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PEACE Info (March 26, 2018) − Supervisory committee is unable to set the date for Mon national-level political dialogue − Report Highlights Plight of Women Survivors of Conflict, Oppression − Army Shutters Myawaddy Checkpoint in Clampdown on Auto Smuggling − Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s Armed Forces Day Speeches − Ex-Lower House Speaker elected as Vice-President − Hopes high on U Win Myint presidency − Who is U Win Myint, Myanmar’s Likely New President? − Parliament schedules presidential vote for March 28 − Presidential election set for 28 March − U Win Htein returns as CEC secretary − Democratizing the Public Space in Myanmar − သမၼတသစ္အေနျဖင့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးလုပ္ငန္းစဥ္တြင္ပါ၀င္၍ တာ၀န္ယူေဆာင္ရြက္ရန္ ကရင္အမ်ိဳးသားအစည္းအ႐ံုး အႀကံျပဳ − ပင္လံုညီလာခံတြင္ လံုၿခံဳေရးက႑ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ခ်မွတ္ႏုိင္ေရး အႀကိဳေဆြးေႏြးမည္ − တိုက္ပြဲေတြေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာ့ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ေရွ႕မတိုးႏိုင္ဟု UNFC ေဝဖန္ − တပ္မေတာ္ႏွင့္ NCA လက္မွတ္ထုိးအဖဲြ႕မ်ား ထိေတြ႕မႈရွိ၊မရွိ ေဒသအလုိက္ အရပ္သားေစာင့္ၾကည့္အဖဲြ႕မ်ားဖဲြ႕စည္းမည္ − ဖာပြန္ခရိုင္အတြင္း လမ္းေဖာက္သည့္ကိစၥ တပ္မေတာ္ႏွင့္ KNU ေဆြးေႏြးမည္ − အစိုးရစစ္တပ္နဲ႔ ေကအန္ယူတို႔ မတ္လကုန္ပိုင္းမွာ ေတြ႕ဆုံဖို႔ရွိ − အစိုးရႏွင့္ မေတြ႕ဆံုမီ KNPP ဗဟိုေကာ္မတီအစည္းအေ၀းျပဳလုပ္မည္ − KNPP ေတ႔ြဆံုေဆြးေႏြးေရးေကာ္မတီ အစည္းအေ၀း က်င္းပ − မြန္အမ်ဳိးသားအဆင့္ ႏုိင္ငံေရးေဆြးေႏြးပြဲ ႀကီးၾကပ္မႈေကာ္မတီကုိ ဖြဲ႔စည္း − နိုင္ငံေရးေဆြးေႏြးမွု ေကာ္မတီဖြဲ႕ေပမဲ့ မြန္ေဆြးေႏြးပြဲက်င္းပဖို႔ မေရရာ − မြန္ျပည္သစ္ပါတီ အမ်ဳိးသားအဆင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးေဆြးေႏြးပဲြ ေရႊ႕ဆုိင္း − မြန္အမ်ိဳးသားအဆင့္ နိုင္ငံေရးေဆြးေႏြးပြဲ အခက္အခဲမ်ားေၾကာင့္ ရက္ေ႐ႊ႕ဆိုင္းရန္ တင္ျပ − လူထုေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲမ်ားၿပီးမွ မြန္အမ်ိဳးသားအဆင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးေဆြးေႏြးပြဲ က်င္းပမည္ဟုဆို − လားဟူဒီမိုကရက္တစ္အစည္းအ႐ုံး သၽွမ္း/အေရွ႕ ရ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္မွာလူထုနဲ႔ေတြ႕ဆုံမယ္ − SSPP ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြနဲ႔ က်ားျဖဴပါတီ ဥကၠ႒ ေတြ႔ဆံု − ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးႏွင့္ ျပန္လည္ထူေထာင္ေရး ပဋိပကၡၾကားမွ အမ်ိဳးသမီးမ်ား ေတာင္းဆို − တပ္မေတာ္အဆင့္ျမင့္အရာရွိမ်ားႏွင့္ BGF ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားေဆြးေႏြး − လိုင္စင္မဲ့ကား ၂၀၀ ကိစၥ တပ္မေတာ္နဲ႔ BGF ေဆြးေႏြးမႈ ေျပလည္ − လိုင္စင္မဲ့ယာဥ္ တင္သြင္းမႈကို ၿဖိဳခြဲရန္ ျမဝတီရွိ BGF နယ္စပ္ဂိတ္ကို တပ္မေတာ္က ပိတ္ − ရွမ္းေျမာက္တိုက္ပြဲမ်ား၌ တပ္မေတာ္က RCSS ဘက္မွ ကူတိုက္ေပးျခင္းမရွိဟု ျငင္းဆို − မုိင္းေပါက္ကဲြမႈေၾကာင့္ သံဃာ ၁ ပါးနဲ႔ ကိုရင္၂ ပါး မုိင္းထိ − သမၼတအရည္အခ်င္းစိစစ္ရာတြင္ ဦး၀င္းျမင့္ကုိ တပ္မေတာ္ မကန္႔ကြက္ − ဦး၀င္းျမင့္ သမၼတအရည္အခ်င္းႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီသည္ဟု တပ္မေတာ္ သေဘာတူ − သမၼတ ေရြးခ်ယ္တင္ေျမႇာက္ပြဲ မတ္ ၂၈ ရက္ ျပဳလုပ္မည္ − အစိုးရ အစီအစဥ္မ်ားကို ပုံေဖာ္ရန္ သမၼတသစ္မွာ အာဏာ ပိုရွိသင့္သည္ − ပါတီမွ ႏုတ္ထြက္ရန္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ လက္မခံ၍ ျပန္လာျခင္းျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ဦး၀င္းထိန္ေျပာ − ျပည္သူ႕စစ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္မွသည္ ျပည္သူ႕လႊတ္ေတာ္ ဥကၠ႒ဆီသို႔ − ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီေပါင္း ၁၄ ပါတီကို ေကာ္မရွင္ပယ္ဖ်က္ − က်ပ္သိန္းေပါင္း ၁၄ဝဝဝ ခန္႔ တန္ဖိုးရွိ မူးယစ္ေဆးဝါးမ်ား ေမာင္ေတာအနီး ပင္လယ္ျပင္တြင္ ဖမ္းမိ − စစ္ေတြမွာ WY ေဆးျပား ၆ သိန္းေက်ာ္ ဖမ္းမိ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 1 of 60 Supervisory committee is unable to set the date for Mon national-level political dialogue Monday, March 26, 2018 | Mon News Agency | by - Min Thuta Although the Mon State National-Level Political Dialogue Supervisory Committee has been established, it has been unable to set down the date for the dialogue, according to the New Mon State Party (NMSP). According to announcement 1/2018 released on March 23 under the Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC)’s chair Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the nine-member supervisory committee comprises a minister from the Mon State government, one Tatmadaw representative, one Pyithu Hluttaw representative, two NMSP representatives, one Karen National Union (KNU) representative, and a representative each from the National League for Democracy (NLD), the Mon National Party (MNP), and the All Mon Region Democracy Party (AMRDP). “We haven’t made any decisions on the exact date for the national-level political dialogue for the Mon people. We will only make it when we are ready and [negotiation] goes well,” Nai Aung Ma Nge from the supervisory committee told the Mon News Agency today. Although the NMSP has originally planned to hold the political dialogue in Ye from April 6 to 10, the Tatmadaw told them to only hold the public consultations inside the Mon State and not to have more than 30 participants if the public consultations were to be held outside the Mon State. The NMSP postponed the plans after the issue was submitted to the UPDJC. “If the government doesn’t want us to hold the national-level political dialogue for the Rakhine people due to its concerns…we tried to hold a public consultation to draft papers to submit to the working group to submit to the upcoming Union Conference. But, the public consultations were also not allowed under various reasons on the Rakhine issue,” Daw Saw Mra Raza Lin from the UPDJC’s secretary group, told the Mon News Agency today. Daw Saw Mra Raza Lin is from the Arakan Liberation Party, which signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement in 2015. Daw Saw Mra Raza Lin said the Rakhine State National-Level Political Dialogue Organizing Committee and Public Consultation Organizing Committee, which have been established by the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), the Arakan National Party (ANP), and civil society organizations, have been abolished on March 20 since they were unable to hold public consultations despite undergoing several negotiations with the government. Sai Kyaw Nyunt from the UPDJC’s secretary group also told the Mon News Agency that the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) has been unable to make a breakthrough in the negotiations with the government on the issue of restrictions against the public consultations before holding the national-level political dialogue for the Shan people. Page 2 of 60 He added that there are few chances of holding the third session of the Union Peace Conference – 21st Century Panglong in May if the national-level political dialogues cannot be held for respective ethnic people that have signed the NCA. https://www.bnionline.net/en/news/supervisory-committee-unable-set-date-mon-national- level-political-dialogue ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Report Highlights Plight of Women Survivors of Conflict, Oppression By Nang Lwin Hnin Pwint 26 March 2018 Rights groups launch their report, “Speaking Truth for Peace: Women’s Experiences of War and Impunity in Myanmar,” in Yangon on Saturday. / Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy YANGON — “I didn’t go to farm for fear of landmines, but even then I was hit at home,” said Ei Seng, a 27-year-old Palaung woman from Shan State’s Namhsan Township. She and her 4-year-old daughter were burning garbage in their yard when a mortar shell fell and exploded nearby on Jan. 14, 2016. The Myanmar military and Ta’ang National Liberation Army were fighting near her village at the time. She was eight months pregnant and had to have emergency surgery to deliver the baby. Her daughter suffered some hearing loss from the explosion, and Ei Seng still has shell fragments in her body from the shell. They give her pain every day, but doctors say it would be too risky to take them out. “I don’t want to see any more fighting,” she said, urging the government to help those affected by the country’s long-running civil war to get their lives back on track. She is not alone in making the demand. Asia Justice And Rights (AJAR) and the Karen Women’s Organization, Ta’ang Women’s Organization and Vimutti Women’s Organization launched a report on the lives of women survivors of conflict and oppression in Yangon on Saturday. “Speaking Truth for Peace: Women’s Experiences of War and Impunity in Myanmar” captures the stories of 31 women, including former political prisoners in Yangon, Ta’ang women living in the conflict zones of northern Shan State, female Karen village heads, and land rights activists. “I would like to urge the government, local authorities and armed organizations to consider rehabilitation for afflicted survivors if they are really building a true democracy in Myanmar,” said Mai Ja, who helped compile the report. Page 3 of 60 Those who conducted interviews for the report said women survivors living in conflict areas and female advocates oppressed by authorities for their pro-democracy activities were struggling with trauma. One-time political prisoner and former National League for Democracy (NLD) member Daw Thet Thet Lwin recounted her experiences of being arrested several times as a university student for her participation in the pro-democracy uprising of 1988. On the last occasion, she said, she was handcuffed and beaten in public in front of her house. She said her blouse and longyi were torn during the beating and that she was not allowed to change her clothes. Most of the political prisoners were arrested as young women, stifling their educational opportunities and putting many in financial hardship after their release. “The NLD government, which we have shouldered to the position of power, doesn’t recognize political prisoners. No one can deny that the shift we have made today is due to those politicians who sacrificed their lives,” said Daw Thet Thet Lwin. AJAR director Galuh Wandita said the women have had not only their political rights violated, but their social and economic rights as well. The full truth about what happened to them and how it continues to affect their lives is being erased or denied — not only by the state, local authorities and the national elite, but often even by their own communities and families, according to the research.
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    Parliamentary Development in Myanmar An Overview of the Union Parliament, 2011-2016 Renaud Egreteau May 2017 About the Author Dr. Renaud Egreteau is a political scientist whose research and teaching include democratization, civil- military relations, and comparative legislative politics, with a special focus on South and Southeast Asia. He has taught at the University of Hong Kong and Sciences Po Paris, and held research fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, and the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. He recently authored Caretaking Democratization: The Military and Political Change in Myanmar (Oxford University Press and Hurst, 2016). Acknowledgments The author would like to thank everyone – friends, colleagues, scholars and interviewees – whose cooperation, suggestions and inputs made this study possible. At The Asia Foundation, John J. Brandon and Kim N. B. Ninh, who commissioned the report, were extremely supportive. Ma Mi Ki Kyaw Myint has provided outstanding assistance while collecting data and interviews in Nay Pyi Taw. The author is also grateful to the directors general and their deputies in the Union legislature for the time they have spent responding to many queries and questions. Many former and incumbent Union members of parliament met over the years, at their homes or in their party offices, have offered their personal views of their work and life as parliamentarians. This has enriched the author’s own understanding of Myanmar’s emerging legislative affairs. This report benefited from reviews by both Professor David I. Steinberg and U Chit Win. Matthew Arnold, Carine Jaquet, Mael Raynaud, Christina Fink and Kim Jolliffe also provided extremely valuable suggestions for improvement.
  • Chapter Ii the Underrepresentation of Women in Parliament in Myanmar

    Chapter Ii the Underrepresentation of Women in Parliament in Myanmar

    CHAPTER II THE UNDERREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT IN MYANMAR In this chapter, the author breaks down the explanation into four parts. First, the author begins with the history of Myanmar from the military junta to the democratic state by describing each regime’s period of time consecutively from the military junta in 1962 – 2010, the quasi-civilian government in 2011 – 2015, and the democratic government in 2016 – present. Second, the author argues that along with the history of Myanmar, women in Myanmar also strive and fight for their rights to be guaranteed and protected. The author also provides the data and information in the tables and figures on the underrepresentation of women in parliament during the election that held in 1990, 2010, the by-election in 2012, and the last election in 2015. Third, the author identifies what factors that hamper the women’s participation in politics to contest the parliament seat in the election which clustered into four aspects namely socio-cultural aspect, educational aspect, economic aspect, and the legal and institutional aspect. In the last part of this chapter, the author argues that the underrepresentation of women in all spheres particularly politics had emerged the local women’s movement in Myanmar that aimed to break and change the status quo. A. The History of Myanmar: Military Junta to Democratic State The history of Myanmar is most likely the same to the history of other third world countries in the Southeast Asia region, which struggled and gained their independence after the break down of the World War II.
  • The 2012 By-Elections –Will the Winner Take All? ANALYSIS PAPER No.1 2012

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    EBO The 2012 By-Elections –Will the Winner Take All? ANALYSIS PAPER No.1 2012 WILL THE WINNER TAKE ALL? EBO Analysis Paper No.1/2012 Many in the international community believe that if the by-elections on 1 April in Burma are ‘free and fair’, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (DASSK) and her National League for Democracy (NLD) will win all 48 seats1. Is this true? Can the NLD sweep the board? First, while anything is possible, it is not probable. Why? The perception of a landslide is based on the 1990 general elections when the NLD won over 80% of the seats. This time with DASSK herself running, it is assumed that the results will be better. But the situation in Burma today is not what it was in 1990. Then, people were fed up with General Ne Win’s regime and euphoric about the possibility of a popular democratic transition. Today, people are hopeful that the reforms introduced by President Thein Sein in 2011 will usher in a new period of democracy and prosperity and fearful that any instability will set the reforms back. Second, half the voting population today did not have the vote in 1990. Most were not yet born or were too young. Other than DASSK, the electorate does not know the other candidates. The NLD does not have a track record, whereas, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has delivered tangible benefits since the new government took office in April 2011. Third, the 48 seats being contested are ‘safe’ seats of the USDP.
  • Political Monitor No.3

    Political Monitor No.3

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