Burma: Crackdown on Letpadaung protestors continues

Published by MAC on 2013-08-14
Source: The Irrawaddy, statement, Eleven media

US extends its ban on jade and ruby imports

4 Arrested in Crackdown on Monastery Near Letpadaung Mine

By Zarni Mann & Lin Thant

The Irrawaddy

6 August 2013

A monastery near the controversial Letpadaung copper mine in Sagaing Division was raided at around 2am on Tuesday by military police in search of activists fighting for local residents' land rights.

According to villagers, four people were arrested and at least 15 others were injured as police smashed glass windows and destroyed property at the local monastery in the village of Zee Taw.

"Two truckloads of military police and 10 motorcycles entered the village around 1:45 in the morning," said Ko Htet of the People's Network, a Rangoon-based activist network helping the villagers defend their land rights around the Chinese-backed mine.

"They ransacked my monastery for nearly two hours," said U Arloka, abbot of the San Myawaddy monastery in Zee Taw. The Buddhist monk added that the glass panes in his sleeping quarters were smashed and the room was forced open. U Arloka was away during the raid and only learned of the incident upon his return to the monastery later that day.

"The cause of the raid is that they asked my students the whereabouts of the activists. When they didn't get what they wanted, they slapped my boys in their faces and kicked them with boots," the 34-year-old abbot said.

The monk said two of the four people arrested on Tuesday morning had since been released, but the location of the pair still in detention, named Maung Tu and Tin Lin, remained unknown.

Representatives from the Salingyi police station and the Salingyi Township administration, which has jurisdiction over the mining project and Zee Taw, could not be reached for comment.

Hla Tun, president of the implementation committee for the findings of a government report on Letpadaung, recently said activist agitators were behind the defiance of some villagers who have refused to accept compensation for lands that were confiscated for the copper mine project.

Three locals were previously detained and are still being held for protesting against the project, and warrants have been issued for some members of the People's Network who are active in the region. A curfew remains in effect in the area, which has seen recurring protests since last year.

"The police need not treat the villagers in a brutal way. I think the crackdown is to arrest the people who help the farmers, like us," said Han Win Aung from a social aid network based in Rangoon.

Activists have been accused of inciting unrest in the area by encouraging the locals and farmers to participate in protests against the copper mine.

"To protest in order to showcase the suffering is the right of the farmers and so too is it the right of every citizen. Arresting or threatening is abusing human rights. The duty of the police is to protect us, not threaten us," said Han Win Aung.

On Saturday, anti-copper mine activists, farmers and other local residents held a press conference urging parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi to take responsibility for ensuring that recommendations from the government's report on Letpadaung be implemented.

The opposition leader Suu Kyi chaired the commission in charge of issuing the report, in which a set of recommendations was proposed to be carried out, including ensuring greater environmental protections and adequate compensation to affected communities.

Wanbao, the Chinese firm that is spearheading the project, agreed last month to renegotiate its revenue sharing contract, which was originally signed under the former military regime.

The new contract gives the Burmese government a majority 51 percent stake in the mine, with Wanbao and its local business partner, the military-backed Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (UMEHL), retaining 49 percent ownership. Previously, Wanbao and UMEHL held complete control.

The amendments also include a legal requirement that 2 percent of net profits from the mine be allocated for corporate social responsibility projects, with a focus on local communities affected by the mine. Wanbao is also required to pay $2 million per year through the commercial production period of the project to ensure that international standards in environmental protection are met.

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BURMA/MYANMAR: Activist sentenced to eleven years' jail for opposing army copper mine

Asian Human Rights Commission - Urgent Appeals Programme

Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-105-2013

12 August 2013

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Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has previously issued a statement on the ongoing targeting and arrests of activists and farmers opposed to the expansion of an army-backed copper mining operation in the Letpadaung Hills of Sagaing Region (AHRC-STM-108-2013).

In this appeal we bring you the full details of the numerous charges brought against one of those activists, Ko Aung Soe, who was arrested with two other persons for working with farmers organising against the mining operation. Aung Soe has now been sentenced to eleven-and-a-half years in jail in patently unfair trials that closely resemble those of the decades of military rule in Burma.

Case Narrative:

Aung Soe is among other activists who have since last year been working with farmers in the vicinity of the Letpadaung Hills of Monywa District, Sagaing Region in central Burma to oppose through non-violent protest techniques the expansion of a copper mine that is a joint venture between the army's holding corporation and a Chinese partner.

Police detained Aung Soe and two farmers, Ko Maung San and Ko Soe Thu, as well as another activist and a farmer leader on April 25 after they led hundreds of villagers onto an area of land declared off-limits for mine expansion that was part of the Hse Te village, with the intention of rebuilding huts and tilling farmland. When police ordered the people off the land, Aung Soe allegedly abused them, and when the police went to arrest him farmers responded by pelting them with rocks. A series of melees followed that lasted for around half an hour.

They subsequently charged Aung Soe with eleven offences relating to a range of incidents, including protests that involved violent clashes between farmers and police in August 2012, resulting in the resistance to the mine attracting national attention and leading to the savage nighttime raids on encamped protestors at the end of November, which obtained international news coverage and resulted in the establishment of a special commission of inquiry headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aside from the patent violations of human rights arising out of the case-the denial of the rights to peaceful freedom of assembly and expression in par ticular-the trial also was full of procedural errors typical of the manner in which such political trumped up cases were conducted in Burma over decades of military dictatorship.

To begin with, the authorities transferred the trial to a court remote from where the alleged offences occurred. At the new court, the hearings were conducted out of public view, and a lawyer who went to represent Aung Soe was denied access to the courtroom. The court has so far also refused to release copies of verdicts in three of the cases, which are required in order to lodge applications for revision in higher courts.

Lastly, Aung Soe was convicted multiple times for the same offences, thus enhancing his punishment to eleven-and-a-half years when even if in fact guilty of the remarkable range of crimes for which he stood accused he should not have been sentenced to much longer than half that period.

Further details are provided below in the sample letter as usual.

Additional Information:

Despite the political changes in Burma of the last couple of years, the AHRC has expressed repeated concern over the continued prosecution of activists and others for doing no more than exercising democratic rights.

In a recent statement it noted that the president's commitment to free all political prisoners would not mean much unless new arrests of persons for political reasons stop (AHRC-STM-135-2013). It has also highlighted the prosecution of activists involved in the Letpadaung mine dispute and non-prosecution of police who carried out a brutal incendiary attack on protestors (AHRC-STM-108-2013, AHRC-STM-082-2013).

In this case, a matter of special concern raised in these interventions is that a special investigation commission headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi endorsed the continuation of the copper mine project and bypassed questions of police responsibility for egregious abuses of human rights that it ought to have directly addressed.

Not surprisingly, the companies and officials involved all welcomed and endorsed the commission's report and promised to give it effect, much to the disappointment of local people affected by the mine and their supporters.

The abuse of human rights since has continued under the cover of the investigation commission's report, and therefore, the commission also bears some responsibility for the enthusiasm with which the police and other authorities have taken to the pursuit of activists opposing the mine in the period since.

For many more cases and issues concerning human rights in Burma, visit the AHRC's country homepage: http://www.humanrights.asia/countries/burma.

Suggested Action:

Please write to the persons listed below to call for the charges against Aung Soe to be reviewed and for him to be released without delay. Please note that for the purpose of the letter, the country should be referred to by its official title of Myanmar, rather than Burma.

Please note that the AHRC is writing separate letters to the UN Special Rapporteurs on Myanmar and the UN Special Representative on human rights defenders, the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and to the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear .................,

MYANMAR: Lengthy jail term of land rights activist for organizing non-violent resistance to copper mining operation

Name of accused:
Ko Aung Soe, member of the Yangon People's Support Network

Names of complainant officials:
1. Inspector Hla Ngwe, Myanmar Police Force
2. Police Major Kyaw Aung
3. Captain Kyaw Hla Moe (retired), Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd.
4. U Kyaw Thaung, Head, Salingyi Township Administration

Date of incidents: August 2012 - April 2013

Place of incident: Letpadaung Hills, Monywa Township, Sagaing Region, Myanmar

Charges and sentences:
1. Common intention to cause hurt to a public servant on duty, criminal trespass, unlawful assembly; 2 years under Penal Code sections 333/447/143/34
2. Criminal trespass, wrongful restraint and unlawful assembly; six months under Penal Code sections 447/341/143
3. Abetment of insulting religion; 4 years for two counts under Penal Code sections 295/295A/117
4. Abetment of other offences; 2 years for two counts under Penal Code section 117
5. Rioting, unlawful assembl y, defamation; 1 year under Penal Code sections 143/147/500
6. Disobedience of a public servant; one-and-a-half years for three counts under Penal Code section 188
7. Failure to obtain a permit for a public assembly; 6 months under the Right to Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law, 2011, section 18

Case numbers 3162-67/2013, 3215-3216/2013 and three other cases (documentation not yet made available), Shwebo Township Court, Judge Daw Tin Tin Nwei presiding

I am writing to express my outrage that a human rights defender joining with farmers in Myanmar to oppose the expansion of an army-backed copper mining operation has been sentenced to eleven-and-a-half years in prison, and to urge that he be released without delay.

According to the information that I have received, Aung Soe was detained on 25 April 2013 and charged subsequently with a range of offences related to protests that resulted in violence between farmers and police in August 2012.

I am informed that the cases brought against Ko Aung Soe are full of errors typical of those cases brought against human rights activists in the period of direct military rule in Myanmar that people had hoped would by now be behind it. In particular, I draw your attention to the following:

1. The trial was conducted in a court outside of the township where the offences occurred on the flimsy pretext of security concerns when in fact the purpose was to conduct the trials with as little public attention and access as possible. In fact, judges are empowered to take a range of measures to secure their courthouses from possible security threats (para. 48, Courts Manual) and the transfer of the trial to another township was unnecessary other than for the purpose of making it difficult for interested members of the public to attend. Furthermore, it does not fall under any of the criteria for transfer provided under section 526 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

2. The hearings were conducted in closed court and a lawyer who went to represent Aung Soe was denied access to the courtroom. The court has so far also refused to release copies of verdicts in three of the cases, which are required in order to lodge applications for revision in higher courts.

3. Aung Soe was convicted of multiple offences for what were in fact parts of the same offence. Specifically, under Penal Code section 71 he should have been convicted of no more than one count of abetment of insulting religion and abetment of other offences. The two offences involving criminal trespass overlap and should have been treated as a single offence in parts for the purpose of punishment.

In view of the above flaws in the cases, the fact that Aung Soe was doing no more than exercising his human rights and democratic rights to non-violent expression of opposition to the mining project, and also in light of the fact that the police have throughout events at Letpadaung enjoyed thei r usual impunity for whatever offences committed on members of the public, I call for the convictions of Aung Soe to be reviewed and for him to be released from prison without delay.

I also take this opportunity to express concern over the more general vigorous campaign of intimidation and arrest that is underway against opponents of the Letpadaung copper mine, both in the region of the mine and in other parts of Myanmar where protests against the mine have occurred. I can only assume that the reason for the campaign is in large part that the military-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd is one of the two corporations responsible for the expansion of the project. Although the military in Myanmar has stepped back from its frontal political role, it is manifest from the manner in which this matter is being handled that whenever major financial or other interests of the armed forces are at stake it will not hesitate to resort to the same kinds of tactics for which it became notorious over many decades. As long as it continues to do so, the democratization process in Myanmar, while in certain respects tangible will in many other respects remain ephemeral.

It is particularly scandalous that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as chairperson of the committee that investigated the mining operation and approved its expansion on the ground that Myanmar cannot afford to upset its powerful neighbor now appears to take no responsibility for the consequences of that investigative report: namely, the arrest of activists like Aung Soe who are doing no more than exercising what they understand to be their rights in a democratizing country under the cover of the protection provided to the authorities by the contents of the report-both in terms of its endorsement of the mining project and also its whitewashing of police responsibility for the savage nighttime attack with incendiary weapons on peacefully encamped demonstrators at the end of November 2012.

Therefore, I urge all persons and parties concerned in generating violence by encouraging the continuation of this mine project without proper democratic consultations with the affected villagers to review their positions in light of the ongoing physical and legal attacks on human rights activists and farmers and reopen serious and meaningful discussions with affected persons that will fully take their views into account and treat the dispute over the mine as an opportunity for democratic growth matching the aspirations of Myanmar's people, rather than another so-called "state project" where the army, powerful investors and other hidden interests run roughshod over the rights of ordinary folk, as has been the case for so long.

Yours sincerely,

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PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:

1.U Hla Min
Minister for Home Affairs
Ministry of Home Affairs
Office No. 10
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR
Tel: +95 67 412 079/ 549 393/ 549 6 63
Fax: +95 67 412 439

2. U Thein Sein
President of Myanmar
President Office
Office No.18
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR

3. U Tun Tun Oo
Chief Justice
Office of the Supreme Court
Office No. 24
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR
Tel: + 95 67 404 080/ 071/ 078/ 067 or + 95 1 372 145
Fax: + 95 67 404 059

4. Dr. Tun Shin
Attorney General
Office of the Attorney General
Office No. 25
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR
Tel: +95 67 404 088/ 090/ 092/ 094/ 097
Fax: +95 67 404 146/ 106

5. U Zaw Min
Director General
Myanmar Police Force
Ministry of Home Affairs
Office No. 10
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR
Tel: +95 67 412 079/ 549 393/ 549 663
Fax: +951 549 663 / 549 208

6. Thura U Aung Ko
Chairman
Pyithu Hluttaw Judicial and Legislative Committee
Office of the Pyithu Hluttaw
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR

7. U Aung Nyein
Chairman
Pyithu Hluttaw Judicial and Legislative Committee
Committee for Public Complaints and Appeals
Office of the Pyithu Hluttaw
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR

8. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
Chairwoman
Pyithu Hluttaw Rule of Law and Tranquility Committee
Office of the Pyithu Hluttaw
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR

9. U Win Mra
Chairman
Myanmar National Human Rights Commission
27 Pyay Road
Hlaing Township
Yangon
MYANMAR
Tel: +95-1-659 668
Fax: +95-1-659 668

10. Ko Ko Hlaing
Chief Political Advisor
Office of the President
Naypyitaw
MYANMAR
Tel: +95 1 532 501 ext-605 / +95 1 654 668
Fax: +95 1 532 500/ +95 1 654 668

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrc.asia)

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Govt to scrutinize jade mining companies in Kachin State

Eleven media

13 August 2013

The government will scrutinize jade mining companies in Hpakant town of Kachin State, forbidding new companies and companies with expired licenses from operating in the jade mining business, Vice President Dr Sai Mauk Kham said on Sunday.

Dr Sai Mauk Kham told Hpakant residents that jade stone should be protected for the next generation and that the government is currently drafting a law on jade mining.

During the meeting with the Vice President, local residents submitted their complaints about rivers becoming extinct due to companies dumping soils on the river banks, flooding of the Uru Stream and bad transportation between Hpakant and Myitkyina.

Respective ministers told the residents that the government has formed a team to clean up Uru Stream and created an organisation for regional development.

Companies have been instructed to dump the soil and other waste materials 300 metres from city, villages, and streams, according to the ministers.

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US extends ban on gems imports from Myanmar

By Matthew Pennington

Associated Press

7 August 2013

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Wednesday extended a ban on imports of rubies and jade from Myanmar, reflecting worries about the powerful military's continuing involvement in the murky industry based in conflict-wracked border regions.

Washington remains concerned about human rights abuses against ethnic minorities and the role of the army in Myanmar despite democratic reforms that have seen a shift from decades of authoritarian rule.

The reforms have led to a dramatic improvement in U.S. relations with the Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma, and the overall trend remains a positive one for the government of President Thein Sein.

President Barack Obama issued Wednesday's executive order to extend the gems ban because wide-ranging sanctions legislation lapsed when it was up for renewal in late July.

The original sponsor, senior Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, announced in May he would not seek to extend the 2003 legislation because of Myanmar's democratic progress.

McConnell was for years one of the harshest critics in Congress of Myanmar's military rulers and a fervent supporter of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act he sponsored had imposed a broad ban on all imports from Myanmar. Obama waived its provisions in November other than on gems.

Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said in a statement Wednesday that it's part of the administration's efforts "to promote responsible trade and investment in support of Burma's reform process."

Engaging Myanmar has been a rare area of agreement between Obama and McConnell, largely because of Suu Kyi's support for building relations with Thein Sein's reformist government. The Republican senator is also supportive of the administration's intent to gradually build ties between the U.S. and Myanmar militaries.

But other U.S. lawmakers have pushed back against close military ties, and cautioned that allowing the 2003 sanctions legislation to lapse could allow 'conflict gems' into America.

Rhodes said it was maintaining the ban "due to continuing concerns, including with respect to labor and human rights."

Kachin activists last month wrote to Obama and congressional leaders complaining that the Myanmar's central government retains control of ruby and jade mining concessions in Kachin and northern Shan State. Some 10,000 Kachin people have been displaced by fighting in the gem-rich area of Hpakant as Myanmar troops sought to secure control of gem mining interests, the activists said.

Despite the U.S. sanctions - that are backed by the threat of stiff fines and even jail terms for violators - gems remain an important source of revenue for the impoverished nation.

Myanmar is one of the world's biggest producers of jade and by some estimates, source of up to 90 percent of its rubies. Gems auctions held under government auspices yield hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Myanmar sellers say the sanctions have little impact on their business because they rely on Chinese and Thai gem merchants, who are the major buyers.

The U.S. restrictions also prohibit the import of Myanmar gems that have been processed in other countries.

U.S. officials say Myanmar's gems industry lacks transparency, and activists say working conditions in its remote mines are notoriously harsh. For the U.S. ban to be lifted, Washington would likely be seeking more openness on ownership structures, revenues and how workers are treated.

While the Obama administration moved swiftly in the past year to allow new U.S. trade and investment in Myanmar, the U.S. still forbids its nationals from investing in military-owned companies. Several dozen Myanmar entities are also blacklisted because of ties to the former military junta, the drug trade and arms dealing with North Korea.