myint-U’s parents were told to leave the country quickly. “I missed my fourth-grade classes,” Myint-U writes in The Hidden History of Burma, and instead “experienced firsthand a dictatorship in action”. Starker encounters followed over the years. After graduating from Harvard in 1988, Myint-U helped a group of Burmese dissidents who were planning a revolution from across the Thai border. As a historian, human rights campaigner and UN policy planner, he advocated for the brutally suppressed Burmese democracy movement through the 1990s and 2000s, while remaining undecided on the usefulness of economic sanctions. In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, he worked to convince the country’s generals to accept international aid and address the country’s abysmal poverty rates. After the dissolution of the junta in 2011, Myint-U was made an adviser in the Burmese president’s office..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese History Book Reviews, Burma's ethnic opposition, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burmese political culture - general
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Myanmar’s anti-money laundering authority alleged the Yangon eateries were used as fronts to fund the Arakan Army
Description:
"The Central Body on Anti-Money Laundering ordered two Rakhine restaurants in Yangon to shut down last week, alleging the businesses were being used to launder funds to the Arakan Army (AA), an armed ethnic group warring with the Myanmar military in Rakhine state.
One of the restaurants is co-owned by Aung Myat Kyaw, the brother of AA chief Twan Mrat Naing. The other is owned by well-known Rakhine singer Win Ko Khaing. Both restaurants specialise in Rakhine cuisine, known for its seafood and spice.
Aung Myat Kyaw’s Tamwe township restaurant, Phoenix, opened in 2015. Win Ko Khaing opened Maha Nwe in South Okkalapa township in October.
Aung Myat Kyaw has been on trial since being deported from Singapore last July for allegedly funding the AA, which the Tatmadaw has accused of terrorism. He was deported with five other Rakhine natives then living in Singapore; they currently face prison sentences of 10 years to life.
Singapore’s home ministry accused the six of using the city-state “as a platform to organize support for armed violence” in Myanmar.
Aung Myat Kyaw and several of the deportees were members of the Arakan Association Singapore, an organisation that held social and cultural events for Rakhine migrants living in Singapore. Association chair Hein Zaw was among them..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Armed conflict in Rakhine (Arakan) State, Discrimination against the Rakhine, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Summary:
"January 4 marked the 72nd anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain. The civil war in which the country – a patchwork of diverse ethnic regions, with mutually incomprehensible languages,...
Description:
"January 4 marked the 72nd anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain. The civil war in which the country – a patchwork of diverse ethnic regions, with mutually incomprehensible languages, unerasable regional identities and distinct political histories – was born has come a full circle.
It is noteworthy that modern Myanmar was not the creation of nationalists. It was born out of the external shock of the Second World War and the dissolution of external colonial powers. Few Myanmar nationalist historians have acknowledged this historical fact, for it fundamentally and effectively undermines the nationalist historiography that typically glorifies and exaggerates the contributions of the ethnic-Burmese (Bama) nationalists – particularly State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s father and the Tatmadaw (military), originally a fascist proxy created by Japan as part of its wartime design against British rule in colonial Burma. Today, being an important site of the geopolitical rivalries among external powers, including China, India, the US and Japan, coupled with multiple domestic ethnic fault lines, Myanmar faces the very real prospect of another external shock, more than at any point in the country’s seven-decade post-independence history..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Kachin State, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"John Clifford Holt’s Myanmar’s Buddhist-Muslim Crisis: Rohingya, Arakanese, and Burmese Narratives of Siege and Fear makes a timely contribution to the growing literature on the Rohingya affairs in Myanmar. A scholar of Buddhist studies whose primary work is on Sri Lanka and Laos, Holt lends his expertise in the comparative analysis of Myanmar’s ongoing ethno-religious turmoil among Bamar Buddhists, Arakanese (or Rakhine), and Rohingya with its neighboring, predominantly Buddhist countries, Thailand and Sri Lanka. In addition to a thorough historical context that introduces Buddhism on a global scale, the narratives in the book are organized based on three geographical locations in Myanmar: Yangon (Part One), Arakan (Part Two), and Mandalay (Part Three) because “many of the referents within the discussions are locale, and [his] conversational partners were steeped in those specific concerns” (p. xvi). Holt provides a disclaimer in the Preface that his limited linguistic skills in Burmese led him to conduct the interviews primarily in English. The author notes that interviewees’ command in English indicates their well-educated backgrounds, and therefore, the narratives in the book are by no means “representative of most Rohingya, Arakanese, and Burmese” (p. xii). While I appreciate the disclaimer about the possible limitations of the author’s interviewees, it is also important to keep those of the author’s own (lack of linguistic command in local languages) and his researcher positionality (Sri Lanka as his primary field of study) in mind when reading this book. The book is accessible with little to no academic jargon. The interlocutors’ narratives are coherently interlaced with the author’s own reflexive thoughts. The kaleidoscopic nature of narratives situated in three different cities offers much needed context that is nuanced, and provides first-hand perspectives for any layperson who is concerned with Myanmar’s Buddhist-Muslim conflict, but exasperated by the over-generalized and sensationalized nature of news media stories about the topic..."
Source/publisher:
" Teacircleoxford" (Yangon)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Religion in Burma - general, Buddhism in Burma - general, Islam, Society and Culture, Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"The opinion piece of January 1, 2020 The Global New Light of Myanmar wrote that “Our new year resolution should be “total peace” in 2020” is an appropriate and welcome aspiration and everything should be done to realize this noble intention.
While it is correct that the people should be involved in achieving the desired peace, harmony and reconciliation that would come with it, ground work has to be laid out so that the public could participate in a matured manner.
This means that the people should be appropriately informed, given freedom of expression and freedom of choice in a variety of issues confronting the country. In other words, the powers that be must not mislead and politically exploit the mass for its political gains. The case in point is the NLD regime’s mobilization of the mass on the eve of ICJ lawsuit just very recently, where the regime and its media outlets told the people that they were also been sued. Actually it is only the government or political decision-making apparatus that the lawsuit is directed at and in no way the people..."
Source/publisher:
"Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"As the restarting of nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA)-based peace process gears to restart after more than a year of standstill, it is important to note that the government intention is to link the projected achievement of peace along the line with its Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan (MSDP) launched to cover the time span from 2018 to 2030. The ambitious government plan launched in August 2018, now over a year old, is a 66-page document, which incorporates existing and draft plans and policies, sets out 3 pillars, 5 goals, 28 strategies and 251 action plans.
The three pillars are “Peace and Stability; Prosperity and Partnership; and People and Planet”.
Under Peace and Stability, there are two goals. One is “Peace, National Reconciliation, Security and Good Governance” and the other, “Economic Stability and Strengthened Macro Economic Management”.
Under Prosperity and Partnership, “Job Creation and Private Sector Led Growth” is the goal.
Finally, under People and Planet, there are two goals. One is “Human Resources and Social Development for a 21st Century Society” and the other, “Natural Resources and the Environment for Posterity of the Nation”..."
Source/publisher:
"Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Armed conflict and peace-building in Burma - theoretical, strategic and general, Sustainable/alternative development in and for Burma, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Summary:
"Exactly a year earlier, Arakan Army soldiers had staged coordinated attacks on four police stations in northern Rakhine State, killing 13 officers. The attacks have precipitated bloody clashes, mass...
Sub-title:
As Myanmar marked Independence Day on January 4 with formal ceremonies, a national holiday and street games, a very different anniversary passed almost without mention in the country’s west.
Description:
"Exactly a year earlier, Arakan Army soldiers had staged coordinated attacks on four police stations in northern Rakhine State, killing 13 officers. The attacks have precipitated bloody clashes, mass displacement and human rights violations in Rakhine and neighbouring Chin State.
More than 100 civilians have been killed and many more injured as a result of small arms fire, artillery barrages and landmines. The Rakhine Ethnics Committee, a local civil society group, estimates that around 100,000 people have been displaced. Official figures are less than half that, but even if the true figure is somewhere in the middle, it represents a significant and tragic toll.
Rakhine was already reeling from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacks in 2016-17 and the military’s subsequent crackdowns that sent almost 750,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh. But the conflict with the Arakan Army has plunged the state into new depths of violence and chaos.
The outlook is bleak. Despite early predictions that the Arakan Army would be unable to sustain its operations, it has proven remarkably resilient and the fighting continues to spread. Most recently, on Christmas Day, clashes were reported in Ann Township, a Tatmadaw stronghold and home of its Western Command. The AA appears to have no shortage of recruits, and continues to find ways to arm and supply its forces.
Its success is built largely on strong popular support. The government and military have sought to undermine this through a range of harsh measures, including detaining those suspected of links to the AA, cutting supplies to camps for the internally displaced, shutting down mobile internet access and restricting the activities of civil society groups. Predictably, these seem to have had the opposite effect, by further antagonising civilians..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar"
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Armed conflict in Rakhine (Arakan) State, Discrimination against the Rakhine, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar
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Local URL:
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Description:
"Rebels in Myanmar's Rakhine region said a captured official from Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling party has died, two weeks after being taken for organizing protests against genocide accusations faced by Myanmar at the World Court.
The Arakan Army rebels said Buthidaung National League for Democracy (NLD) Chairman Ye Thein, the most senior civilian official to die in the growing insurgency, was killed Monday in an attack on the rebels by Myanmar's army.
There was no independent confirmation.
The incident underscored the increasing loss of government control in a region that came to world attention when 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh to escape an army crackdown on a different rebel group in 2017.
The Arakan Army said its positions had come under attack from Myanmar's army.
"Due to big explosions, some detainees died and some were wounded. The NLD chairman from Buthidaung, Ye Thein, died on scene," the Arakan Army said in the statement. It said he had been taken prisoner on December 11..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK) via "VOA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), Armed conflict in Rakhine (Arakan) State, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
Recent atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims were business as usual for Myanmar’s war-hardened army
Description:
"In her defense of Myanmar against charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague last week, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi was at pains to stress the complexity of the ethnic conflict in Rakhine state and her country’s stumbling efforts to implement its own process of accountability and military justice.
As Myanmar’s de facto political leader and foreign minister, she was clearly hobbled by her inability to articulate what would have been a far more persuasive line of argument: the 2017 atrocities perpetrated on the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine were hardly an exceptional campaign of genocide, but rather what for the Myanmar Army, or Tatmadaw, was simply business as usual – in military jargon “standard operating procedure” (SOP) – that has not normally garnered international attention, let alone global outrage.
The sickening specifics of the Tatmadaw’s SOP in Rakhine have been spelled out in voluminous reports from a United Nations (UN) Fact Finding Mission and leading international human rights organizations. Some were again recounted by lawyers for the Gambia, which lodged the accusation of genocide with the court..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Arakan (Rakhine) State - reports etc. by date (latest first), About Aung San Suu Kyi, International Court of Justice (ICJ) - Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
more
Sub-title:
2020 elections will show how much damage has been done to leader’s reputation as a democratic reformer
Description:
"A new huge billboard recently erected at a major intersection in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon portrays the nation’s nominal leader with a message of support: “We stand with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”
Such billboards are not unique in Myanmar and appeared well before Suu Kyi headed to The Hague’s International Court of Justice in December to defend her nation against charges of genocide, a stand that was widely panned by foreign media but cheered by nationalist groups at home.
But the new signboard’s existence and message are noteworthy all the same. “Five years ago, it would not have been necessary,” says a local community worker who requested anonymity. “Then everybody in Yangon supported her and no-one had to be reminded of that.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2020-01-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
About Aung San Suu Kyi, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma/Myanmar's political parties, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"The news that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel laureate and a de facto head of State will be heading to The Hague, to face the ethnic cleansing/genocide of the Rohingyas charges, one wonders whether any Generals of the Myanmar army (Tatmadaw) who had taken the country from the rice bowl of Asia, to the Least Developed Status since 1962, under different pretext, have any guts for inspiration or imitation of this skinny vivacious lady and dared to stand by her side ?
For the past seven decades a rough figure of more than ten millions have been killed and more have been displaced because of the xenophobic policies of the Tatmadaw in their endeavor of making one country, one religion and one culture which is categorically opposite to the founding fathers of modern Burma led by the lady’s father way back in 1947 (Panglong Conference.)
Now, she has come to claim her rightful place and dared to face the truth for her people and country, the power maniacs’ generals were nowhere to be seen. This serpentine breed of Generals after unsuccessfully endeavoring several ways to eliminate her for two decades have grudgingly shared power with the lion’s share of a veto power and 25% in all levels of general administration, are silent now. After ignoring the plethora of UN reports of forced evictions, razing homes, rape and summary executions, will not be enough to win the case nor sway international public opinion and the case will carry on for decades but will give time to get things right only if the marauding Tatmadaw become a professional one under the civilian rule..."
Source/publisher:
"Asian Tribune" (Bangkok)
Date of entry/update:
2019-12-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burma's ethnic opposition, Discrimination against the Rohingya
Language:
Local URL:
more
Summary:
"Myanmar-based executives and investors are bracing for a business slowdown in the run-up to next year’s general elections, as uncertainty rises over the Southeast Asian nation’s political and policy...
Sub-title:
Businesses are bracing for a slowdown and possibly worse ahead of risk-laden 2020 polls
Description:
"Myanmar-based executives and investors are bracing for a business slowdown in the run-up to next year’s general elections, as uncertainty rises over the Southeast Asian nation’s political and policy directions.
The election, tentatively scheduled for November 2020, will essentially pit de facto national leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) against the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the country’s two major political parties.
The NLD romped to victory in 2015 in the nation’s first competitive election in 25 years, a shift from quasi-military to quasi-democratic rule that many then hoped would fuel a foreign investment-led economic boom.
But Suu Kyi’s ability and willingness to orchestrate that boom has been constrained by a power-sharing arrangement with the autonomous military, which controls the crucial defense, home affairs and border affairs ministries, as well as her singular focus on flagging peace process..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burma/Myanmar's relationship with the Global Economy, About Aung San Suu Kyi, Articles on the NLD, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Thant Myint-U, author of the new book 'The Hidden History of Burma', discusses his native Myanmar with Asia Society Executive Vice President Tom Nagorski. (1 hr., 18 min.)..."
Source/publisher:
"Asia Society" (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Burmese History Book Reviews
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"Thant Myint-U has titled his reflective and illuminating new book “The Hidden History of Burma,” even though he gently suggests that the country’s past wasn’t so much obscured as it was hiding in plain sight. For decades, especially after a ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy protestors in 1988, Burma had drawn international ire for the brutal rule of its military junta, which for a time went by the grotesque-sounding acronym SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council). Against the depredations of the dictatorship stood the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi: a tireless civilian advocate for democracy who spoke consistently of hope, enduring years of detention and house arrest with a serene smile and a flower in her hair. Her public image weighed heavily in the international community’s imagination, which was decidedly more familiar with the morality play of “The Lady Versus the Generals” than with the longer history of Burma. That history proved to be stubborn and consequential — its effects only aggravated by how much its convolutions were simplified or ignored.
“In the early 2010s,” Thant Myint-U writes, “Burma was the toast of the world.” (The junta had changed the country’s name in English to “Myanmar” in 1989; a prefatory note explains why this was an “ethno-nationalist” move — the equivalent of Germany demanding that English speakers refer to it as “Deutschland.”) The generals seemed to be ceding power, the country seemed to be ending its long isolation, tourism seemed to be on the rise; a number of rebel groups signed cease-fires, and in 2015 the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won enough seats in the country’s first free elections in a generation to form a government..."
Source/publisher:
"The New York Times" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Burmese History Book Reviews, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Several Groups
Language:
Local URL:
more
Description:
"ဖဲၣ်ဒရဲၣ်ကီၢ်စၢဖှိၣ်အံၤ တၢ်ကဘၣ်သူၣ်ထီၣ်အီၤသၦၢ်ကတၢၢ်အဃိ ဖဲတၢ်ကသူၣ်ထီၣ်၀ဲဖဲၣ်ဒရဲၣ် ကီၢ်စၢဖှိၣ်အခါန့ၣ် ကဘၣ်ထဲးဂံၢ်ထဲဘါဂုာ်ကျဲးစၢး ဒ်သိးတၢ်ဂဲၤကလံၣ်ဒိအသိးႇ တလီၤဘှံးလီၤတီၤႇ အိၣ်ဒီးတၢ်နံၤကမှံ တုၤဖီတၢၣ် တစုအဂ့ၢ်န့ၣ် ကီၢ်ခိၣ် အူ၀့မၠ့ၣ် ဟ့ၣ်သဆၣ်ထီၣ်စံးလီၤ၀ဲဖဲ ၆၄ နံၣ် ကညီကီၢ်စဲၣ်မုၢ်နံၤမူး အတၢ်ရဲၣ်တၢ်ကျဲၤ အပူၤန့ၣ်လီၤႉ
ကီၢ်ခိၣ်အူ၀့မၠ့ၣ်စံး၀ဲ“ဖဲလၢပ၀ဲသ့ၣ်တဖၣ်ပဂုာ်ကျဲးစၢးထဲးဂံၢ်ထဲးဘါဒီးဟံးထီၣ်ဖီၣ်ထီၣ်အီၤအဆၢကတီၢ်န့ၣ် ထဲဒၣ် ပ၀ဲသ့ၣ်တဖၣ်န့ၣ်တ၀ံၤတၢ်ဘၣ်ႉ ပကအိၣ်ဃူအိၣ်ဖိးဒီးဟံးထီၣ်ဖီၣ်ထီၣ်သကိးႇ ဒ်သိးဒီးတၢ်ဂဲၤကလံၣ်ဒိအသိး ဟံးထီၣ်ဖီၣ်ထီၣ်အီၤ ဃူဃူဖိးဖိးဒီး ပကတုၤ၀ဲဒၣ်လၢဖီတၢၣ်အံၤန့ၣ်လီၤႉ မ့ၢ်ဘၣ်တဲအနီၢ်ကီၢ်န့ၣ် လၢတၢ်ကသူၣ် ထီၣ်ဖဲၣ်ဒရၢၣ်ကီၢ်စၢဖှိၣ်န့ၣ် ကဘၣ်မ့ၢ်၀ဲ တၢ်ကဘၣ်သူၣ်ထီၣ်အီၤ ဒ်ကလုာ်ဒူၣ်တဖၣ်ခဲလၢာ် တၢ်ဘၣ်သး အဖီခိၣ်အသိးလီၤ” စံးလီၤ၀ဲဒၣ်ဖဲ တၢ်အိးထီၣ်တၢ်ရဲၣ်တၢ်ကျဲၤမူးအပူၤန့ၣ်လီၤႉ..."
Source/publisher:
KIC (Karen Information Center)
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
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Description:
"The ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) has named four senior members who will steer the party towards electoral victory in the 2020 general election, according to party spokesperson Dr. Myo Nyunt.
The party’s election campaigns will be led by party Vice Chairman and Mandalay Region Chief Minister Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, Magwe Region Chief Minister Dr. Aung Moe Nyo and NLD Central Executive Committee secretaries U Nyan Win and U Han Tha Myint.
“Facilitating the functions of the party and rallying public support on a wider scale will all contribute to the party’s electoral victories,” Dr. Myo Nyunt told The Irrawaddy.
Dr. Aung Moe Nyo, previously a member of the Central Executive Committee, was promoted to third secretary of the committee on Oct. 29.
Dr. Myo Nyunt said that the promotion was intended to answer widely asked questions about the hierarchy within the party regarding who would succeed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The NLD currently has no plans to change Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s position as party chairperson.
“I have to try to the best of my ability to perform this duty,” said Dr. Aung Moe Nyo. “It is not about promotion, it is about greater responsibility.”
According to Dr. Myo Nyunt, the NLD’s candidates for state and regional chief minister positions will include many incumbents, adding that the ministers’ five years of experience in the executive branch are an invaluable asset to the party..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Articles on the NLD, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"With its ubiquitous presence, expansive mandate and long history within the military-led Ministry of Home Affairs, the General Administration Department (GAD) has been Myanmar’s paramount government agency, acting as the backbone of public administration. News of its removal from Home Affairs and placement into the Ministry of the Office of the Union Government last December shocked many — widespread belief prevailed that the reassignment of GAD was a red line that the military would not tolerate an elected government crossing. Removing a key department from a military-led ministry is notable, but there is more to be done. The National League for Democracy (NLD) government should think critically about how governance can be reformed to steer the country towards its goals of peace and full democracy.
For the NLD government, the GAD’s transition represents the most important public sector reform since democratic transition began in 2011. For State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the removal of the GAD from Home Affairs demonstrates that significant structural reform can be achieved under an NLD tenure, even reform that demilitarises the state apparatus by placing key departments under full civilian control.
The GAD’s power within government derives from its role in convening, communicating and coordinating across ministries rather than through its own executive decision-making power. Essentially, it is the ‘process manager’ over a large swathe of the country’s public administration. With the GAD transfer, the Office of the Union Government now has full control of the country’s paramount agency of administration..."
Source/publisher:
"East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of entry/update:
2019-11-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, The Military's political role, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
37.34 KB (3 pages)
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Description:
"Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi met U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell on Tuesday in Naypyidaw to discuss continued American support for the country’s democratic transition, a visit that came as supporters in Myanmar questioned her commitment to pledged reforms that helped her win power in 2015.
Despite U.S. concerns and efforts, analysts in Myanmar say State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has not made significant democratic progress in her three years in office as she must run her administration within the confines set out by the powerful military that directly ran the country from 1962-201.
In an interview with Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review on Oct. 23, Aung San Suu Kyi said that Myanmar’s constitution drafted by a former military junta more than a decade ago must be changed in order for the Southeast Asian nation to achieve “complete democracy,” but that this would not occur before the next general election in late 2020..."
Source/publisher:
"Radio Free Asia (RFA)" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-30
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National and State constitutions, draft constitutions and amendments (commentary), Laws, decrees and regulations relating to the parliamentary process (commentary), Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, About Aung San Suu Kyi
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"New political groups are emerging to contest Myanmar’s next election in 2020, aiming to challenge the hegemony of national civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi after she has been weakened by escalating ethnic conflicts and slowing economic growth. Those factors were blamed by party officials for the poor performance of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) in by-elections in November, when it won only seven of the 13 seats up for grabs as regional and army-linked parties made gains.
“Now that ethnic parties have allied with one another and prepared, we can’t fully rely on the power of the party. We must try harder than before to win the trust of the people,” said Dashi La Seng, an NLD lawmaker from the northern state of Kachin, where the party lost a seat in November.
At stake is the future of Myanmar’s transition to democracy. The NLD swept to power in a landslide in 2015, winning a comfortable majority in parliament despite 25 percent of the seats being reserved for the army..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, About Aung San Suu Kyi, Articles on the NLD
Language:
Local URL:
more
Summary:
"When the military-backed government of Myanmar began a series of political reforms in 2011, the country’s political landscape changed for good.
The political reforms carried out by Myanmar’s then...
Description:
"When the military-backed government of Myanmar began a series of political reforms in 2011, the country’s political landscape changed for good.
The political reforms carried out by Myanmar’s then government included the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, general amnesties for more than 200 political prisoners and many others. The culmination of such reforms was seen in 2015 when the country held its first openly contested elections since 1990. There were also general elections held in 2010, however that election was widely discredited as fraudulent.
The 2015 elections saw the National League for Democracy (NLD) party led by Aung San Suu Kyi obtain a landslide victory, paving the way for the country’s first non-military president in 15 years.
At the time when Aung San Suu Kyi was elected, the political landscape was completely different. Large segments of the population were unhappy living under the authoritarian rule of the military junta. The junta was notorious for its various human rights abuses and refusal to be held accountable. The military junta was also responsible for fuelling the many ethnic conflicts that has plagued the country’s history since..."
Source/publisher:
"The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Articles on the NLD, By Aung San Suu Kyi (Statements, Speeches, Writings, Interviews)
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Junior politicians in Myanmar must navigate a rapidly changing political landscape. The establishment of the 2008 constitution has transformed the country’s form of government and left its mark on the nation’s core institutions, its civil society, and its media, as well as on the way these entities interact. Myanmar’s politicians have to address old challenges while coming up with solutions for new issues as they arise. This is a demanding task.
The Political Education Programme for Junior Politicians (PEJP) is directed at young leaders who are engaged in party politics and wish to pursue a career as a politician or civil servant. The programme aims to introduce participants to new ways of thinking about key political ideas and practices while acquainting them with the skills necessary for a political career. The five-day intensive workshop will be held in Yangon from 5 to 9 November. It will engage participants on the topics of political institutions, campaigning tools, constituent relations, media analysis, and good governance.
Participants are also invited to attend an academic conference on political parties in Myanmar, to be held in Yangon on the days following the workshop (10 and 11 November). Here participants will have the chance to learn from accomplished scholars from Myanmar and abroad..."
Source/publisher:
"In cooperation with Initiative Austausch e.V. and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation"
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Education in Burma/Myanmar - general
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Political parties matter for political analysis, yet they have rarely been examined closely in relation to Myanmar’s trajectory in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Some parties, such as the AFPFL, the BSPP, the NLD, and the USDP, have shaped Myanmar at critical historical junctures or continue to exert a strong influence over its current development.
But while we are aware of the important role political parties play, we know little beyond their history and political manifestos. Are traditional party types (elite party, mass party, catch-all party, cartel party, clientelist party, cleavage-based party) relevant in the context of Myanmar, or are we better off using novel categorisations? What kinds of party systems have existed in Myanmar and how have they influenced the current party system? How do party patronage networks work? What characterises the patterns of interparty competition in Myanmar, and what effect do parties have on Myanmar’s political transformation?..."
Source/publisher:
"GIGA / Initiative Austausch e.V. / Friedrich Ebert Foundation" (Germany)
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Summary:
"Kyaw Zwa Moe: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy. It is supposed to be one year until the next general election. The 2015 poll was the first general election in over 50 years that was free and fair and...
Description:
"Kyaw Zwa Moe: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy. It is supposed to be one year until the next general election. The 2015 poll was the first general election in over 50 years that was free and fair and whose results were recognized.
We will discuss to what extent the next election, due in 2020, will meet democratic norms; if it will deliver accurate results; and to what extent it will impact upon shaping free and fair elections, the essence of democracy, in the future. Executive director Ko Sai Ye Kyaw Swar Myint of the People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE), and vice chair of the Democratic Party for a New Society (DPNS) Ma Noe Noe Htet San join me. I’m The Irrawaddy English editor Kyaw Zwa Moe.
Looking at the history of Myanmar since 1962, the 2015 election was relatively free and fair, and its results were recognized. Though the 1990 election was free and fair, the military regime did not recognize the results. To what extent will the 2020 election be free and fair, and what will be the difficulties?
Sai Ye Kyaw Swar Myint: It is widely agreed that the 2015 election was aimed at power transfer. It can be said that it was the ultimate aim of the 2015 election. It is time to aim beyond that in the 2020 election.
It is important to make elections become a normal part of the political transition. So it is important to make sure the 2020 election is not postponed because postponing it will impede the political transition..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2019-10-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, About Aung San Suu Kyi, National League for Democracy - Policies, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Nearly 30 years after becoming head of a government-in-exile formed at a jungle base on the border with Thailand, Dr Sein Win has returned to Myanmar.
Description:
"AMID THE turbulent and sometimes bloody politics of Myanmar, members of one of the country’s most famous families have devoted most or all of their lives to the struggle for freedom, either from colonialism or dictatorship.
One of them, Dr Sein Win, 74, has finally come home.
Sein Win is a nephew of independence hero Bogyoke Aung San and a cousin of State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Sein Win’s father, U Ba Win, was among the nine men killed in a hail of gunfire when Aung San was assassinated during a meeting of the pre-independence cabinet at the Secretariat in Yangon on July 19, 1947. Ba Win was minister of trade.
Two years after the brutal crushing of the national uprising against military rule in 1988, Sein Win became prime minister of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB). He headed the government-in-exile from its formation near the Thai border in December 1990, until its dissolution on September 14, 2012.
After nearly 30 years in exile, Sein Win returned to his motherland in the second week of August and since then has been receiving a steady stream of journalists and well-wishers at a bungalow in Yangon’s outer northeastern South Okkalapa Township. He greets visitors in a longyi and the ochre-coloured pinni (handspun jacket) favoured by members of the National League for Democracy, with which the NCGUB was closely aligned during the years of repression after the NLD’s landslide victory in the 1990 election that the ruling military junta refused to honour..."
Source/publisher:
"Frontier Myanmar"
Date of entry/update:
2019-09-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Articles and reports about the NCGUB, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
512.26 KB
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Description:
"Myanmar's ruling party led by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi faces struggles on many sides as next year's general election looms, including corruption scandals that have undermined the party's pledge to clean up the government.
"Suu Kyi is furious about the consecutive cases of corruption among government leaders," a government source said recently.
In July, Industry Minister Khin Maung Cho stepped down after accusations of inappropriately handling procurement procedures. He reportedly failed to invite tenders when a state-owned pharmaceutical company under the ministry sought raw materials.
This followed the resignation of Planning and Finance Minister Kyaw Win, a close aide to Suu Kyi, in May 2018 after authorities launched a graft investigation against him.
Also this year, investigators initiated a corruption probe in the Ministry of Electricity and Energy.
"I'm sure there are countless other cases of corruption that have yet to surface," said Yan Myo Thein, a political analyst based in Yangon.
The scandals are a blow to the governing National League for Democracy, which won a landslide in the 2015 election vowing to eradicate the corruption of the former junta..."
Source/publisher:
"Nikkei Asian Review"
Date of entry/update:
2019-08-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
''On January 29, the Ruling Party NLD made a surprise move in the Parliament to form a Committee for proposing Constitutional Changes to the existing 2008 Constitution. The proposal as expected was vigorously opposed by the Army Representatives led by Brig. Maung Maung who did not speak on the idea of Constitutional amendments but on the procedure adopted by the Ruling Party to push through amendments.
On 15th of February , the second Coordination meeting for Constitutional amendments met for forming a Joint Committee to consider the issue. Two Parties- the unofficial party of the Army- the USDP and the Arakan National Party in whose area fierce fighting is going on between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army did not send the names for the Joint Committee to be formed.
On 19th of February, a Committee with 45 members to amend the Constitution was approved by a vote in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Assembly of the Union). Members of Parliament from 14 political parties , the Army (Tatmadaw) and independents met to form this committee and a total of 389 MPs voted for, with 192 against and with three abstentions.
Significantly, in the proportionate representation to the committee to look into the amendments, the names for the 8 MPs from the Army and two MPs from the USDP could not be announced as no names were forthcoming neither from the Army or from the USDP. The message is clear- that the Army is not for any amendment now...''
S.Chandrasekharan
Source/publisher:
South Asia Analysis Group via "Euro-Burma Office"
Date of publication:
2019-02-21
Date of entry/update:
2019-02-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Legal history and philosophy of Burma (texts and commentary), Legal resources - commentary., Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Theory and practice of constitutional government
Language:
English
Local URL:
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Description:
''Is Myanmar headed towards more representative and less military-steered democracy? On February 6, Myanmar’s parliament voted to establish a new preparatory committee to deliberate amending the country’s military-drafted 2008 constitution, which gives the armed forces an outsized “leadership role” in politics.
The ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) rose to power in a landslide November 2015 election win, in part on a vow to make democratizing changes to the charter. Nearly three years in office, however, the NLD has not yet made those promised amendments, a mark on its record as new elections scheduled for next year start to emerge on the political horizon.
State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD government has struck a balance with the autonomous military, seen in her dogged defense of the armed forces’ actions in Rakhine state, where internationally criticized “clearance operations” forced over 700,000 Rohingya Muslims into neighboring Bangladesh...''
Bertil Lintner
Source/publisher:
Asia Times
Date of publication:
2019-02-08
Date of entry/update:
2019-02-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, National League for Democracy - Policies, Peace processes, ceasefires and ceasefire talks (websites, documents, reports and studies), Burmese refugees in Bangladesh
Language:
English
Local URL:
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Description:
''Introduction for the Fiscal Federalism in Myanmar curriculum.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
1.14 MB 2.56 MB 2.92 MB 2.36 MB 5.15 MB
Local URL:
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Description:
''This module covers decentralization, revenue transfers, and social development. English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
1.1 MB 2.37 MB 2.52 MB 2.34 MB 2.51 MB
Local URL:
Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_Workbook_en.pdf- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_Workbook_bu.pdf
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_Workbook_kachin.pdf
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_Workbook_kayin.pdf
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_Workbook_shan.pdf
more
Description:
''This module covers fiscal federalism and equalization.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
874.94 KB 1.92 MB 2.25 MB 1.82 MB 4.42 MB
Local URL:
- Module-3_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Equalization_Workbook_en.pdf
- Module-3_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Equalization_Workbook_bu.pdf
- Module-3_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Equalization_Workbook_kachin.pdf
- Module-3_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Equalization_Workbook_kayin.pdf
- Module-3_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Equalization_Workbook_shan.pdf
more
Description:
"This module covers fiscal federalism and natural resources.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan"
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
770.4 KB 2.1 MB 2.16 MB 1.98 MB 2.23 MB
Local URL:
- Module-4_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Natural-Resources_Workbook_en.pdf
- Module-4_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Natural-Resources_Workbook_bu.pdf
- Module-4_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Natural-Resources_Workbook_kachin.pdf
- Module-4_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Natural-Resources_Workbook_kayin.pdf
- Module-4_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Natural-Resources_Workbook_shan.pdf
more
Description:
''This module covers public infrastructure, public services, and human capital. English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
1.36 MB 3.1 MB 3.43 MB 3.06 MB 5.47 MB
Local URL:
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_Workbook_en.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_Workbook_bu.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_Workbook_kachin.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_Workbook_kayin.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_Workbook_shan.pdf
more
Description:
''This module covers fiscal federalism and Myanmar’s peace negotiations.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
744.51 KB 2.07 MB 2.21 MB 2.02 MB 2.25 MB
Local URL:
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_Workbook_en.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_Workbook_bu.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_Workbook_kachin.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_Workbook_kayin.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_Workbook_Shan.pdf
more
Description:
''There’s a popular idea, perpetuated by colonialists, Western travelers, and national historians, that women in Myanmar have long enjoyed status equal to men. I have heard this myself from Burma experts who didn’t understand why I, a gender policy specialist, wanted to go to Myanmar. But historian Tharaphi Than, author of Women in Modern Burma, has a different view. There have been a few powerful women in Myanmar, she argues, but their stories, told again and again, have crowded out the stories of the unequal majority.
Yet, as I was also beginning to learn, Myanmar has a rich history of women who refused to play by the rules—journalists who kept writing, artists who kept painting, and soldiers who kept serving their country even when they were attacked, dismissed, and demeaned. Which is why I was here in Mandalay, to gather those less-told stories of remarkable women, past and present, for a children’s book that would inspire a new generation of Myanmar girls to dream big...''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-10-10
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Women's rights, Human rights policies of various actors in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
English
Local URL:
more
Description:
Download facilitator notes for the Fiscal Federalism in Myanmar curriculum.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan.
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.64 MB 3.21 MB 2.57 MB 2.81 MB 2.41 MB
more
Description:
''Introduction for the Fiscal Federalism in Myanmar curriculum.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan...''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
747.19 KB 916.63 KB 935.37 KB 985.04 KB 1.19 MB
more
Description:
This module covers decentralization, revenue transfers, and social development. English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan.
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
949.4 KB 1.29 MB 1.28 MB 1.37 MB 1.4 MB
Local URL:
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_en.pdf
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_bu.pdf
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_KACHIN.pdf
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_KAYIN.pdf
- Module2_Decentralization-Revenue-Transfers-and-Social-Development_SHAN.pdf
more
Description:
''This module covers fiscal federalism and equalization.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan...''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
671.6 KB 849.95 KB 846.45 KB 967.06 KB 970.39 KB
more
Description:
''This module covers fiscal federalism and natural resources.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
698 KB 925.17 KB 967.01 KB 1018.47 KB 1.4 MB
more
Description:
''This module covers public infrastructure, public services, and human capital. English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan...''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
802.11 KB 1.12 MB 1.11 MB 1.2 MB 1.33 MB
Local URL:
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_en.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_bu.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_KACHIN.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_KAYIN.pdf
- Module-5_Fiscal-Federalism-Public-Infrastructure-Public-Services-and-Human-Capital_SHAN.pdf
more
Description:
''This module covers fiscal federalism and Myanmar’s peace negotiations.
English, Myanmar, Kachin, Karen and Shan...''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karen, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
557.24 KB 656.92 KB 819.74 KB 868.47 KB 895.4 KB
Local URL:
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_en.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_bu.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_KACHIN.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_KAYIN.pdf
- Module-6_Fiscal-Federalism-and-Myanmars-Peace-Negotiations_SHAN.pdf
more
Description:
''The Fiscal Federalism modules include the following:
1.Fiscal Federalism Introduction
2.Decentralization, Revenue Transfers, and Social Development
3.Fiscal Federalism and Equalization
4.Fiscal Federalism and Natural Resources
5.Public Infrastructure, Public Services, and Human Capital
6.Fiscal Federalism and Myanmar’s Peace Negotiation...''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Educational resources and materials (Burma- and non-Burma-related)
Language:
English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ), Kachin, Karan, Shan
Format :
pdf pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size:
6.51 MB 15.19 MB 16.59 MB 14.64 MB 16.29 MB
Local URL:
- Fiscal-Federalism-in-Myanmar-Training-Curriculum-Workbook_en.pdf
- Fiscal-Federalism-in-Myanmar-Training-Curriculum-Workbook_bu.pdf
- Fiscal-Federalism-in-Myanmar-Training-Curriculum-Workbook-KACHIN.pdf
- Fiscal-Federalism-in-Myanmar-Training-Curriculum-Workbook_KAYIN.pdf
- Fiscal-Federalism-in-Myanmar-Training-Curriculum-Workbook_SHAN.pdf
more
Description:
''Burke recently served as lead researcher and author of The Asia Foundation’s 2017 report, Contested Areas of Myanmar: Subnational Conflict, Aid and Development. Other notable assignments for the Foundation include an independent evaluation of programs in conflict-affected areas in southern Thailand and an analysis of the development trajectory of Malaysia and Thailand as Advanced Middle-Income Countries...''
Source/publisher:
Asia Foundation
Date of publication:
2018-11-01
Date of entry/update:
2019-01-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Decentralisation (Decentralization) in Burma/Myanmar, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies
Language:
English
Local URL:
more