ျမစ္ႀကီးနားလူထု၏ သေဘာထား

ျမစ္ႀကီးနားလူထု၏ သေဘာထား
by myitkyina.blog.com on May 28, 2012

ျမစ္ႀကီးနား ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္၊ တိုင္းရင္းသားေရးရာႏွင့္ ျပည္တြင္း ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္း ေရး ေဖၚေဆာင္မႈေကာ္မတီ ဥကၠ႒ ဦးသိန္းေဇာ္သည္ ေမလ(၂၆) ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ျမစ္ႀကီးနားၿမိဳ႕ေပၚရွိ လူထုမ်ား၊ တုိင္းရင္းသားယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ေကာ္မတီ ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ား၊ ဌာနဆိုင္ရာ ၀န္ထမ္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ေတြ႕ ဆုံ၍ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္း ေရး ေဖၚေဆာင္ေရးႏွင့္ ပါတ္သက္၍ ရွင္းလင္းသည့္ အခမ္းအနားကို ျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့ သည္။ ထိုေတြ႕ဆုံသည့္ အခမ္းအနားတြင္ တက္ေရာက္လာေသာ လူထုမ်ားက ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္တြင္ ျဖစ္ပြါး ေသာ လက္ရွိအေျခ အေနမ်ား ပြင့္ပြင့္လင္းလင္း တင္ျပေဆြးေႏြးၾကေၾကာင္း သိရွိရသည္။ ျပည္တြင္း ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး အဘယ္ ေၾကာင့္ မရရိွႏိုင္ျခင္းကို အဓိကထား ရင္ဖြင့္ခဲ့ၾကသည္။ ေဆြးေႏြးတင္ျပ ေသာ အေၾကာင္းအရာမ်ားမွ အခ်ိဳ႕ေသာအနစ္ခ်ဳပ္မွာ -

(၁) ၂၀၀၈ ဖြဲ႕စည္းပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒသည္ အားနည္းခ်က္မ်ားစြာပါရွိသည္။ တရားမွ်တမႈ မရွိ။

(၂) ကခ်င္တိုင္းရင္းသားမ်ားအတြင္း ပါ၀င္ေသာ လူမ်ဳိးစုမ်ားကို ေသြးခြဲမႈျပဳလုပ္ျခင္း၊ လီဆူ မ်ဳိးႏြယ္စု၊ ရ၀မ္ မ်ဳိးႏြယ္စုတို႔ကို ကခ်င္တိုင္းရင္းသား၀င္မွ သီးျခားခြဲထုတ္ၿပီး သက္ဆုိင္ရာ မ်ဳိးႏြယ္စုေရးရာ ၀န္ႀကီး သတ္ မွတ္ေပးျခင္း။

(၃) ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္မွ ထြက္ရွိေသာ ေက်ာက္စိမ္းမ်ားကို ေနျပည္ေတာ္သို႔သာ သယ္ေဆာင္သြား ျခင္း၊ ျပည္နယ္၏ ဖြံ႕ၿဖိဳးမႈလုပ္ငန္းတြင္ အသုံးခ်ခြင့္ မရွိျခင္း၊ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္မွ ေက်ာက္ ကုန္သည္မ်ားသည္ ေက်ာက္စိမ္းကို ေနျပည္ေတာ္မွ တဖန္ ျပန္လည္၀ယ္ယူေနရျခင္း၊ စီးပြါးေရးအခြင့္အေရးမ်ား အားလုံး ကို ေနျပည္ေတာ္ႏွင့္ နီးစပ္ရာအသိုင္းအ၀န္းမ်ားကသာ ထိန္းခ်ဳပ္ထားျခင္း။

(၄) ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ အစိုးရအဖြဲ႕တြင္ လုပ္ပိုင္ခြင့္အာဏာ မရွိျခင္း၊ ျပည္နယ္၀န္ႀကီးသည္ မူလတန္းျပ ဆရာတစ္ဦးကိုပင္ အလုပ္ခန္႔ႏိုင္ေသာ အခြင့္အေရး မရရွိျခင္း၊ ျပည္နယ္အစုိးရ၏ လုပ္ပိုင္ခြင့္မ်ားကို ေနျပည္ေတာ္ကသာ ခ်ဳပ္ကိုင္ထားျခင္း။

(၅) ယေန႔ျပဳလုပ္ေသာ အစည္းအေ၀းသည္ ျပည္တြင္းၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ရရွိရန္ ဟူ၍ျဖစ္ေသာ္လည္း ယခု အထိ အစိုးရ၏လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈသည္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးႏွင့္ ပါတ္သက္သည့္ ေဆာင္ရြက္မႈ စိုးစဥ္းမွ် မေတြ႕ ရွိရျခင္း။

(၆) ယေန႔ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ရရွိရန္မွာ ျပည္သူမ်ား၏ တာ၀န္မဟုတ္၊ KIA ၏ တာ၀န္ လည္းမဟုတ္၊ အစိုးရ သည္ ကခ်င္ေဒသသို႔ စစ္တပ္အင္အားအလုံးအရင္းျဖင့္ တပ္အင္အားတိုးခ်ဲ႕ ထိုးစစ္ဆင္မႈသည္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ရရွိရန္ အဟန္႔အတားျဖစ္ေန၊ အစိုးရတြင္ သာ လုံး၀တာ၀န္ရွိျခင္း။

(၇) အစိုးရ ေခတ္အဆက္ဆက္တြင္ စစ္တကၠသိုလ္၊ ဗိုလ္ေလာင္းသင္တန္းေက်ာင္းမ်ား၊ အဆင့္ျမင့္ သင္တန္းေက်ာင္းသို႔ တိုင္းရင္းသားမ်ား ၀င္ခြင့္မရရွိျခင္း၊ ဗုဒၶဘာသာ၀င္ မဟုတ္သူမ်ား အခြင့္အေရး ဆုံး႐ႈံးေနျခင္း။

(၈) ၁၉၄၈ ခုႏွစ္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ လြတ္လပ္ေရးရသည္ႏွင့္ ျပည္တြင္းစစ္ကာလတြင္ ရန္ကုန္အစိုးရဟူ၍ သာ က်န္ရွိစဥ္ ကာလ၊ ျမန္မာျပည္ ေခ်ာက္ထဲထုိးက်မည့္အခ်ိန္တြင္ ဆမားဒူ၀ါဦးေဆာင္ေသာ ကခ်င္ ေသနတ္ကိုင္မ်ား ၀င္ေရာက္ကယ္တင္ခဲ့သည့္ သမိုင္းကို ေဖ်ာက္ဖ်က္ထားျခင္း၊ ကခ်င္ တိုင္းရင္းသား မ်ားသည္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ တည္တ့ံေစေရးတြက္ အဓိကအခန္းက႑ တြင္ တာ၀န္ယူခဲ့ သည္ကို ေဖ်ာက္ဖ်က္ခံေနရျခင္း။

(၉) ႏိုင္ငံအက်ဳိးကို အမွန္တကယ္သယ္ပိုးမည့္ လူပုဂၢဳိလ္မ်ားအား ေရြးေကာက္တင္ေျမႇာက္ျခင္း မျပဳ ဘဲ၊ စီးပြါးေရးအျမတ္ရွာသူမ်ား၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအျမတ္ထုတ္သူမ်ား ကိုသာ ေရြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမႇာက္ထား ျခင္း။

(၁၀) KIO ႏွင့္ အစိုးရအၾကား ျပႆနာကို ကိုင္သြယ္ေျဖရွင္းရန္ ၾကားခံအဖြဲ႕အစည္း မရွိမေန လိုအပ္ ေနျခင္း။

(၁၁) အစိုးရသည္ တပ္အင္အားအလုံးအရင္းျဖင့္ KIO ကို ထုိးစစ္ဆင္ တိုက္ခိုက္ေနေသာ္လည္း၊ ျမစ္ႀကီးနားၿမိဳ႕ေပၚရွိ ရပ္ကြက္အားလုံးႏွင့္ အစိုးရဌာနအားလုံး (ေျမာက္ပိုင္းတိုင္းစစ္ဌာနခ်ဳပ္ အပါ အ၀င္) ကို KIO အဖြဲ႕မွ ပို႔လႊတ္ေသာ မလိေရအားလွ်ပ္စစ္ ဓါတ္အားကိုသာ အသုံးျပဳေနရ ျခင္း၊ KIO အဖြဲ႕အေပၚ ထားရွိ ေသာ လူထု၏သေဘာထားကို ခန္႔မွန္းသိရွိရန္ လုိအပ္ျခင္း။

(၁၂) ျပည္တြင္းၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးကို ေဖၚေဆာင္ရာတြင္ တိုင္းရင္းသားအေရးကို ဖယ္ေရွာင္ထား၍ မျဖစ္ ႏိုင္ျခင္း၊ ပင္လုံစာခ်ဳပ္၊ ပင္လုံကတိက၀တ္ကို ေဖ်ာက္ဖ်က္ မ်က္ကြယ္ျပဳလွ်င္ ျပည္တြင္း ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္း ေရးကို မည္သည့္အခါမွ ရရွိရန္ မျဖစ္ႏိုင္ျခင္း။

အထက္ပါ တင္ျပခ်က္ကို ေဆြးေႏြးသူမ်ားထဲတြင္ စစ္မႈထမ္းေဟာင္းမ်ား၊ အစိုးရ ၀န္ထမ္းေဟာင္းမ်ား၊ ဥပေဒအရာထမ္းမ်ား၊ လက္ရွိျပည္နယ္အစိုးရ အဖြဲ႕၀င္မ်ား ပါ၀င္ၾကသည္။ ဤကဲ့သို႔ ရဲရဲ၀့ံ၀့ံ တင္ျပမႈ သည္ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္အတြင္း ႏွစ္ေပါင္း(၅၀)ကာလအတြင္း ယခုအႀကိမ္သည္ ပထမဦးဆုံး ပြင့္ပြင့္ လင္းလင္း တင္ျပႏိုင္ျခင္းျဖစ္ပါသည္။

တင္ျပမႈျပင္းထန္သျဖင့္ အခမ္းအနားမွဴး ေဆာင္ရြက္သူသည္ တင္ျပမႈႏွင့္ပါတ္သက္၍ သတိေပး ဟန္႔တား မႈ ျပဳခဲ့ေသာ္လည္း၊ ဦးသိန္းေဇာ္မွ ပြင့္ပြင့္လင္းလင္းတင္ျပရန္ ျပန္လည္ခြင့္ျပဳခဲ့ ေၾကာင္း သိရွိရသည္။

myitkyina.blog မွကူးယူေဖၚျပပါသည္။

OKA

16th Kachin Christian Family Camp - Omaha, Nebraska

US Mungdan kata shaning shagu Mungdaw shagu hta gayin galaw nga ai Jinghpaw Hkristan Dinghku Dabang hpe 2012 ning a matu Omaha Mare makau Linwood ngu ai ginra Nebraska Mungdaw e May 25-28 ya laman awngdang ai hte galaw la lu sai lam seng ang ai poi shabyin shatai ningbaw ni kaw na chye lu ai.

Shaning shagu Kachin American Association kaw na woi awn galaw sa wa ai raiyang, daining na dinghku dabang hta laklai ai lam hku nna KAA mu gun nnan ni hpe bai lata shatsam tawn lu sai hte sharin hpawng laman Kanu Mungdan de byin hkrum nga ai Majan Tsinyam ni a lam, garum kahtau lam hte amyu sha lam ni hpe, shang lawm ai yawng gaw myit rawt myit katu let bawngban wa sai lam hpe mung na chye lu ai, grau nna US mungdan hta Jinghpaw Wunpawng Amyu Sha ni a shawnglam mung masa a matu amyu sha lam galaw sa wa na ninghkring marai(5) lawm ai Executive Committee hpe ninghtan hpaw shabawn dat lu sai lam na chye lu ai, ndai committee a mying hpe "Kachin Alliance" ngu shamying sai hte shanglawm ai shawa masha ni yawng kaw na myit hkrum masat dat sai re hpe matut chye lu ai.

Overseas Kachin Association

May 28, 2012

Thein Sein a Hpaji Jaw Hpung Council Nnan hpaw ninghtan hkyen

Social Economic Development Advisory Council ???

Myen Gumsan Thein Sein hpe Social/Well fair, Economic hte Technology bungli lamang ni hte la-kap nhtawm tang du du hpaji jaw galaw sa wa lu na matu ninghkring marai (15) shang lawm ai,  Social Economic Development Advisory Council ngu ai hpaji jaw hpung langai hpe hpaw ningthan mat wa na re lam Asuya hte ni nawn ai shiga dap ni kaw na chye lu ai, ndai council hta myi shawng e 2011 ning hpaw ninghtan tawn ngut sai Myen Gumsan Thein Sein hpe Politic, Economic hte Legal bungli ni hte seng nhtawm hpaji jaw salang marai(9) lawm ai hpung hte gara hku matut galaw sa wa na hpe nchye lu shi ai zawm ndai marai(15) hta kachyi kapu yawm wa mai ai zawn langai/lahkawng mung bai jat bang wa mai na re lam hpe mung matut chye lu ai.

Dai hpaw shabawn hkyen nga ai hpung malawm ni ngu ntsa lam lata san tawn ai  mying hte bungli ni gaw lawu na hte maren rai nga ai.

1.    ဦးေမာ္သန္း(ယခင္ ရန္ကုန္စီးပြားေရး တကၠသိုလ္ ပါေမာကၡခ်ဳပ္)               နာယက

2.    ဦးတင္ထြဋ္ဦး                                                                             ဥကၠ႒

3.    ေဒၚခင္စမ္းရီ                                                                              ဒု-ဥကၠ႒

4.    ဦးဆက္ေအာင္(သမၼတရဲ႕ စီးပြားေရးအႀကံေပး)                                  အတြင္းေရးမွဴး

5.    Dr. ေက်ာ္ရင္လိႈင္(Hong Kong City University)                              တြဲဘက္ အတြင္းေရးမွဴး

6.    ဦးတင္ေမာင္သန္း(Myanmar Egress)                                            အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

7.    ဦးဝင္းေအာင္(ကုန္သည္/စက္မႈ အသင္းခ်ဳပ္)                                     အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

8.    ဦးလွေမာင္ေရႊ( ကုန္သည္/စက္မႈ အသင္းခ်ဳပ္)                                   အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

9.    Dr. ေဇာ္ဦး(ဗဟု ဖြံၿဖိဳးေရးအဖြဲ႕-Thailand)                                        အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

10.  ဦးသီဟန္မ်ိဳးဥာဏ္(ဥပေဒပညာရွင္)                                                အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

11.  ဦးကိုကိုႀကီး(ဒိုင္းမြန္းစတား ကုမၼဏီ ပိုင္ရွင္)                                      အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

12.  ဦးေသာင္းတင္(KMD)                                                                အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

13.  Dr. သန္႔ျမင့္ဦး(U Thant’s grandson)                                           အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

14.  ဦးမိုးေက်ာ္(MMRD)                                                                  အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

15.  ဦးသန္းလြင္(ကေမာၻဇဘဏ္ - ဒုတိယဥကၠ႒)                                    အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

16.  ဦးခင္ေမာင္ေအး( CB Bank)                                                       အဖြဲ႕ဝင္

17.  Prof. ဦးေအာင္ထြန္းသက္                                                          အဖြဲ႕ဝင္





Overseas Kachin Association
May 28, 2012

Letter to Burmese President Thein Sein from Kachin Culture Committee(in Burmese)

Kachin Culture Committee Letter

တရုတ္နယ္စပ္မွ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ရွိ Strip Mine သတၱဳတြင္း တစ္ခုအေၾကာင္း

Molybdenum-Mine Kachin WIN 052412

Burma Army still using rape as a weapon of war

Burma Army still using rape as a weapon of war

By Zin Linn May 23, 2012 12:43AM UTC

The Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) has reported a gang-rape committed by soldiers from the Burma Army. The incident occurred at Luk Pi village in Chipwi township an area where heavy fighting took place in recent weeks between the Burmese soldiers and the Kachin Independence Army. The victim was found in a church where she took refuge after most of her neighbors run away, according to Myitkyina’s Blog. It was also confirmed by the Kachin News Group (KNG) and Kachinland News in their respective online pages.

A gang of bandit-like Burmese soldiers tortured a 48-year-old Kachin woman and then gang-raped for three days in her village church northwest of Pang Wa (Pangwa) beginning May 1, according to KWAT, citing interviews with the victim and a local villager who was forced to watch the assault.

Unarmed Kachin civilians are increasingly under attack from Burmese armed forces in retaliation for their fallen soldiers during fighting with the Kachin Independence Organization and its military wing the KIA. Daily accounts of Burmese army burning down villages, raping Kachin women, bombing innocent natives and arresting and torturing local residents are reported from local sources, KNG said.

According to KWAT a group of around 10 soldiers hit the victim with rifle butts, stabbed her with knives, stripped her naked and then gang-raped her over a period of three days in the church. The troops involved are said to be from Light Infantry Battalion 347 and Infantry Battalion 118.

KWAT says that Yu Ta Gwi, a 59-year-old man who also was tied up and apprehended by the soldiers, witnessed the brutal rape incident. When the troops left the church on May 4, local villagers found Yu Ta Gwi and the rape victim semi-conscious in the compound. Both Yu Ta Gwi and the unnamed women were taken to a local hospital.

Yu Ta Gwi added that he was stabbed in his thigh and beaten until he collapsed and lost consciousness, according to Kachinland News.

The woman suffered psychological trauma following torture and rape. Ngwa Sa, her husband, said in tears, “she doesn’t reply to me anymore, only talk about going home and I feel very sad.”

The 48-year-old mother was left extremely traumatized by the violence and remains in an extremely fragile condition, according to KWAT.

It is very unlikely that any of the soldiers involved in the rape will be formally investigated for their actions. Burma’s newly created national human rights commission has said that it will not probe allegations against the army or other incidents that are reported to have happened in conflict areas.

Last year, similar gang-rape violence committed by Burmese soldiers also occurred. The victim, Sumlut Roi Ja, a Kachin village-woman had been seen last in October while being detained by Burmese troops near Mai Ja Yang.

Earlier this year the husband of lost victim filed a lawsuit against the soldiers with the intention of pressuring the army to reveal the destiny of his wife. As there is no rule of law, the military-dominated Supreme Court in Naypyidaw had thrown out the case of a citizen who suffered rape and abduction by its soldiers. The law does not protect citizens; instead it defends the vicious soldiers who commit gang-rape.

In a press release issued last week highlighting the recent rape case, a KWAT spokesperson suggested that the Burmese legal system’s refusal to probe the Sumlut Roi Ja abduction case gave the army a green light to continue to target ethnic women. The message from the Naypyidaw Supreme Court is clear: the Burmese military can rape and kill ethnic women with impunity, said KWAT director Moon Nay Li.

According to Kachinland News , KIO Chairman Lanyaw Zawng Hra, KIO Central Committee, called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send UN observer teams or intermediary teams to the conflict war zones, and to the towns and villages destroyed by the Burmese Army, and to the IDP camps in KIO areas.

As the Burmese army’s offensive continues grave human rights violations have reached an alarming level and the humanitarian situation has deteriorated in Kachin and Shan States. These incidents are not random acts of violence, said KWAT spokesperson Shirley Seng last year. The Burma Army is committing gang-rape and killing on a wide scale. It is clear they are acting under orders, Shirley Seng said.

KWAT demands that the regime immediately stops using rape as a weapon of war, ends the offensive against Kachin and other ethnic groups, and withdraws its troops from the ethnic areas.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/82976/burma-army-does-not-stop-using-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war/

UPWC - RCSS/SSA: The 12 point agreement

The 12 point agreement
23 May 2012 14:47 S.H.A.N News - Shan Herald Agency for News

Union level Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC) – Restoration Council of Shan State / Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA)

(Unofficial version)

Note The official version deals with military maters in several pages. Even SHAN editor, who was there as a consultant, has not been given a copy of it. The following therefore is a gist, not word by word translation, of the agreement. It there is any mistake, the blame is SHAN’s alone.

1.    The RCSS/SSA plan to cooperate in the eradication of illicit drugs is heartily received by the UPWC to be forwarded to the President for consideration

2.    The two sides will conduct a joint field survey

3.    The government will assist families of the RCSS/SSA members to earn adequate means of livelihood

4.    The government will assist the RCSS/SSA in the preservation and promotion of Shan literature and culture

5.    The RCSS/SSA is permitted to request assistance from and coordinate with NGOs and INGOs

6.    The RCSS/SSA will be allowed to register its Tai Freedom news agency after the new media law comes into effect

7.    Members and supporters of RCSS/SSA who are in prison will be released except for those who have been imprisoned on criminal charges

8.    A peace monitoring group will be formed before the end of July 2012 after nomination by the two sides of suitable persons

9.    The two sides will continue to build up mutual trust to enable the RCSS/SSA to be totally withdrawn from the list of unlawful associations

10. A special industrial zone will be set up in the area controlled by the RCSS/SSA

11. The RCSS/SSA is free to hold political consultations with individuals, groups and communities throughout the country

12. National ID cards will be issued to members, family members and people residing with the RCSS/SSA

(6) LANG NGU NA JINGHPAW WUNPAWNG AMYU SHA HPUNG AGINJAW HKUMRA ZUPHPAWNG NDAU LAIKA

Jinghpaw Wunpawng Amyu Sha Hpung Ginjaw Hpawng Ndau Laika-21st May 12

Atrocities In Kachin Land.

This short documentary film is about the atrocities committed by brutal Burmese regime in Kachin Land Northern Burma. The war sparked in June 9, 2011 when Burmese government troops broke the 17 years ceasefire agreement with Kachin Independent Army.

0518TV_UNFC

ျမန္မာအစိုးရ တပ္ဖြဲ႔ေတြ အေနနဲ႔ KIA ကခ်င္ လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရး တပ္ဖြဲ႔ အေပၚကို ထိုးစစ္ဆင္တာေတြကို ဇြန္လ ၁ဝ ရက္ေန႔ ေနာက္ဆုံးထားၿပီး ရပ္တန္႔ေပးဖို႔ ညီညြတ္ေသာ တိုင္းရင္းသား လူမ်ဳိးမ်ား ဖက္ဒရယ္ ေကာင္စီ UNFC က ေတာင္းဆုိလိုက္ပါတယ္။

Burma Army: License to Rape

ျမန္မာအစိုးရစစ္တပ္ ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဳးစု လီဆူအမ်ိဳးသမီးတဦးအား ရူးသြားသည္ အထိ အဓမၼျပဳက်င့္ျခင္းႏွင့္ ရိုက္ႏွက္ႏိွပ္စက္မႈ ျပဳလုပ္

by myitkyina on May 18, 2012

၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ ေမလ(၁)ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ခ်ီေဖြျမိဳ႕နယ္၊ လုပီရြာမွ လီဆူအမ်ိဳးသမီး ေဒၚဂြာမေလး၊ အသက္ (၄၈)ႏွစ္၊ ကေလး(၁၂)ေယာက္၏ မိခင္အား အစိုးရစစ္သားမ်ားမွ ဘုရားေက်ာင္း အေနာက္ဘက္တြင္ ပုန္းေအာင္းေနစဥ္ ရွာေဖြေတြ႕ရွိၿပီး စုေပါင္း အဓမၼျပဳက်င့္ခဲ့ၾကပါသည္။ သူမႏွင့္အတူဖမ္းဆီးမိ၍ ေပါင္ႏွင့္ ပါးျပင္တြင္ ဓားေျမာင္ျဖင့္ ထိုးေဖာက္ခံခဲ့ရသူ ဦးရိုးတေဂြးဆိုသူက ဒီလိုေျပာျပရွာပါတယ္။ “က်ေနာ္ ေတြ႔ခဲ့တာကေတာ့ ေဒၚဂြာမေလး ကုိ စစ္သား(၁၀)ေယာက္ေလာက္က ၀ိုင္းထားၿပီး သူမ ခႏၶာ ကိုယ္မွာ ေနရာမေရြး တေယာက္ခ်င္းစီ၊ ကိုယ္ႀကိဳက္တဲ့ေနရာမွာ ဒုတ္နဲ႔ရိုက္သူကရိုက္၊ ေသနတ္ နဲ႔ထုသူကထု၊ ဓားေျမႇာင္နဲ႔ ထိုးသူကထိုး၊ ေခါင္းမွာေသနတ္ဒင္နဲ႔ ရိုက္သူကရိုက္ လုပ္ေနၾက တာကို က်ေနာ့ကို ခ်ည္ထားတဲ့ မလွမ္းမကမ္းေနရာကေန ေနရ တာပါ။ သူမ ေအာ္ငိုေတာ့ ထပ္ရိုက္ၾကတယ္။

သူမလဲက်သြားေတာ့ ဓားေျမႇာင္ေသးေသးလဲနဲ႔ ျပန္ထိုးၾကတယ္။ ေနာက္ေတာ့ အ၀တ္အစားအကုန္ ခၽြတ္ေပးလိုက္တာေတြ႕တယ္။ စစ္သားေတြက သူမကို၀ိုင္းရံထားၿပီး တခ်ိဳ႕က ထိုင္လိုက္ထလိုက္နဲ႔ ရႈပ္ေနၾကတယ္။ အဓမၼျပဳက်င့္ၾကတယ္လို႔ ယူဆရပါတယ္။ ဘာေၾကာင့္လဲဆိုေတာ့ ဆက္ဆံေနတာ က်ေနာ္ကြင္းကြင္းကြက္ကြက္ မျမင္ရေပမဲ့ ေဒၚဂြာမေလးက တအားေအာ္ဟစ္ ငိုယိုရွာပါတယ္။ အ၀တ္ အစားအကုန္ခၽြတ္ေပးၿပီး ေယာက်ၤားသားေတြ ၀ိုင္းထားတယ္ဆိုတာ ၀ိုင္းၾကည့္ရုံေတာ့ မဟုတ္ဘူး ဆိုတာ သူတို႔ရဲ႕လႈပ္ရွားမႈေတြကိုၾကည့္ၿပီး က်ေနာ္သိတယ္။ စစ္သားေတြက ေဒၚဂြာမေလး ကို အဲသလို၀ိုင္း လုပ္ေနခ်ိန္မွာ စစ္သားေတြက က်ေနာ့ကိုလဲ စၿပီးႏွိပ္စက္ေနပါၿပီ။ ဒါေၾကာင့္က်ေနာ္လဲ သတိလစ္တခ်က္ မလစ္တခ်က္ျဖစ္လာေနရင္းက ျမင္ေနရတာပါ။ သူမတအားေအာ္ငိုရွာတယ္။ ေအာ္ငိုေတာ့ ပါးရိုက္တယ္။ ပစ္သတ္မယ္လို႔ေျပာသလား မသိဘူး၊ ေသနတ္နဲ႔ခ်ိန္ရြယ္ ထိုးႏွက္ၾက ျပန္တယ္။ ေနာက္ဆုံးေတာ့ ဂြာမေလး ေမ့လဲသြားတာ က်ေနာ္ေတြ႕ခဲ့တယ္။ ဗမာစစ္သားေတြက က်ေနာ့ကို ေသနတ္နဲ႔ခ်ိန္ၿပီး စစ္ေဆးေမးျမန္းၾကပါတယ္။ သူတို႔ေမးတာ က်ေနာ္ ဘာမွနားမလည္ဘူး။ က်ေနာ္က ဗမာစကားတတ္ဘူး။ သူတို႔ေျပာတာကိုနားမလည္လို႔ က်ေနာ္ဘာမွျပန္မေျပာတတ္ေတာ့ လဲ က်ေနာ့ေခါင္းကို ေသနတ္ဒင္နဲ႔ အားကုန္ထုေပးၾကတယ္။ ညာဘက္ပါးေစာင္းနဲ႔ နံရုိးေတြမွာဓားနဲ႔ ထိုးၾကတယ္။ က်ေနာ့ကို သစ္ပင္ မွာခ်ည္တုတ္ထားတယ္။ တဖြဲ႕ၿပီးတဖြဲ႕လာၿပီး တုတ္နဲ႔ရိုက္လိုက္၊ ကန္ေၾကာက္လိုက္၊ ပါးရိုက္လိုက္၊ ေသနတ္နဲ႔ခ်ိန္ၿပီး လွံစြပ္နဲ႔ထိုးလိုက္ လုပ္ၾကတယ္။ က်ေနာ့ကိုေရာ၊ ေဒၚဂြာမေလးကိုေရာ (၃)ရက္တိတိ ထမင္းလဲမေကြ်း၊ ေရလဲ မတိုက္ၾကပါဘူး။ က်ေနာ့ကိုေတာ့ ေန႔ေရာ၊ ညေရာ ခ်ည္ထားၾကတယ္။ ဒုတိယေန႔မွာ က်ေနာ့ကို ထပ္ၿပီးႏိွပ္စက္ စစ္ေဆးၾကေတာ့တာ ပါပဲ။ စစ္သားတဖြဲ႕ေရာက္လာျပန္ကာ သတ္ပစ္မယ္လို႔ေျပာတာ ထင္တယ္၊ က်ေနာ့ကို ေသနတ္နဲ႔ ခ်ိန္ထားၾကၿပီး တေယာက္ကေတာ့ က်ေနာ့ရဲ႕ ဘယ္ဘက္ေပါင္လည္မွာ ဓားေျမႇာင္နဲ႔ထိုးထည့္လိုက္ပါ တယ္။ မခံႏိုင္လို႔ က်ေနာ္ေအာ္ငိုပါတယ္။ ေအာ္ငိုေတာ့ ထပ္ၿပီးထိုးျပန္တယ္။ ဒီလိုေအာ္ငိုေလ ထပ္ခါထပ္ခါထိုးေလ လုပ္ပါတယ္။

ေနာက္ဆုံးေတာ့ ေပါင္တဖက္ေပါက္သြားေအာင္ ထိုးထည့္လိုက္ၾကပါေတာ့တယ္။ ေသြးေတြ အလိမ္း လိမ္းျဖစ္ေနပါၿပီ။ ေခါင္းကိုလဲေသနတ္နဲ႔ ထုထည့္လိုက္တာနဲ႔တျပိဳင္နက္ က်ေနာ္သတိေမ့သြား ပါေတာ့ တယ္။ က်ေနာ္ သတိလည္လာခ်ိန္မွာ ဗမာစစ္သားေတြ မရွိေတာ့ဘူး။ က်ေနာ္နဲ႔ သိပ္မလွမ္း မကမ္း မွာေတာ့ အ၀တ္ဗလာေပၚ အ၀တ္နည္းနည္းဖုံးထားေပးၿပီး ေသြးေတြ၊ မစင္ေတြနဲ႔ေပၾကံလွ်က္ သတိ ေမ့ေမွ်ာေနတဲ့ ေဒၚဂြာမေလးကိုေတြ႕ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့ က်ေနာ္မထႏိုင္ဘူး။ သတိလည္ တခ်က္၊ ေမ့ တခ်က္ ျဖစ္ေနပါတယ္။ အဲဒီဘုရားေက်ာင္းနားမွာ က်ေနာ္တို ့ႏွစ္ေယာက္ သတိေမ့ေမွ်ာေနခ်ိန္မွာ NDA (K) (နယ္ျခားေစာင့္တပ္ဖြဲ)မွ စစ္သားမွာ ေတြ ့ၿပီး ပန္၀ါေဆးရုံကို ပို႔ေပးၾကပါတယ္။

ပန္၀ါေဆးရုံမွာလဲ ေဆးရုံ၀န္ထမ္းေတြအားလုံးက ေ႐ွ႕တန္းက ဒဏ္ရာရစစ္သားေတြကို ျပဳစုေစာင့္ ေရွာက္ တာနဲ႔ အလုပ္႐ႈပ္ေနၾကေတာ့ က်ေနာ့ကို ေကာင္းေကာင္း ဂရုမစိုက္ ႏိုင္ၾကေတာ့ဘူး။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ လီဆူ ေဆြမ်ိဳးေတြက တရုတ္ျပည္ နယ္စပ္ေဆးရုံမွာ ေဆးသြားကုဖို႔အတြက္ ေခၚထုတ္ သြား ၾကပါ တယ္။ က်ေနာ္နဲ ့ေဒၚဂြာမေလး (၃)ရက္လုံးလုံး လုပီးဘုရားေက်ာင္းနားမွာ ေမ့ေမွ်ာ ေနခဲ့ၾကတာပါ။

က်ေနာ့အမ်ိဳးသမီးေတာ့ ကိုယ္တပိုင္းေသေနတဲ့ လူနာပါ။ စစ္သားေတြ၀င္လာခ်ိန္ က်ေနာ့ကို ဖမ္းသြား ၿပီး က်ေနာ့ေ႐ွ႕မွာတင္ က်ေတာ့ဇနီးကို အိမ္အျပင္ကို ပစ္ထုတ္လိုက္ၾကတယ္။ က်ေနာ့ဇနီး ေတာ့ ေသသြားၿပီ ထင္တယ္။ ဘာပဲျဖစ္ျဖစ္ က်ေနာ္သက္သာလာရင္ က်ေနာ့ဇနီးကို လိုက္ရွာခ်င္ေသး တယ္။ က်ေနာ္တို ့(၂)ေယာက္မွာ ကေလးမရွိဘူး။ တေယာက္ပဲရွိတာ ဆုံးသြားပါၿပီ။”

ဘာေၾကာင့္ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို ဒီလိုလုပ္လဲဆိုတာ သူတို႔ေျပာတဲ့စကားကလဲ နားမလည္ေတာ့ခက္တယ္။ က်ေနာ့အထင္ေတာ့ သူတို႔ က်ေနာ္တို႔ကို ေကအိုင္ေအနဲ႔ မသကၤာလို႔ျဖစ္မယ္လို႔ပဲ ထင္ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္တို႔ ရြာသားေတြက ရိုးရုိးသားသားပဲ လုပ္ကိုင္စားေသာက္ေနၾကတာပါ။ ဘယ္သူနဲ႔မွ ရႈပ္ရႈပ္ ရွက္ရွက္ေတာ့ မလုပ္ခဲ့ဘူး။ ဒါေပမဲ့ သူတို ့ဘာေၾကာင့္ဒီလိုလုပ္လဲ မသိေတာ့ဘူး။”

ေဒၚဂြာမေလးကေတာ့ ယခုအခ်ိန္တြင္ စိတ္ဒဏ္ရာဆိုးဆိုး၀ါး၀ါး အနာတရျဖစ္သြားၿပီး လူေတြကို ေၾကာက္ လန္႔ထိတ္လန္႔ျခင္း၊ စကားလဲမေျပာေတာ့ပါ။ စိတ္ဂနာမၿငိမ္ျဖစ္ျခင္း၊ စသည့္လကၡဏာမ်ား ေတြ႕ရသျဖင့္ မိသားစု၊ ေဆြမ်ိဳးမ်ားက စိတ္အထူးကုေဆးရုံသို႔ပို႔ရန္ စီစဥ္ေဆာင္ရြက္လ်က္ရွိေၾကာင္း သိရပါသည္။

ေဒၚဂြာမေလး၏ခင္ပြန္း ငါြးဆာကေတာ့ “အစတုန္းက အေကာင္းႀကီးပါ။ ဒီလိုမဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ အခုေတာ့ ဘာမွေမးလို႔မရ။ ေဆြးေႏြးလို႔လဲ မရေတာ့ဘူး။ အိပ္ျပန္ခ်င္တယ္။ တခုပဲေျပာပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္ အရမ္း ၀မ္း နည္းတယ္”လို ့မ်က္ရည္၀ဲၿပီး ေျပာရွာပါတယ္။

ဒါေတြဟာ လက္ရွိကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္၊ ခ်ီေဖြျမိဳ႕နယ္အတြင္း လြန္ခဲ့တဲ့ ေမလ(၁)ရက္ေန႔မွစၿပီး အစိုးရ တပ္မေတာ္ႏွင့္ နယ္ျခားေစာင့္တပ္ NDA(K) တို႔ႏွင့္ ေကအိုင္ေအတပ္မ်ားၾကား ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့သည့္ တိုက္ပြဲ ေတြေၾကာင့္ ထြက္ေျပးတိမ္းေရွာင္ လာသည့္ ဒုကၡသည္တိုင္းရင္းသား ျပည္သူေတြ လက္ေတြ႕ ခံစား ေနၾကရတဲ့ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္ခံရမႈေတြပါ။ နာၾကည္းမႈ၊ မုန္းတီးမႈေတြ သံသရာလည္ရင္း ျမန္မာျပည္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးလမ္းစေပ်ာက္သြားမွာကို စိုးရိမ္စြာျဖင့္ စုံစမ္းတင္ျပ အပ္ပါသည္။

အခ်က္အလက္မ်ား- ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံအေျခစိုက္ ကခ်င္အမ်ိဳးသမီး အစည္းအရုံးမွ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

Obama declines to lift US sanctions on Myanmar

Obama declines to lift US sanctions on Myanmar

Agence France-Presse | Updated: May 17, 2012 22:38 IST

Washington: President Barack Obama on Thursday extended the US sanctions against Myanmar, warning that despite progress on human rights and governmental reform, a political opening in the country remained "nascent."

Obama's move came despite calls from some business and political leaders in the United States, Europe and Asia for sanctions to be lifted to spur further reforms by Myanmar's nominally civilian government under President Thein Sein.

But democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who for years led opposition to Myanmar's former military junta, warned this week that change was not irreversible in Myanmar and cautioned about excessive optimism.

Obama said Myanmar had made progress in a number of areas including by releasing political prisoners, pursuing cease-fire talks with ethnic groups and by opening dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

"Burma has made important strides, but the political opening is nascent, and we continue to have concerns, including remaining political prisoners, ongoing conflict, and serious human rights abuses in ethnic areas," he said.

"I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency with respect to Burma and to maintain in force the sanctions that respond to this threat," Obama said in a message to Congress using Myanmar's former name.

US law requires the president to restrict imports from Myanmar, which for decades was ruled by a military junta, and bans US investment and export of financial services to the country.

It also blocks property and assets of certain members of the Myanmar ruling class.

Obama's administration has championed dialogue with Myanmar but has been cautious about a full lifting of sanctions, saying it needs to preserve leverage to encourage change.

Hillary Clinton made the first visit to Myanmar in 50 years by a US secretary of state in December, and the two countries are moving towards exchanging ambassadors.

Obama's announcement was published hours before talks at the State Department between Clinton and Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin.

It also took place on the eve of the G8 summit at Camp David, Maryland, which Obama will host and which is likely to include discussion about how to promote reform in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi, sworn in May 2 as a member of parliament after spending most of the past two decades under house arrest, spoke to a gathering of US politicians and rights advocates including ex-president George W. Bush, via Skype this week.

"I am not against the suspension of sanctions as long as the people of the United States feel that this is the right thing to do at the moment. I do advocate caution, though," she said.

She warned that she felt sometimes that "people are too optimistic about the scene in Burma. You have to remember that the democratization process is not irreversible."

Suu Kyi said that reforms would only be considered irreversible once the military -- long Myanmar's most powerful institution with a history of abuses -- firmly committed to changing its ways.

The views of Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, are considered critical to any US decision to lift decades worth of sanctions on Myanmar.

US companies have been eager to enter Myanmar, fearing Asian and European competitors will seize the growing market. The Obama administration plans to allow limited investment but is fine-tuning the rules, as human rights groups push for strict guidelines.

Briefing by Clinton, Burmese Foreign Minister Lwin

Briefing by Clinton, Burmese Foreign Minister Lwin

17 May 2012

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesperson
May 17, 2012

REMARKS

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
And Foreign Minister of Burma U Wunna Maung Lwin
After Their Meeting

May 17, 2012
Treaty Room
Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Good afternoon. I am delighted to welcome the foreign minister here today to Washington. We have been looking forward to Minister Wunna Maung Lwin’s visit and the continuation of the close consultation and cooperation that has begun taking place between our two countries. We met in Nay Pyi Taw last December, and I am very pleased to have you here, sir.

This is a historic visit – the first in decades, and it is a testament to how far we have come together in a short period of time. I want to salute President Thein Sein for his leadership and the leadership of his government as it charts a path of political and democratic reform for his country. I want to salute those like Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all who struggled and sacrificed because they believe in a better future for their country as well.

And I want to thank everyone here in the United States who has supported this process and understands the significance of what is happening. In particular, our partners on Capitol Hill – Republican and Democrat alike – including Senators McConnell, McCain, Kerry, Webb, Shaheen, Congressman Crowley, and others.

This is a moment for us to recognize that the progress which has occurred in the last year toward democratization and national reconciliation is irreversible, as the minister said to me. The United States wants to do everything we can to be sure that is the reality.

I applauded the parliamentary elections and recent steps to bring an end to conflict with the Karen National Union, one of a number of internal conflicts with ethnic minority groups that remain a matter of concern that the government is focused on. And I heard a very promising report from the minister about the additional steps that are being taken to continue reform.

The United States is committed to supporting this reform. We want to encourage it. We acknowledge it. But more than that, we want to be partners in seeing it continue. So today, we are announcing the nomination of Ambassador Derek Mitchell as our new ambassador, the first since 1990. Ambassador Mitchell has been serving as my special representative. He is well known and respected in the region. I urge the United States Senate to quickly confirm him to this new post so he can continue our important work. And I look forward to welcoming your ambassador to Washington.

Today, I am also announcing new steps to permit American investment in the country and export of U.S. financial services. These are the most significant adjustments to our previous policy that have been taken to date. The United States will issue a general license that will enable American businesses to invest across the economy, allow citizens access to international credit markets and dollar-based transactions.

So today, we say to American business: Invest in Burma and do it responsibly; be an agent of positive change and be a good corporate citizen; let’s all work together to create jobs, opportunity, and support reform.

Now, these are important steps that will help bring the country into the global economy, spur broad-based economic development, and support ongoing reform. We are doing what others have done – the European Union, the United Kingdom. We are suspending sanctions. We believe that that is the appropriate step for us to take today. We will be keeping relevant laws on the books as an insurance policy, but our goal and our commitment is to move as rapidly as we can to expand business and investment opportunities.

The State Department will work with Congress and our colleagues across government, particularly the Treasury Department, to be sure we are promoting responsible investment and deterring abuses. We strongly support the private sector being a full partner, and we want our businesses to set a good corporate example of doing business in a transparent, responsible manner.

We’ll expect U.S. firms to conduct due diligence to avoid any problems, including human rights abuses. We expect our businesses to create a grievance process that will be accessible to local communities; to demonstrate appropriate treatment of employees, respect for the environment; to be a good corporate citizen; and to promote equitable, sustainable development that will benefit the people.

And we hope that our partners in Europe and Asia will uphold the same high standards. The people have waited a long time because they have every right to expect development that will benefit them, not outsiders or insiders, but instead, the people themselves. Now, we are mindful of a pattern of abuses by companies and others, particularly in the ethnic minority areas. So we will keep our eyes wide open to try to ensure that anyone who abuses human rights or obstructs reforms or engages in corruption do not benefit financially from increased trade and investment with the United States, including companies owned or operated by the military. We will be maintaining the arms embargo, because we want to see amongst the reforms that are taking place a move for the armed forces to be under civilian control.

We will also continue working with the government in Nay Pyi Taw to put in place internationally recognized business and labor practices that foster respect for the rule of law. We will be taking these steps mindful of the difficult decisions that the government has already made and will continue to make. We also would like to see the release of any continued political prisoners and a continued emphasis in law and action to promoting national reconciliation.

The United States is very committed to supporting the end of the ethnic conflicts in the country. We think that the diversity of population is a source of great strength for the country going forward. And yesterday, I had a group of young people who were visiting the United States representing the mosaic of different backgrounds and ethnicities, and it was very exciting to see them all together focused on making their contribution to the future.

We are concerned about violence in Kachin State in recent weeks, and I was very pleased to hear about new mechanisms, both official and nongovernmental, to encourage meaningful dialogue. And as I said, the government must do all it can do. People on the other side of the table in these conflicts also must be willing to cooperate, to seek an equitable, fair ending to the conflicts. So reconciliation is a priority, and we will continue to support that.

Finally, we discussed our concerns about North Korea. I am encouraged by reports that President Thein Sein has stated he will end the military relationship with North Korea, and the minister assured me that they will fully comply with international obligations on nonproliferation.

I am very, very positive about what is happening, and I know how difficult this will be. It is never easy. I often remind people about the challenges my own country faced. They were faced many, many years ago – so you didn’t have the internet, television, constant attention being paid, as we struggle to live up to our own hopes and aspirations. So this is going to be an exciting, challenging journey for your country and those of us who are committed to supporting you.

But I am very pleased that the United States is taking these steps today, encouraging our businesses to go and help you grow your economy, encouraging our nongovernmental organizations to go and partner with you on education, healthcare, the environment, and so much else.

So, Minister, thank you for being here today, and I look forward to continuing to work with you.

FOREIGN MINISTER WUNNA MAUNG LWIN: Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. Ladies and gentlemen, I have come to Washington, D.C. on an official visit at the invitation of Secretary Clinton. And this afternoon, we had a friendly and cordial discussion on matters relating to further promotion of bilateral relations. I have also had the opportunity to call on Senator McCain, Senator McConnell, and Senator Jim Webb. I also meet with – I will also meet with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns later this afternoon.

And during my meeting with them, they reiterated their recognition and support of the ongoing reforms undertaken by the government and President Thein Sein in Myanmar. We also discussed about further strengthening of relationship and cooperation in various areas of mutual interest, increased assistance to the people of Myanmar, and lifting of sanctions and restrictions imposed by the United States against Myanmar.

I have expressed our appreciations to the government and the people of the United States for supporting our efforts of reforms and the transition to democracy, and reiterated our determination to continue our reforms. The decision on the appointment of ambassadors in both countries is an important step forward in our efforts to resumption of normal diplomatic relations after more than 20 years.

Ambassador U Than Shwe will be the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar to the United States. He is currently serving as permanent representative of Myanmar to the United Nations in New York. I have full confidence in him, because he has done an excellent job as our interlocutor with the United States side since we began dialogue for resumption of normal diplomatic relations over the last several months.

I am also blessed that Ambassador Derek Mitchell will be the new U.S. ambassador to Myanmar. And Ambassador Mitchell is no stranger to Myanmar. In the past 12 months, he has successfully served as a U.S. special representative and policy coordinator for Myanmar, during which I had the pleasure to work with him very closely.

So my congratulations to both of them and wish them all the best for their new important responsibilities. I wish to thank Secretary Clinton for inviting me to Washington for official visit. I would like to express our appreciation to the State Department and the United States Government for the warm welcome and gracious hospitality accorded to us, as well as for the excellent arrangements made for us during our stay in Washington. I thank you all.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you so much.

FOREIGN MINISTER WUNNA MAUNG LWIN: Thank you.

MS. NULAND: We have two today. We’ll start with (inaudible).

QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, regarding the easing of economic restrictions, will the – will U.S. companies be able to invest and trade with Myanmar state-owned companies, including in the oil and gas sector? And also, you talk about the corporate responsibilities of U.S. companies. Will these expectations be binding under U.S. law?

And, Minister, could I ask you – there is a lot of international concern about the continued detention of political prisoners. Can you say whether these prisoners, of which people say there are hundreds – are they going to be released? And if so, when will they be released?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you. First, let me say our presumption is that our companies will be able to deal in every sector of the economy with any business. That is a rebuttable presumption in the event that there is a company whose reputation, whose practices, are not in keeping with our stated policies of corporate responsibility or other matters that rise to our attention. But the presumption is that our oil and gas companies, our mining companies, our financial services companies are all now free to look for investments that can be mutually beneficial to Burma and to them.

Now, we are taking these steps in a measured, responsible way. We are keeping on the books all legislation and executive authorities that does give us flexibility, if the facts warrant, to tighten sanctions again – similar, as I said, to what the EU, the UK, and others have done. And moving forward, we will be working with our businesses to be sure that they do exercise the highest standards of corporate responsibility.

When I was in Burma, I heard stories about some companies that didn’t have a good reputation for the way they treated people, didn’t have good working conditions, didn’t abide by the basics of how you should run a company. They weren’t American companies, but it came to my mind that I want people to look at American companies and say that’s how you should treat workers, that’s how you should treat the environment, you shouldn’t deal with bad customers; you should deal with respectable, responsible businesses if they’re state-owned or if they are private and independent.

So we are very confident that suspending these sanctions and moving forward is exactly the right step to take for now, and we’re enthusiastically encouraging American businesses to invest.

FOREIGN MINISTER WUNNA MAUNG LWIN: Well, for the question you have asked to me about the prisoners, the president has granted amnesty four times in the past 12 months, past 12 or 13 months. About 28,000 prisoners were released from prison, and we have (inaudible) lists, so-called political prisoners, from the European Union as well as from the United States. And after the last amnesty, which has been granted in January, most of the people included in these lists were released.

And there are some remaining from the lists. After thoroughly checking and investigating these lists, there are – they are some prisoners who have criminal offenses, such as murder, rapes, or connecting to terrorist activities. But the president, in exercising his mandate invested upon him by the constitution, he will further granted amnesties when appropriate. I think this will answer your question.

MS. NULAND: Last question, (inaudible) from VOA Burma.

QUESTION: Actually, I have two parts of the questions and plus I’d like to address to the Madam Secretary and Minister Wunna Muang Lwin. Since the United States is easing the sanctions, could that cause collide with the China, which is quite influential in the region? And also, we have seen the report of the concerns from the Chinese officials. And also, last year we have seen that China is disappointed after suspension of Myitsone dam project. Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, let me say what I said when I was in Nay Pyi Taw. The United States does not expect any country to give up relationships with their neighbors. And China is a neighbor, and there are longstanding ties that certainly are deep in the soils of both nations. What we are doing is providing additional support for the kind of development, both politically and economically, that the reform process, which the government in Nay Pyi Taw has begun, has made possible.

Because we do value representative government, democracy, good working conditions, protection of the environment, the kinds of things that the United States stands for, we hope that our relationship can be one that is very supportive of what I am told are the steps that the government and the people themselves wish to take.

So this is not about any other nation. This is between us. This is rooted in the changes we have watched happen and our desire to support the continuation of those changes. And we fully expect that there will be many countries, as you’ve already seen, who want to develop stronger and better relationships in the neighborhood, in the region, and around the world. And we think that’s good to open up the country, give the people more opportunities. So we are very pleased to be a partner in this.

FOREIGN MINISTER WUNNA MAUNG LWIN: Informing on the part of the relationship with China, we have a very long, traditional, and historical relation with China. We have very good relations with China, as we are neighboring countries sharing the common border of more than 2,000 kilometers. So we are cooperating with China. We are inviting investments. There are investment from China.

And according to the suspension of the Myitsone project, we have our domestic concerns, and then we have suspended that and we have informed that cordially to the Chinese side. And this is only a part of the cooperation between China and Myanmar. They can – they understand the situation very well. And I do not want to support your comments that China is disappointed with that, because we have explained the situation very clearly to the authorities and the respective and responsible ministry, and the Chinese company are discussing about the matter also. We have had a very good cooperation with China. So I think that this will not jeopardize the future relations with China.

On the part of the relation with United States, we have this pillar of our foreign policy to have good, friendly relations with – relationships with all the countries around the world. In this aspect, we are working closely with United States to have a strong bilateral relations with United States also.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much.

Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2012/05/201205175885.html?CP.rss=true#ixzz1vBD2oq00