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* Man-made disaster defeats tough farmers
* As
own
resources
* CHILD LABOR IN ARAKAN
=======================================
Man-made
disaster defeats tough farmers
Shan Herald Agency for News
Shan farmers in northern Shan State who had braved the year's flash-
floods that killed their paddy crops are now caving in to an official
order that will certainly mean a personal ruin that they can never
hope to pull through, reports Mao Mao from the northern border:
"We were able to face up to a couple of heavy downpours," sighed a
Shan villager, "only to be beaten by a mayaka (township peace and
development council chairman) called Aung Aung Lwin."
The farmer and his fellow-villagers from Zawn-zaw,
opposite
about the order from Aung Aung Lwin onOct, 28 that required them to
plant 25 acres of soybeans as a model in anticipation of official
visits to be made by his superiors.
The spot he had chosen also covered 10 acres of paddy yet to be
harvested as they were planted late due to the rains that had twice
wiped out the rice sprouts.
Accordingly, the farmers' objections were overruled and two days
later, the fields were plowed to make way for the soybeans, whose
seeds the farmers were also obliged to pay for. "That was the last
straw," complained another. "The re-plantings had already cost us
extra money and a huge debt. Now we were told to dig out our pockets
again just to help him entertain his masters."
The seeds had to be purchased from the township office for 1,600 kyat
per pay (3.3 liters) in price. As farmers were required to sow 1 tang
(16 pay) of seeds per acre, the total amount came to 640,000 kyat
($640), an extravagant sum for farmers in Bur ma.
Apart from soybeans, farmers in northern
been required to grow Hsin Shweli, a Chinese rice strain that is being
advertised as a high yield rice crop. The project is part of the New
Destiny Project launched in April 2002 to persuade farmers to exchange
their poppy seeds for alternative crops. "The problem," says one rice
trader, "is that it is not traditional poppy farmers but traditional
rice farmers who are being forced to grow the Chinese seeds."
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* As
resources
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Notwithstanding a surprise coup that snuffs all wishful talks of
reform in
any pressure from the international
community.
world’s three most populous regions
converge, and from
to keep relations with its military government “normal.”
By ROBY ALAMPAY
Mizzima News
red carpet for
week, one of the largest gatherings of Burmese writers, academics and
journalists in recent memory was quietly coming together just outside
the country the general now undisputedly rules.
Just five days after a coup that consolidated his hold on
junta, ousted General Khin Nyunt as prime minister, and mocked all
wishful talk of reform in
behind his seat at the head of the junta’s table and flew west towards
exiled from the junta's iron rule were journeying from the opposite
direction.
By land, by rail and by air they came — eastward from the
specific than that) to discuss their role, prospects and future in a
country that Reporters Sans Frontiers calls one of the three worst
places in the world to speak your mind or to even ask for information.
As in
that is allowed to flow within or escape the Burmese border.
Journalists disappear and true journalism has in fact disappeared
within the country. A 2002 survey conducted among writers,
researchers, and journalists in
most impossible place in the region to ask for any kind of public
document.
And still, if anything has changed in two years — or even just the
past week — it has been for something more unexpected than better
press conditions:
The Burmese Media Association (BMA), which organized this week’s
gathering of exiled Burmese writers and journalists, says that within
three days of Than Shwe’s power move, at least 17 publications — such
as they can be in a place where even faxes and modems need permits —
were suspended inside the country.
The Burmese edition of the
Times, jointly owned by an Australian publisher and the Office of the
Strategic Studies (OSS), was reportedly suspended pending an expected
shake-up of
For the Burmese writers and journalists who gathered in
week, there was thus suddenly an urgency to share techniques, secrets,
technology and know-how on how to get news and information — safely
and reliably, for both reports’ and reporters’ sakes — in and out of
providers, many of those who took part in the conference are in fact
still technically and professionally competitors. But developments now
bind them to a common interest of networking and getting their act
together. Things are bound to get harder from hereon, and the
tightening of the noose around news and information can only indicate
where the rest of the country is headed.
It is not just Than Shwe of whom
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) curiously — or rather,
typically — has been silent on Khin Nyunt’s ouster, despite their own
expressed belief that the general was the most viable, if ironic,
catalyst for change in
Khin Nyunt was for reopening talks with the charismatic opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest. It was also
Khin Nyunt who promised the international community that
amend its constitution, as a crucial first step on the road to
political reform. The problem is that Asean has always hid behind the
skirt of consensus to justify a collective passivity towards every
member’s “internal affairs”. With the junta, the official stance is
one for “constructive engagement”, although clearly that has merely
toughened the hides of the generals.
Meanwhile,
Shwe’s junta. Among all of them, for example, there is a common desire
to be cooperative in putting down ethnic insurgencies that fester
where their borders with
meanwhile, have pending or potential bids for investment in
infrastructure and natural resources. News reports noted that Than
Shwe was accompanied to
include industry, energy, rail and communications.” For its part,
coup, and was positioning for contracts in telecommunications.
For the writers and journalists who gathered in
the focus and sharing were thus inward looking more than anything. In
the foreseeable future, they will need to be even more creative in
getting news and information. They will need to be more cohesive. And
they will have to look out for each other as well as reach out to
other media and organizations.
As for hoping that the international community — that their host
governments — would listen to the exiles now: There is a feeling that
even the neighbors to which houses they fled would rather not deal
with the awkwardness of their
presence.
three most populous regions
converge, and from
relations with the junta “normal”. ###
The author is executive director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance
(SEAPA), an organization whose mandate it is to promote press freedom
in
through the following numbers in
(662) 2435579 (office hours only); Mobile: (661)5501120. He may also
be e-mailed through [email protected], or [email protected]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CHILD LABOR IN ARAKAN
=======================
By
Kaladan Press Network
Date:
creek that flows into the Naf river, which separates the two
neighboring countries of
from his work at a construction site for a fishery dam for shrimp
cultivation.
Zahid Ullah, only 12 years old, is from Taungbro village in Maungdaw
Township,
He works hard but can earn very little for his service. An orphan, he
is compelled to work there as he has no other alternative for his
survival.
Little Zahid, when asked, said, “My father was picked up by the
military four years ago but never came back home again. I have three
sisters and two brothers with my mother. I am the eldest son of the
family. So I work to earn money for my family, while my mother works
in neighboring houses for our survival. We had some land that was also
seized by the Nasaka for new Buddhist settlers..
“Now I am working for the construction of a dam at a shrimp
cultivation site but have no fixed work to do. Earlier I was a cow boy
for some neighboring house for 30 tins of rice a year. I took care of
cows, bulls and other animals for them but was not exempted from other
work in the house. If I get any money by any means working outside, I
will pay it to my lord, as I am a full- time 24-hour employee of this
lord.
On the other hand, here is another child who looks like a cook but is
a young refugee child, only 7 years old; whom I know as Mohammad Amin,
son of the late Kader Hossain. He works at a teashop in Teknaf, a town
bordering
would like to stay at rented huts in the area.
He said he could earn 250 taka a month and support his mother and
three sisters, who stay at Zalia Para village in the town.
Hundreds of children are engaged as laborers in different work sectors
in
crossed into
Mostly child labor is used to cultivate or produce a variety of goods
including beans, bricks, fish, rice, shrimp and wood, or in
transportation and forced labor. Forced laborers are provided to SPDC
authorities on the basis of family.
No widow or orphan in
is exempted from forced labor to fulfill the works of authorities, he
said.
An International Confederation of Free Trade Unions report in August
2003 titled “Growing Up Under the Burnese Dictatorship,” on the
situation facing children after 41
years of military rule in
mentioned that in the context of the dire economic climate that
prevails as a result of the military dictatorship's policy, the income
of adults alone is no longer enough for most families to live on.
Within Burmese society, children have traditionally been allotted
certain tasks such as helping their parents during harvests, fetching
water, caring for their younger brothers and sisters, etc., but in the
current context many children are deprived of any chance to attend
school and obliged to enter the employment market at age 10.. The
majority give their wages to their parents.
A report of the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International
Labor Affairs, in 2000 said the government's apparent lack of
commitment to primary education continues to be a contributing factor
to child labor conditions in
endemic problem in
poverty and lack of investment by the government in primary education.
While national laws to protect children are in place, little appears
to be done to enforce them, and exploitative and dangerous forms of
child labor have been widely reported, including work on
infrastructure development projects, in military support operations,
as child soldiers, and in the sex industry, according to the Report on
Labor Practices in
Regarding child labor, a complaint was reportedly made by the UNHCR
field officer, Ms. Kyok Yonizu, at a meeting between Nasaka officials
and a UNHCR field officer in the UNHCR field meeting room in Maungdaw,
last July. She requested that the commander take action against the
rampant use of child labor in both the north and south of Maungdaw, an
NGO worker from the town said on condition of anonymity.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has estimated that 250
million children age 5-14 years old work in developing countries - at
least 120 million on a fulltime basis. Sixty-one percent of these are
in
Local government authorities continue to require Rohingya to perform
forced labor. Human Rights Watch was told that those who refuse or
complain are physically threatened, sometimes with death, and that
children as young as 7 years old have been seen on forced labor teams.
Use of child labor directly contravenes the Burmese government's
obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The
compulsory, unpaid labor includes work in state-run, profit-making
industries and in construction of "model villages" for non-Muslim
migrants in Arakan. The Rohingya are often made to pay for
construction of model villages by confiscation of their land, and
providing labor, and building materials. By contrast, Rakhine
villagers in northern Arakan do not have to participate in these
projects, the report said.
.......................................................................
Burma News International is a network of nine exiled media groups
such as Mizzima News, Shan Herald Agency for News, Kao Wao News Group,
Khonumthung News Group, Narinjara News, Kaladan Press Network,
Independent Mon News Agency, Karenni Information
Network Group and Network Media Group.
.........................
Contact: Duty Editor
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