Séisme en Birmanie

par | Août 26, 2016 | Myanmar

Séisme en Birmanie : au moins trois morts et de nombreuses pagodes de Bagan endommagées.

Un puissant séisme de magnitude 6,8 a frappé le centre de la Birmanie, mercredi 24 août, faisant au moins trois morts et endommageant plusieurs des célèbres pagodes de Bagan, haut lieu touristique du pays. L’Institut d’études géologiques des Etats-Unis (United States Geological Survey, USGS) a localisé l’épicentre du tremblement de terre à Chauk, une petite ville de la région de Magway, située à une trentaine de kilomètres de Bagan.

Deux jeunes filles, de 7 et 15 ans, ont été tuées dans la région de Magway, a annoncé le ministère de l’information birman, et un jeune homme de 22 ans a été tué dans l’effondrement d’une maison, dans la petite ville de Pakokku, a déclaré à l’AFP Han Zan Win, député du parlement régional, qui se trouvait dans la zone la plus touchée.

 

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Une touriste espagnole a également été légèrement blessée dans une chute due au tremblement de terre alors qu’elle visitait un temple, a précisé la police. Au moment de la secousse, en fin de journée, de nombreux touristes étaient là pour observer le coucher du soleil.

Cent soixante et onze des monuments bouddhiques du site de Bagan, qui en compte plus de 2 500, ont été touchés par ce séisme, selon un communiqué publié sur Facebook par le ministère birman chargé des affaires religieuses et culturelles. « Certaines pagodes ont été sérieusement touchées », a indiqué à l’AFP Aung Kyaw, directeur de ce site archéologique.

Yangon Newspaper & democracy

par | Août 3, 2016 | Media

Freer media is critical to the country’s political transition, but it is also time for more responsible journalism

As a voracious consumer of Myanmar journalism over some time, I am fascinated by how the country’s transition to freedom of the press takes root and prospers.

Progress toward press freedom has occurred very rapidly in Myanmar since 2012, but we still see too many instances of journalists being detained and even charged over what they have published. Continue Reading ….

Another doddery analyst said there was a 75 percent chance the military would prevent last November’s election being held. The whole reform process and transition to democracy was called “a fairy tale”.

Well, here we are and the griping naysayers got it wrong. The historic elections went ahead and allowed the people of Myanmar to freely choose their government and new leader.

As the United States assistant secretary of state Danny Russel said, “The five years of opening and reform set the stage for Myanmar to emerge from five decades of repression and military rule, and for its citizens to build unity, dignity, opportunity and prosperity.”
Continue …

Martyrs’ Day on July 19 was a significant break

Martyrs’ Day on July 19 was a significant break

par | Juil 26, 2016 | Culture

Martyrs’ Day: a wake-up call for reconciliation in Myanmar

For many reasons, this year’s Martyrs’ Day on July 19 was a significant break from the past. For the first time, it was held under a National League for Democracy-backed government. After several decades of absence, it was also the first time the commander-in-chief attended. And, for the first time since 1988, this Martyrs’ Day people heard the sound of sirens and stood still at 10:37am, when the martyrs were assassinated in 1947. For two minutes, people of all faiths, races and ideologies united under one siren call.

But most importantly, this year’s Martyrs’ Day was a wake-up call for national reconciliation in Myanmar.
Martyrs’ Day is not just about remembering Bogyoke Aung San and the eight other fallen independence heroes. It has always been an important act of political symbolism. Paying respect and laying wreaths for those killed that day is a core tradition in Myanmar. So layered in symbolism is it, that it was the target of a terrorist attack in 1983 that killed, among others, four South Korean senior cabinet ministers.
During military rule, Martyrs’ Day events were part of a complex deciphering exercise for foreign diplomats and experts watching the roller-coaster relationship between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi – the daughter of Bogyoke Aung San – and the junta. It was the only time when people could see Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in public during her house arrest. People paid close attention to her every single move and used the event to speculate on her relationship with the generals. Her absence usually signalled problems. More reading …

Myanmar the second-largest producer of illegal opium in the world

par | Juil 15, 2016 | Economy

How Myanmar’s illicit opium economy benefits the military.

For the past 10 years drug production in Myanmar has been on the rise. The amount of land used to grow poppy – from which the opium sap used to make heroin is derived – has more than doubled since 2006. According to the UN, Myanmar now accounts for more than 25 percent of the global area under illegal poppy cultivation, making the country the second-largest producer of illegal opium in the world after Afghanistan.

The vast majority of Myanmar opium is produced by poor farmers in highland areas of Shan State close to the borders with China, Thailand and Laos, which have been affected by decades of conflict between ethnic armed groups and the central government. In 2012, studies conducted by local researchers recorded opium cultivation in 49 out of Shan State’s 55 townships, involving more than 200,000 households.

Drugs play an ambiguous role in Myanmar’s borderlands. Drug abuse has taken far more lives than armed conflict in many communities over the past decade and the growing heroin epidemic across parts of Shan and Kachin states is one of the main drivers of HIV/AIDS in Myanmar.

But the income opium generates for growers provides a way of staving off poverty amid rising food prices and resulting food insecurity, heavy demands for “taxation” from an array of armed groups, and the continued lack of government investment in rural services. They grow poppy because they cannot produce enough food to feed their families throughout the year. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that almost 1 million people in Shan State suffer “severe and chronic food insecurity”, equivalent to almost one in five of the region’s population. The income generated from Myanmar opium enables farmers to buy food and sometimes also to cover the cost of rudimentary healthcare and education. Continue Reading …

Tolerance in the time of terror

par | Juil 15, 2016 | Religious fundamentalism

Extremists want to destroy multi-cultural and multi-religious societies.

The recent blood-soaked attack by a Muslim militant force on a cafe popular with foreigners in Dhaka is yet another grim reminder that, for some people, political struggle can justify the cruelest violence.

In Bangladesh and so many other places, extremists want to destroy multi-cultural and multi-religious societies. Most of us do not want to live under those terms; our response, therefore, requires a cool head.

For many extremist groups, a preferred strategy is to sow panic, seeking to strangulate tolerant instincts and set different groups against each other. The violence seen across the border in Bangladesh is purposeful in its barbarity.

When foreign investors get nervous, when development projects fail, when the middle class flees abroad and when tourists stay away, the extremists have secured their short-term victory. Their long game is to completely pollute the relationship between religious communities, in this case Muslims and non-Muslims, hoping that eventually there will be no alternative to all-out religious war.

Curiously, those who are most adamant in their opposition to Muslims often prove the least savvy about the implications of this strategy. For extremists, part of the goal is to inspire extreme opposition.

So, in Myanmar, every time a prayer hall is desecrated, or a Muslim community gets attacked, militant forces have extra ammunition for goading division and hate. For them, the anti-Rohingya activism of Myanmar’s Buddhist nationalists fits perfectly the story of downtrodden Muslims, who need muscled-up support from around the world. Continue Reading …