စီးပြားေရး ပိတ္ဆို႕အေရးယူမႈ ရုတ္သိမ္းဖို႕မသင့္ေသးေၾကာင္း အေမရိကန္ ထပ္မံေျပာဆို
2011-04-07
အေမရိကန္အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာ ေခါင္းေဆာင္သစ္နဲ႔ ခ်ည္းကပ္ ဆက္ဆံဖုိ႔ ၾကိဳးပမ္းမွာ ျဖစ္သလုိ စီးပြားေရး ပိတ္ဆုိ႔ ဒဏ္ခတ္မွဳေတြကုိလည္း ဆက္လက္ ထားရွိမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔ အာရွနဲ႔ ပစိဖိတ္ေရးရာ အေမရိကန္ လက္ေထာက္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရး ၀န္ၾကီး Kurt Campbell က မေန႔က ေျပာၾကားလုိက္ပါတယ္။ လတ္တေလာ အေျခအေနေတြ အရ အေမရိကန္ အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အေပၚ ခ်မွတ္ထားတဲ့ ျပစ္ဒဏ္ခတ္မွဳကုိ ရုပ္သိမ္းေပးဖုိ႔ကိစၥဟာ မသင့္ေတာ္ေသးဘူးလုိ႔ မစၥတာ Campbell က စင္ကာပူႏုိင္ငံမွာ သတင္းေထာက္ေတြကုိ ေျပာၾကားခဲ့တာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
(Photo: AFP)
ျမန္မာစစ္အစိုးရ၏ သတင္းဌာနမွ ထုတ္ျပန္ေသာ ဓာတ္ပံုတြင္ အေမရိကန္ အေရွ႕အာရွႏွင့္ ပစိဖိတ္ေရးရာ လက္ေထာက္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ကာ့တ္ ကင္းဘဲလ္ (ယာ) ႏွင့္ စစ္အစိုးရ ဝန္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီး သိန္းစိန္ (ဝဲ) တို႔ ၂၀၀၉ ႏိုဝင္ဘာ ၄ ရက္ေန႔က ေနျပည္ေတာ္တြင္ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြပြဲ မစမီ ႏႈတ္ဆက္ေနျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ (Photo: AFP)
လတ္တေလာ အေျခအေနေတြအရ အေမရိကန္အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ ခ်မွတ္ထားတဲ့ ျပစ္ဒဏ္ခတ္မွဳကုိ ရုပ္သိမ္းေပးဖုိ႔ကိစၥဟာ မသင့္ေတာ္ေသးဘူးလုိ႔ မစၥတာ Campbell က စင္ကာပူႏုိင္ငံမွာ သတင္းေထာက္ေတြကုိ ေျပာၾကားခဲ့တာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
မိမိတုိ႔အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာအစုိးရရဲ့ ေဆာင္ရြက္ခ်က္ေတြ ဘယ္လုိရွိသလဲ၊ ျမန္မာေခါင္းေဆာင္သစ္နဲ႔ အျပဳသေဘာ ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးေရး ၾကိဳးပမ္းမွဳ ျဖစ္ထြန္းႏုိင္မလား ဆုိတာေတြကုိ ေလ့လာေစာင့္ၾကည့္ေနတယ္လုိ႔ Mr. Campbell က ေျပာပါတယ္။
ဒါ့ျပင္ Mr. Campbell က ျမန္မာေခါင္းေဆာင္သစ္ေတြနဲ႔ ခ်ည္းကပ္ ဆက္ဆံေရးအတြက္ အေမရိကန္ အစုိးရရဲ့ ၾကိဳးပမ္းမွဳေတြကုိ ျမန္မာ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ကလဲ ေထာက္ခံ အားေပးေၾကာင္း ေျပာပါတယ္။
တဆက္တည္းမွာဘဲ သူက ျမန္မာအစုိးရသစ္ရဲ့ စရုိက္လကၡဏာကုိ အကဲျဖတ္ဖုိ႔ ေစာလြန္းေသးေၾကာင္းကုိလည္း ေျပာဆုိခဲ့ပါတယ္။
Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
Ref:
http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/too_early_for%20sanction_revoke_says_us-04072011123945.html
Friday, April 8, 2011
အေမရိကန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တကယ္ထူးမည္လား
အေမရိကန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တကယ္ထူးမည္လား
ဖနိဒါ | အဂၤါေန႔၊ ဧၿပီလ ၀၅ ရက္ ၂၀၁၁ ခုႏွစ္ ၁၈ နာရီ ၄၁ မိနစ္
အီးေမးလ္ပုိ႔ရန္ ပရင့္ထုတ္ရန္ PDF ဖုိင္ရယူရန္
ခ်င္းမုိင္(မဇိၥ်မ) ။ ။ ျမန္မာအစုိးရသစ္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းၿပီးေနာက္ အေမရိကန္ႏုိင္ငံက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္အျဖစ္ မစၥတာ ဒဲရစ္ ေဂ်မစ္ရွဲလ္ Mr. Derek J.Mitchell ကုိ ခန္႔မည့္အေရး ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားအတြင္း သေဘာကြဲလြဲေနသည္။
ကြယ္လြန္သြားၿပီျဖစ္ေသာ အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ တြမ္လန္းတို႔စ္ ဦးေဆာင္တင္သြင္းေသာ Jade Act ဥပေဒအရ အေမရိကန္လႊတ္ေတာ္ဟာ လက္ရွိ အေမရိကန္ အာရွႏွင့္ပစိဖိတ္ေရးဆုိင္ရာ ဒုလက္ေထာက္ ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီး မစၥတာဒဲရက္ ေဂ်မစ္ရွဲလ္ကို ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူးသံတမန္အျဖစ္ ခန္႔အပ္လိမ့္မည္ဟု သတင္းထြက္ေပၚေနသည္။
မတ္လ ၂၉ က အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ အမတ္ ၄ ဦးက စီးပြားေရး
ပိတ္ဆုိ႔အေရးယူမႈ ပုိမုိ ထိေရာက္ရန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္တဦး အျမန္ခန္႔အပ္ဖို႔လိုေၾကာင္း အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာနကုိ တုိက္တြန္းခဲ့သည္။
ထုိအမတ္ ၄ ဦးသည္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ဦးေဆာင္ေသာ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္၏ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆုိ႔ အေရးယူမႈကုိ ေထာက္ခံသူမ်ားဟုလည္း ဗီအုိေအ ျမန္မာပိုင္းသတင္းတရပ္တြင္ ပါရွိသည္။
အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ NLD အေနျဖင့္ အထူးသံတမန္ ခန္႔အပ္ထားမည့္ အေရးကုိ ႀကိဳဆုိေၾကာင္း ဗဟုိအလုပ္အမႈေဆာင္ အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ ဦးဝင္းတင္က ေျပာသည္။
“ ဒီလုိအထူး ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ခန္႔မွာ ျမန္မာျပည္မွာ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔မႈနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လုိ႔ ျပည္သူေတြအေပၚ ထိခုိက္မႈ ရွိမရွိ၊ အစုိးရအေပၚ ထိခုိက္မႈရွိ မရွိဆုိတာေတြ၊ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္မႈေတြ တားဆီးႏုိင္ေအာင္ ေဆြးေႏြးဖုိ႔ လုပ္ဖုိ႔လုိတယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာၿပီးသားျဖစ္တဲ့အတြက္ ဒီလုိခန္႔တာကုိ ႀကိဳဆုိပါတယ္ ”ဟု ဦးဝင္းတင္က မဇၥ်ိမကုိ ေျပာသည္။
အေမရိကန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္အေနျဖင့္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚထားသည့္ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈ၊ NLD၊ လက္နက္ကုိင္ တုိင္းရင္းသား အင္အားစုမ်ား၊ ဒီမုိကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ားႏွင့္ စစ္အစုိးရအၾကား ဆက္စပ္ ၫွိႏႈိင္းေပးႏုိင္မည္ဟု သူက ယူဆထားသည္။
မြန္ေဒသလံုးဆုိင္ရာ ဒီမုိကရက္တစ္ပါတီ ဥကၠ႒ ႏုိင္ေငြသိန္းကေတာ့ ဆန္ရွင္ကို ႐ုပ္သိမ္းေစလိုျပီး အေမရိကန္ အထူးသံတမန္အေနျဖင့္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီအေရးအတြက္ လက္ေတြ႔ ညွိႏိႈင္းေပးႏိုင္ဖို႔လိုသည္ဟု သတိႏွင့္ ေျပာဆိုလိုက္သည္။
“ ဆန္ရွင္ေတြ ႐ုပ္ၾကမယ္လုိ႔ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္တယ္ေလ။ ဒီလုိ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တဦးထားတယ္ဆုိတာ ဗမာျပည္ကုိ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ဖုိ႔ဆုိတဲ့ အဓိပၸာယ္လား၊ အၾကံေပးမယ္၊ ဖလွယ္မယ္ ညွိႏႈိင္းမယ္။ ေဆြးေႏြးမယ္၊ တုိင္ပင္မယ္။ ဒါေတြ မျဖစ္ျဖစ္ေအာင္ လုပ္မယ္ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ အုိေကေပါ့။ ကန္႔ကြက္စရာမရွိဘူး။ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တဦးထားၿပီးေတာ့ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ဖုိ႔ဘဲဆုိရင္ မထူးဘူးေပါ့၊ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ၿပီးေတာ ့အျပစ္ရွာမယ္ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ တမ်ဳိးေပါ့”ဟု ႏိုင္ေငြသိန္းက မဇိၥ်မကုိ ေျပာသည္။
တိုင္းရင္းသား စည္းလံုးညီညြတ္ေရးပါတီမွ ေျပာေရးဆိုခြင့္ရွိသူ ဦးဟန္ေရႊကလည္း ကိုယ္စားလွယ္၏လုပ္ရပ္သည္ အျပဳသေဘာ မေဆာင္ပါက လက္ခံမည္ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။
“ ဒီအထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္က ဘာေတြလုပ္မွာလဲ။ လုပ္ငန္းတာဝန္က ဘာေတြ သတ္မွတ္ေပးမွာလဲ။ အျပဳသေဘာ အလားအလာ မေဆာင္တဲ့ ကိစၥရပ္မ်ဳိးဆုိရင္ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ လက္ခံမွာ မဟုတ္ဘူးဆုိတဲ့ ေယဘုယ် သေဘာထားေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔ပါတီမွာ ခ်မွတ္ထားတာ ရွိပါတယ္”ဟု ဦးဟန္ေရႊက မဇိၩမကို ေျပာသည္။
အေမရိကန္အစုိးရက ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးကုိ အထူးအာ႐ုံစုိက္လာကာ ကုိင္တြယ္လာသည့္သေဘာ သက္ေရာက္ၿပီး ျမန္မာ့အေရး တုိးတက္မႈ ရွိမရွိ၊ အေျခအေနမ်ားကုိ အၾကံျပဳ တင္ျပႏုိင္ရန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔ထားျခင္းသည္ အေမရိကန္ အစုိးရ၏ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ ခ်မႈတြင္ ပုိ အေထာက္အကူျဖစ္ေစမည္ဟု ျမန္မာ့အေရး ေလ့လာသူ ဦးေဌးေအာင္က ေျပာသည္။
“ အေမရိကန္က စီးပြားေရး အေရးယူပိတ္ဆုိ႔ေနတာ ရွိတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ ့အဲဒါေတြက တကယ့္မထိေရာက္ဘူးေလ။ ဒါေတြကုိ ျပန္ၿပီးေတာ့ သူတို႔အေနနဲ႔ တိတိက်က် မေျပာႏုိင္ဘူး။ အခုလုိ သတ္သတ္မွတ္မွတ္ ထားၿပီး ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အေရးကိစၥကုိ အာ႐ုံစုိက္ ၾကည့္ေနမယ္။ သံုးသပ္ေနမယ္။ အဲဒီအတြက္ ဘယ္လုိေဆာင္ရြက္သင့္တယ္ဆုိရာ အေမရိကန္ အစုိးရအေပၚ အႀကံေပးမယ္ဆုိရင္ ပုိေကာင္းတယ္။ ျမန္မာအေပၚ အေရးယူမယ္ဆုိရင္လဲ ထိေရာက္တဲ့ အေရးယူႏုိင္တာေပါ့ေနာ္။ ပုိေကာင္းတယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာရမွာေပါ့”ဟု သူက မဇၥ်ိမကုိ ေျပာသည္။
မစၥတာ ဒဲရက္စ္မစ္ရွဲလ္သည္ အာရွပစိဖိတ္ေဒသဆုိင္ရာတခုလံုးကုိ ကုိင္တြယ္ခဲ့ဖူးသျဖင့္ လက္ရွိ ျမန္မာ့အေရး တခုတည္းကိုဘဲ ကုိင္တြယ္ေသာအခါ ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးအေၾကာင္းကုိ သိရွိထားၿပီးသူျဖစ္၍ ထိေရာက္လိမ့္မည္ဟု သူက ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ေနသည္။
၁၉၈၈ အေရးအခင္းေနာက္ပုိင္း ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အေမရိကန္ သံအမတ္ ခန္႔မထားေသးသည့္အျပင္ အေမရိကန္က ျမန္မာကုိ သံတမန္ေရးတြင္ အဆင့္ေလွ်ာ့ထားသည္။
Ref:
http://www.mizzimaburmese.com/news/regional/7343-2011-04-05-12-22-34.html
ဖနိဒါ | အဂၤါေန႔၊ ဧၿပီလ ၀၅ ရက္ ၂၀၁၁ ခုႏွစ္ ၁၈ နာရီ ၄၁ မိနစ္
အီးေမးလ္ပုိ႔ရန္ ပရင့္ထုတ္ရန္ PDF ဖုိင္ရယူရန္
ခ်င္းမုိင္(မဇိၥ်မ) ။ ။ ျမန္မာအစုိးရသစ္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းၿပီးေနာက္ အေမရိကန္ႏုိင္ငံက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္အျဖစ္ မစၥတာ ဒဲရစ္ ေဂ်မစ္ရွဲလ္ Mr. Derek J.Mitchell ကုိ ခန္႔မည့္အေရး ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီမ်ားအတြင္း သေဘာကြဲလြဲေနသည္။
ကြယ္လြန္သြားၿပီျဖစ္ေသာ အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ တြမ္လန္းတို႔စ္ ဦးေဆာင္တင္သြင္းေသာ Jade Act ဥပေဒအရ အေမရိကန္လႊတ္ေတာ္ဟာ လက္ရွိ အေမရိကန္ အာရွႏွင့္ပစိဖိတ္ေရးဆုိင္ရာ ဒုလက္ေထာက္ ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီး မစၥတာဒဲရက္ ေဂ်မစ္ရွဲလ္ကို ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူးသံတမန္အျဖစ္ ခန္႔အပ္လိမ့္မည္ဟု သတင္းထြက္ေပၚေနသည္။
မတ္လ ၂၉ က အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ အမတ္ ၄ ဦးက စီးပြားေရး
ပိတ္ဆုိ႔အေရးယူမႈ ပုိမုိ ထိေရာက္ရန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္တဦး အျမန္ခန္႔အပ္ဖို႔လိုေၾကာင္း အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာနကုိ တုိက္တြန္းခဲ့သည္။
ထုိအမတ္ ၄ ဦးသည္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ဦးေဆာင္ေသာ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမုိကေရစီ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္၏ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆုိ႔ အေရးယူမႈကုိ ေထာက္ခံသူမ်ားဟုလည္း ဗီအုိေအ ျမန္မာပိုင္းသတင္းတရပ္တြင္ ပါရွိသည္။
အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ NLD အေနျဖင့္ အထူးသံတမန္ ခန္႔အပ္ထားမည့္ အေရးကုိ ႀကိဳဆုိေၾကာင္း ဗဟုိအလုပ္အမႈေဆာင္ အဖြဲ႔ဝင္ ဦးဝင္းတင္က ေျပာသည္။
“ ဒီလုိအထူး ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ခန္႔မွာ ျမန္မာျပည္မွာ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔မႈနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လုိ႔ ျပည္သူေတြအေပၚ ထိခုိက္မႈ ရွိမရွိ၊ အစုိးရအေပၚ ထိခုိက္မႈရွိ မရွိဆုိတာေတြ၊ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္မႈေတြ တားဆီးႏုိင္ေအာင္ ေဆြးေႏြးဖုိ႔ လုပ္ဖုိ႔လုိတယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာၿပီးသားျဖစ္တဲ့အတြက္ ဒီလုိခန္႔တာကုိ ႀကိဳဆုိပါတယ္ ”ဟု ဦးဝင္းတင္က မဇၥ်ိမကုိ ေျပာသည္။
အေမရိကန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္အေနျဖင့္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚထားသည့္ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈ၊ NLD၊ လက္နက္ကုိင္ တုိင္းရင္းသား အင္အားစုမ်ား၊ ဒီမုိကေရစီအင္အားစုမ်ားႏွင့္ စစ္အစုိးရအၾကား ဆက္စပ္ ၫွိႏႈိင္းေပးႏုိင္မည္ဟု သူက ယူဆထားသည္။
မြန္ေဒသလံုးဆုိင္ရာ ဒီမုိကရက္တစ္ပါတီ ဥကၠ႒ ႏုိင္ေငြသိန္းကေတာ့ ဆန္ရွင္ကို ႐ုပ္သိမ္းေစလိုျပီး အေမရိကန္ အထူးသံတမန္အေနျဖင့္ ျမန္မာ့ဒီမိုကေရစီအေရးအတြက္ လက္ေတြ႔ ညွိႏိႈင္းေပးႏိုင္ဖို႔လိုသည္ဟု သတိႏွင့္ ေျပာဆိုလိုက္သည္။
“ ဆန္ရွင္ေတြ ႐ုပ္ၾကမယ္လုိ႔ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္တယ္ေလ။ ဒီလုိ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တဦးထားတယ္ဆုိတာ ဗမာျပည္ကုိ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ဖုိ႔ဆုိတဲ့ အဓိပၸာယ္လား၊ အၾကံေပးမယ္၊ ဖလွယ္မယ္ ညွိႏႈိင္းမယ္။ ေဆြးေႏြးမယ္၊ တုိင္ပင္မယ္။ ဒါေတြ မျဖစ္ျဖစ္ေအာင္ လုပ္မယ္ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ အုိေကေပါ့။ ကန္႔ကြက္စရာမရွိဘူး။ ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တဦးထားၿပီးေတာ့ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ဖုိ႔ဘဲဆုိရင္ မထူးဘူးေပါ့၊ ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ၿပီးေတာ ့အျပစ္ရွာမယ္ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ တမ်ဳိးေပါ့”ဟု ႏိုင္ေငြသိန္းက မဇိၥ်မကုိ ေျပာသည္။
တိုင္းရင္းသား စည္းလံုးညီညြတ္ေရးပါတီမွ ေျပာေရးဆိုခြင့္ရွိသူ ဦးဟန္ေရႊကလည္း ကိုယ္စားလွယ္၏လုပ္ရပ္သည္ အျပဳသေဘာ မေဆာင္ပါက လက္ခံမည္ မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာသည္။
“ ဒီအထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္က ဘာေတြလုပ္မွာလဲ။ လုပ္ငန္းတာဝန္က ဘာေတြ သတ္မွတ္ေပးမွာလဲ။ အျပဳသေဘာ အလားအလာ မေဆာင္တဲ့ ကိစၥရပ္မ်ဳိးဆုိရင္ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ လက္ခံမွာ မဟုတ္ဘူးဆုိတဲ့ ေယဘုယ် သေဘာထားေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တို႔ပါတီမွာ ခ်မွတ္ထားတာ ရွိပါတယ္”ဟု ဦးဟန္ေရႊက မဇိၩမကို ေျပာသည္။
အေမရိကန္အစုိးရက ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးကုိ အထူးအာ႐ုံစုိက္လာကာ ကုိင္တြယ္လာသည့္သေဘာ သက္ေရာက္ၿပီး ျမန္မာ့အေရး တုိးတက္မႈ ရွိမရွိ၊ အေျခအေနမ်ားကုိ အၾကံျပဳ တင္ျပႏုိင္ရန္ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔ထားျခင္းသည္ အေမရိကန္ အစုိးရ၏ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ ခ်မႈတြင္ ပုိ အေထာက္အကူျဖစ္ေစမည္ဟု ျမန္မာ့အေရး ေလ့လာသူ ဦးေဌးေအာင္က ေျပာသည္။
“ အေမရိကန္က စီးပြားေရး အေရးယူပိတ္ဆုိ႔ေနတာ ရွိတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ ့အဲဒါေတြက တကယ့္မထိေရာက္ဘူးေလ။ ဒါေတြကုိ ျပန္ၿပီးေတာ့ သူတို႔အေနနဲ႔ တိတိက်က် မေျပာႏုိင္ဘူး။ အခုလုိ သတ္သတ္မွတ္မွတ္ ထားၿပီး ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အေရးကိစၥကုိ အာ႐ုံစုိက္ ၾကည့္ေနမယ္။ သံုးသပ္ေနမယ္။ အဲဒီအတြက္ ဘယ္လုိေဆာင္ရြက္သင့္တယ္ဆုိရာ အေမရိကန္ အစုိးရအေပၚ အႀကံေပးမယ္ဆုိရင္ ပုိေကာင္းတယ္။ ျမန္မာအေပၚ အေရးယူမယ္ဆုိရင္လဲ ထိေရာက္တဲ့ အေရးယူႏုိင္တာေပါ့ေနာ္။ ပုိေကာင္းတယ္လုိ႔ ေျပာရမွာေပါ့”ဟု သူက မဇၥ်ိမကုိ ေျပာသည္။
မစၥတာ ဒဲရက္စ္မစ္ရွဲလ္သည္ အာရွပစိဖိတ္ေဒသဆုိင္ရာတခုလံုးကုိ ကုိင္တြယ္ခဲ့ဖူးသျဖင့္ လက္ရွိ ျမန္မာ့အေရး တခုတည္းကိုဘဲ ကုိင္တြယ္ေသာအခါ ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးအေၾကာင္းကုိ သိရွိထားၿပီးသူျဖစ္၍ ထိေရာက္လိမ့္မည္ဟု သူက ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ေနသည္။
၁၉၈၈ အေရးအခင္းေနာက္ပုိင္း ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အေမရိကန္ သံအမတ္ ခန္႔မထားေသးသည့္အျပင္ အေမရိကန္က ျမန္မာကုိ သံတမန္ေရးတြင္ အဆင့္ေလွ်ာ့ထားသည္။
Ref:
http://www.mizzimaburmese.com/news/regional/7343-2011-04-05-12-22-34.html
ေရနံခ်က္စက္႐ုံတည္ရန္ ဦးပိုင္ႏွင့္ တ႐ုတ္စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္
ေရနံခ်က္စက္႐ုံတည္ရန္ ဦးပိုင္ႏွင့္ တ႐ုတ္စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္
ကိုဝိုင္း | အဂၤါေန႔၊ ဧၿပီလ ၀၅ ရက္ ၂၀၁၁ ခုႏွစ္ ၂၀ နာရီ ၀၃ မိနစ္
ခ်င္းမိုင္ (မဇၥ်ိမ) ။ ။ တႏွစ္လွ်င္ ေရနံစိမ္းတန္ခ်ိန္ ၅ သန္းခ်က္ႏိုင္မည့္ ေရနံခ်က္စက္႐ုံႏွင့္ ဓာတ္ဆီႏွင့္ ေရနံဓာတ္ေငြ႔ရည္ ျဖန္႔ျဖဴးေရးဌာနမ်ား တည္ေဆာက္မည့္ စီမံကိန္းအတြက္ တ႐ုတ္ႏိုင္ငံႏွင့္ ျမန္မာစစ္တပ္ပုိင္ ဦးပိုင္ကုမၸဏီတို႔ သက္တမ္းတိုးစာခ်ဳပ္ တနလၤာေန႔က လက္မွတ္ထုိးသည္။
ဦးသိန္းစိန္ အစိုးရသစ္ကို အာဏာလႊဲၿပီးေနာက္ ပထမဆံုးေရာက္ရွိလာေသာ ႏိုင္ငံျခားဧည့္သည္ေတာ္ တ႐ုတ္ကြန္ျမဴနစ္ပါတီ ဗဟိုေကာ္မတီ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဗ်ဴ႐ို အၿမဲတမ္းေကာ္မတီဝင္ က်ာခ်င့္လင္ ခရီးစဥ္အတြင္း Guandong Zhenrong Energy ကုမၸဏီ ဥကၠ႒ Xiong Shohui ႏွင့္ စီးပြားေရးဦးပိုင္လီမိတက္၏ အႀကီးအကဲသစ္ ဗိုလ္မႉးခ်ဳပ္ ဇာနည္ဝင္းတို႔ ေနျပည္ေတာ္တြင္ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးၾကသည္။
ထို႔အျပင္ တ႐ုတ္ယြမ္ေငြ ဘီလ်ံ ၃ဝ (ေဒၚလာ ၄.၅ ဘီလ်ံ) အတိုးမဲ့ေခ်း ေငြမွ “ပထမအသုတ္” ေခ်းေငြသေဘာတူစာခ်ဳပ္ကို ဘ႑ာ/အခြန္ ဝန္ၾကီးဌာန ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံျခားကုန္သြယ္မႈဘဏ္ ဦးေဆာင္ညႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉးႏွင့္ တ႐ုတ္အစိုးရ သြင္းကုန္/ထုတ္ကုန္ဘဏ္ ဥကၠ႒ တို႔ လက္မွတ္ထိုးၾကသည္ဟု အဂၤါေန႔ထုတ္ ႏိုင္ငံပိုင္ ျမန္မာ့အလင္းသတင္းစာတြင္ ေဖာ္ျပထားသည္။
တ႐ုတ္က ခ်င္းတြင္းျမစ္အေနာက္ဖက္ရွိ စပယ္ေတာင္၊ စပယ္ေတာင္ (ေတာင္) ႏွင့္ ေၾကးစင္ေတာင္ သတၱဳ တြင္းမ်ားမွ ေၾကးနီထုတ္လုပ္မႈမွ အခ်ိဳးက် ရယူရန္လည္း သေဘာတူညီခဲ့ၾကသည္။
တ႐ုတ္ႏုိင္ငံသည္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအတြင္း အေမရိကန္ေဒၚလာ သန္း ႐ွစ္ေထာင္ေက်ာ္အထိ ရင္းႏွီးျမႇဳပ္ႏွံထားၿပီး ေဒၚလာသန္း ငါးေထာင္တန္ ေရအားလွ်ပ္စစ္ စီမံကိန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ေဒၚလာ သန္း ႏွစ္ေထာင္ခန္႔ တန္သည့္ ေရနံႏွင့္ သဘာဝဓာတ္ေငြ႔ လုပ္ငန္းမ်ား ပါဝင္သည္။
ဦးသိန္းစိန္၊ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ဥကၠ႒ သူရဦးေရႊမန္း၊ ျပည္ေထာင္စုလႊတ္ေတာ္ နာယက ဦးခင္ေအာင္ျမင့္၊ ဝန္ၾကီးမ်ားႏွင့္ ေနျပည္ေတာ္၌ သီးျခားေတြ႔ဆံုစဥ္ တ႐ုတ္ကြန္ျမဴနစ္ပါတီ ဗဟိုေကာ္မတီဝင္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဗ်ဴ႐ို အၿမဲတမ္းေကာ္မတီဝင္ႏွင့္ အမ်ဳိးသားေကာ္မတီ ဥကၠ႒ က်ာခ်င့္လင္က ႏွစ္ႏိုင္ငံ ဆက္ဆံေရးတိုးခ်ဲ႕သြားမည္ ေျပာေၾကာင္း အစိုးရသတင္းစာက ေဖာ္ျပသည္။
က်ာခ်င့္လင္သည္ တ႐ုတ္ႏိုင္ငံတြင္ သမၼတ၊ ဝန္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ႏွင့္ ျပည္သူ႔ႏိုင္ငံေရးအတိုင္ပင္ခံ ကြန္ဖရင့္ဥကၠ႒ၿပီးလွ်င္ စတုတၳအေရးအပါဆံုး ပုဂၢိဳလ္ျဖစ္ၿပီး ႏွစ္ႏိုင္ငံ နယ္စပ္တည္ၿငိမ္ေရး ကိစၥရပ္မ်ားလည္း အေလးထား ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကေၾကာင္း တ႐ုတ္-ျမန္မာ နယ္စပ္ အကဲခတ္ ဦးေအာင္ေက်ာ္ေဇာက ေျပာသည္။
Ref:
http://www.mizzimaburmese.com/news/business/7346-2011-04-05-13-39-59.html
ကိုဝိုင္း | အဂၤါေန႔၊ ဧၿပီလ ၀၅ ရက္ ၂၀၁၁ ခုႏွစ္ ၂၀ နာရီ ၀၃ မိနစ္
ခ်င္းမိုင္ (မဇၥ်ိမ) ။ ။ တႏွစ္လွ်င္ ေရနံစိမ္းတန္ခ်ိန္ ၅ သန္းခ်က္ႏိုင္မည့္ ေရနံခ်က္စက္႐ုံႏွင့္ ဓာတ္ဆီႏွင့္ ေရနံဓာတ္ေငြ႔ရည္ ျဖန္႔ျဖဴးေရးဌာနမ်ား တည္ေဆာက္မည့္ စီမံကိန္းအတြက္ တ႐ုတ္ႏိုင္ငံႏွင့္ ျမန္မာစစ္တပ္ပုိင္ ဦးပိုင္ကုမၸဏီတို႔ သက္တမ္းတိုးစာခ်ဳပ္ တနလၤာေန႔က လက္မွတ္ထုိးသည္။
ဦးသိန္းစိန္ အစိုးရသစ္ကို အာဏာလႊဲၿပီးေနာက္ ပထမဆံုးေရာက္ရွိလာေသာ ႏိုင္ငံျခားဧည့္သည္ေတာ္ တ႐ုတ္ကြန္ျမဴနစ္ပါတီ ဗဟိုေကာ္မတီ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဗ်ဴ႐ို အၿမဲတမ္းေကာ္မတီဝင္ က်ာခ်င့္လင္ ခရီးစဥ္အတြင္း Guandong Zhenrong Energy ကုမၸဏီ ဥကၠ႒ Xiong Shohui ႏွင့္ စီးပြားေရးဦးပိုင္လီမိတက္၏ အႀကီးအကဲသစ္ ဗိုလ္မႉးခ်ဳပ္ ဇာနည္ဝင္းတို႔ ေနျပည္ေတာ္တြင္ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးၾကသည္။
ထို႔အျပင္ တ႐ုတ္ယြမ္ေငြ ဘီလ်ံ ၃ဝ (ေဒၚလာ ၄.၅ ဘီလ်ံ) အတိုးမဲ့ေခ်း ေငြမွ “ပထမအသုတ္” ေခ်းေငြသေဘာတူစာခ်ဳပ္ကို ဘ႑ာ/အခြန္ ဝန္ၾကီးဌာန ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံျခားကုန္သြယ္မႈဘဏ္ ဦးေဆာင္ညႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉးႏွင့္ တ႐ုတ္အစိုးရ သြင္းကုန္/ထုတ္ကုန္ဘဏ္ ဥကၠ႒ တို႔ လက္မွတ္ထိုးၾကသည္ဟု အဂၤါေန႔ထုတ္ ႏိုင္ငံပိုင္ ျမန္မာ့အလင္းသတင္းစာတြင္ ေဖာ္ျပထားသည္။
တ႐ုတ္က ခ်င္းတြင္းျမစ္အေနာက္ဖက္ရွိ စပယ္ေတာင္၊ စပယ္ေတာင္ (ေတာင္) ႏွင့္ ေၾကးစင္ေတာင္ သတၱဳ တြင္းမ်ားမွ ေၾကးနီထုတ္လုပ္မႈမွ အခ်ိဳးက် ရယူရန္လည္း သေဘာတူညီခဲ့ၾကသည္။
တ႐ုတ္ႏုိင္ငံသည္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအတြင္း အေမရိကန္ေဒၚလာ သန္း ႐ွစ္ေထာင္ေက်ာ္အထိ ရင္းႏွီးျမႇဳပ္ႏွံထားၿပီး ေဒၚလာသန္း ငါးေထာင္တန္ ေရအားလွ်ပ္စစ္ စီမံကိန္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ေဒၚလာ သန္း ႏွစ္ေထာင္ခန္႔ တန္သည့္ ေရနံႏွင့္ သဘာဝဓာတ္ေငြ႔ လုပ္ငန္းမ်ား ပါဝင္သည္။
ဦးသိန္းစိန္၊ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ဥကၠ႒ သူရဦးေရႊမန္း၊ ျပည္ေထာင္စုလႊတ္ေတာ္ နာယက ဦးခင္ေအာင္ျမင့္၊ ဝန္ၾကီးမ်ားႏွင့္ ေနျပည္ေတာ္၌ သီးျခားေတြ႔ဆံုစဥ္ တ႐ုတ္ကြန္ျမဴနစ္ပါတီ ဗဟိုေကာ္မတီဝင္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဗ်ဴ႐ို အၿမဲတမ္းေကာ္မတီဝင္ႏွင့္ အမ်ဳိးသားေကာ္မတီ ဥကၠ႒ က်ာခ်င့္လင္က ႏွစ္ႏိုင္ငံ ဆက္ဆံေရးတိုးခ်ဲ႕သြားမည္ ေျပာေၾကာင္း အစိုးရသတင္းစာက ေဖာ္ျပသည္။
က်ာခ်င့္လင္သည္ တ႐ုတ္ႏိုင္ငံတြင္ သမၼတ၊ ဝန္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ႏွင့္ ျပည္သူ႔ႏိုင္ငံေရးအတိုင္ပင္ခံ ကြန္ဖရင့္ဥကၠ႒ၿပီးလွ်င္ စတုတၳအေရးအပါဆံုး ပုဂၢိဳလ္ျဖစ္ၿပီး ႏွစ္ႏိုင္ငံ နယ္စပ္တည္ၿငိမ္ေရး ကိစၥရပ္မ်ားလည္း အေလးထား ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကေၾကာင္း တ႐ုတ္-ျမန္မာ နယ္စပ္ အကဲခတ္ ဦးေအာင္ေက်ာ္ေဇာက ေျပာသည္။
Ref:
http://www.mizzimaburmese.com/news/business/7346-2011-04-05-13-39-59.html
Monday, April 4, 2011
China Urges Respect for New Burma Government
China Urges Respect for New Burma Government
March 31, 2011
Peter Simpson | Beijing
China has praised Burma’s new government for promoting democracy. Beijing denounced other countries for criticizing its close neighbor’s new administration, which was sworn in this week.
Offering China’s congratulations to the new Burma government, which took office Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu was quick to warn other countries not to meddle in its neighbor's internal affairs.
Jiang says Beijing disapproves of those countries which claim the new civilian-led parliament in Burma is merely the old, military-led government in a new guise.
She praised the new administration for what she calls promoting democracy.
The United States has been among the nations which have dismissed the transfer of authority in Burma as a sham. U.S. officials said Wednesday they will continue to push for what they describe as proper reform.
The U.S. and other critics claim that retired and serving military generals from the old government, together with technocrats, are maintaining their tight grip on power. The new president, Thein Sein, is a former general who gave up the uniform just last year to run in widely criticized elections.
China has close political, military and economic ties with Burma and has long been a staunch defender of its close ally.
It has been a strong supporter of the outgoing military government, which ruled Burma since 1988 in what they described as a "disciplined democracy." Burma has been under one form or another of military rule since 1962.
Spokeswoman Jiang Yu says the international community should respect Burma’s democratically elected government. And, she says it should help Burma to move along the path of economic growth and development.
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/southeast/China-Urges-Respect-for-New-Burma-Government-118979159.html
March 31, 2011
Peter Simpson | Beijing
China has praised Burma’s new government for promoting democracy. Beijing denounced other countries for criticizing its close neighbor’s new administration, which was sworn in this week.
Offering China’s congratulations to the new Burma government, which took office Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu was quick to warn other countries not to meddle in its neighbor's internal affairs.
Jiang says Beijing disapproves of those countries which claim the new civilian-led parliament in Burma is merely the old, military-led government in a new guise.
She praised the new administration for what she calls promoting democracy.
The United States has been among the nations which have dismissed the transfer of authority in Burma as a sham. U.S. officials said Wednesday they will continue to push for what they describe as proper reform.
The U.S. and other critics claim that retired and serving military generals from the old government, together with technocrats, are maintaining their tight grip on power. The new president, Thein Sein, is a former general who gave up the uniform just last year to run in widely criticized elections.
China has close political, military and economic ties with Burma and has long been a staunch defender of its close ally.
It has been a strong supporter of the outgoing military government, which ruled Burma since 1988 in what they described as a "disciplined democracy." Burma has been under one form or another of military rule since 1962.
Spokeswoman Jiang Yu says the international community should respect Burma’s democratically elected government. And, she says it should help Burma to move along the path of economic growth and development.
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/southeast/China-Urges-Respect-for-New-Burma-Government-118979159.html
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Derek J. Mitchell
Derek J. Mitchell
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian & Pacific Security Affairs
Derek J. Mitchell is Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. Until April 2009, Mr. Mitchell served as senior fellow and director for the Asia Division of the International Security Program (ISP), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), having joined the Center in January 2001. He concurrently served as director of the CSIS Southeast Asia Initiative, which was inaugurated in January 2008 and is the Center’s first dedicated program to the study of Southeast Asian affairs.
Mitchell was special assistant for Asian and Pacific affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1997 to 2001, when he served alternately as senior country director for China, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Hong Kong (2000–2001), director for regional security affairs (1998–2000), country director for Japan (1997–1998), and senior country director for the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore (1998–1999).
He was the principal author of the Department of Defense (DoD) 1998 East Asia Strategy Report. He received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Exceptional Public Service in January 2001.
Prior to joining DoD, Mitchell served as senior program officer for Asia and the former Soviet Union at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington, D.C. From 1993 to 1997, he developed the institute’s long-term approach to Asia and worked on democratic development programs in Armenia, Burma, Cambodia, Georgia, Pakistan, and Thailand. In 1989, he worked as an editor and reporter at the China Post on Taiwan. From 1986 to 1988, he served as assistant to the senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
Mitchell received a master of arts in law and diplomacy degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1991 and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in 1986. He studied Chinese language at Nanjing University in China and speaks Mandarin Chinese proficiently. He has authored numerous books, articles, and opinion pieces on Asian security affairs, and is coauthor of China: The Balance Sheet—What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower (Public Affairs, 2006), and China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities (Peterson Institute for International Economics Press, 2008).
Ref:
http://www.defense.gov/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=201
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian & Pacific Security Affairs
Derek J. Mitchell is Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. Until April 2009, Mr. Mitchell served as senior fellow and director for the Asia Division of the International Security Program (ISP), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), having joined the Center in January 2001. He concurrently served as director of the CSIS Southeast Asia Initiative, which was inaugurated in January 2008 and is the Center’s first dedicated program to the study of Southeast Asian affairs.
Mitchell was special assistant for Asian and Pacific affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1997 to 2001, when he served alternately as senior country director for China, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Hong Kong (2000–2001), director for regional security affairs (1998–2000), country director for Japan (1997–1998), and senior country director for the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore (1998–1999).
He was the principal author of the Department of Defense (DoD) 1998 East Asia Strategy Report. He received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Exceptional Public Service in January 2001.
Prior to joining DoD, Mitchell served as senior program officer for Asia and the former Soviet Union at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington, D.C. From 1993 to 1997, he developed the institute’s long-term approach to Asia and worked on democratic development programs in Armenia, Burma, Cambodia, Georgia, Pakistan, and Thailand. In 1989, he worked as an editor and reporter at the China Post on Taiwan. From 1986 to 1988, he served as assistant to the senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
Mitchell received a master of arts in law and diplomacy degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1991 and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in 1986. He studied Chinese language at Nanjing University in China and speaks Mandarin Chinese proficiently. He has authored numerous books, articles, and opinion pieces on Asian security affairs, and is coauthor of China: The Balance Sheet—What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower (Public Affairs, 2006), and China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities (Peterson Institute for International Economics Press, 2008).
Ref:
http://www.defense.gov/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=201
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ အေမရိကန္ အထူးကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔္မည္
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ အေမရိကန္ အထူးကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔္မည္
2011-04-02
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ မူဝါဒေရးရာ အထူးကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔ဖို႔ အေမရိကန္ အစိုးရက အသင့္ျဖစ္ေနၿပီလို႔ မေန႔က ထုတ္ေဝတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဆုိင္ရာ မူဝါဒေရးရာ စာေစာင္ျဖစ္တဲ့ Foreign Policy မဂၢဇင္းမွာ ေဖာ္ျပလိုက္ပါတယ္။
(Photo: AFP)
နယူးေယာက္ၿမိဳ႕၊ ကုလသမဂၢ ဌာနခ်ဳပ္တြင္ စက္တင္ဘာ ၂၃ ရက္က က်င္းပေသာ ၆၅ ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ ကုလသမဂၢ အေထြေထြ ညီလာခံ ဖြင့္ပြဲတြင္ အေမရိကန္သမတ ဘာရက္ခ္ အိုဘားမား မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာၾကားေနပံု ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ (Photo: AFP)
ဒီရာထူးအတြက္ အာရွနဲ႔ ပစိဖိတ္ေရးရာ ကာကြယ္ေရးဌာန ဒုတိယ လက္ေထာက္ဝန္ႀကီး Derek Michell ကို အေမရိကန္သမၼတ အိုဘားမားက ခန္႔အပ္ေတာ့မယ့္အေၾကာင္း သတင္းမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
အခု ခန္႔အပ္ဖို႔ ေရြးခ်ယ္ထားသူဟာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ သင့္ေတာ္သူတဦး ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ဝါရွင္တန္ အေျခစိုက္ ျမန္မာ့အေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈအဖြဲ႔ US Campaign for Burma က ဦးေအာင္ဒင္ က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“Derek Michell က လက္ရွိ ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာနမွာ ဒုလက္ေထာက္ ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီးေပါ့။ သူက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အေရးကိစၥကို ထဲထဲဝင္ဝင္ ပတ္သက္ခဲ့တာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ရွိေနပါၿပီ။ ဒီတာဝန္ မထမ္းေဆာင္ခင္က အေမရိကန္မွာ ထင္ရွားတဲ့ Think Thank အဖဲြ႔ျဖစ္တဲ့ Center for International Study and Stragegy မွာ အာရွတုိက္ေရးရာ တာဝန္ခံတေယာက္ ျဖစ္ခဲ့တာေပါ့။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အေၾကာင္းကို သူေကာင္းေကာင္း သိတယ္။ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ ကိစၥကိုလည္း အရမ္း စိတ္ဝင္စားတယ္။ ေနာက္ အခု ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာနမွာ တာဝန္ထမ္းေဆာင္ေတာ့လည္း အာရွနဲ႔ ပစိဖိတ္ ေဒသဆုိင္ရာဌာနမွာ အဓိကက်တဲ့ ပုဂၢိဳလ္တေယာက္ျဖစ္တယ္။ အခုလုိ သမၼတအုိဘားမားက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ မူဝါဒေရးရာ ညွိႏိႈင္းေရးမွဴး တာဝန္ ေပးမယ္ဆုိေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ကေတာ့ ႀကိဳဆုိပါတယ္”
ဒီရာထူးတာဝန္ဟာ ၂ဝဝ၈ ခုႏွစ္က ျပ႒ာန္းခဲ့တဲ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔မႈ ဥပေဒ Jade Act ရဲ႕ လိုအပ္ခ်က္တခု ျဖစ္ၿပီး အခုမွ ခန္႔အပ္ႏုိင္ေတာ့မွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔လည္း သတင္းမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
Ref:
http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/us-to-appoint-burma-special-envoy-04022011053918.html
2011-04-02
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ မူဝါဒေရးရာ အထူးကိုယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔ဖို႔ အေမရိကန္ အစိုးရက အသင့္ျဖစ္ေနၿပီလို႔ မေန႔က ထုတ္ေဝတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဆုိင္ရာ မူဝါဒေရးရာ စာေစာင္ျဖစ္တဲ့ Foreign Policy မဂၢဇင္းမွာ ေဖာ္ျပလိုက္ပါတယ္။
(Photo: AFP)
နယူးေယာက္ၿမိဳ႕၊ ကုလသမဂၢ ဌာနခ်ဳပ္တြင္ စက္တင္ဘာ ၂၃ ရက္က က်င္းပေသာ ၆၅ ႀကိမ္ေျမာက္ ကုလသမဂၢ အေထြေထြ ညီလာခံ ဖြင့္ပြဲတြင္ အေမရိကန္သမတ ဘာရက္ခ္ အိုဘားမား မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာၾကားေနပံု ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ (Photo: AFP)
ဒီရာထူးအတြက္ အာရွနဲ႔ ပစိဖိတ္ေရးရာ ကာကြယ္ေရးဌာန ဒုတိယ လက္ေထာက္ဝန္ႀကီး Derek Michell ကို အေမရိကန္သမၼတ အိုဘားမားက ခန္႔အပ္ေတာ့မယ့္အေၾကာင္း သတင္းမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
အခု ခန္႔အပ္ဖို႔ ေရြးခ်ယ္ထားသူဟာ ျမန္မာ့အေရးနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ သင့္ေတာ္သူတဦး ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ဝါရွင္တန္ အေျခစိုက္ ျမန္မာ့အေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈအဖြဲ႔ US Campaign for Burma က ဦးေအာင္ဒင္ က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“Derek Michell က လက္ရွိ ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာနမွာ ဒုလက္ေထာက္ ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီးေပါ့။ သူက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အေရးကိစၥကို ထဲထဲဝင္ဝင္ ပတ္သက္ခဲ့တာ ႏွစ္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာ ရွိေနပါၿပီ။ ဒီတာဝန္ မထမ္းေဆာင္ခင္က အေမရိကန္မွာ ထင္ရွားတဲ့ Think Thank အဖဲြ႔ျဖစ္တဲ့ Center for International Study and Stragegy မွာ အာရွတုိက္ေရးရာ တာဝန္ခံတေယာက္ ျဖစ္ခဲ့တာေပါ့။ ဒါေၾကာင့္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ အေၾကာင္းကို သူေကာင္းေကာင္း သိတယ္။ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ ကိစၥကိုလည္း အရမ္း စိတ္ဝင္စားတယ္။ ေနာက္ အခု ကာကြယ္ေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာနမွာ တာဝန္ထမ္းေဆာင္ေတာ့လည္း အာရွနဲ႔ ပစိဖိတ္ ေဒသဆုိင္ရာဌာနမွာ အဓိကက်တဲ့ ပုဂၢိဳလ္တေယာက္ျဖစ္တယ္။ အခုလုိ သမၼတအုိဘားမားက ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ မူဝါဒေရးရာ ညွိႏိႈင္းေရးမွဴး တာဝန္ ေပးမယ္ဆုိေတာ့ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ကေတာ့ ႀကိဳဆုိပါတယ္”
ဒီရာထူးတာဝန္ဟာ ၂ဝဝ၈ ခုႏွစ္က ျပ႒ာန္းခဲ့တဲ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔မႈ ဥပေဒ Jade Act ရဲ႕ လိုအပ္ခ်က္တခု ျဖစ္ၿပီး အခုမွ ခန္႔အပ္ႏုိင္ေတာ့မွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔လည္း သတင္းမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
Ref:
http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/us-to-appoint-burma-special-envoy-04022011053918.html
ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈ တုိးျမွင့္ေရး အေမရိကန္အမတ္မ်ား ေတာင္းဆုိ
ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈ တုိးျမွင့္ေရး အေမရိကန္အမတ္မ်ား ေတာင္းဆုိ
2011-04-01
အေမရိကန္အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ ခ်မွတ္ထားတဲ့ ျပစ္ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔ အေရးယူမႈေတြကုိ တုိးျမွင့္ဖုိ႔ လုိအပ္ေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူး ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တေယာက္ ခန္႔အပ္ဖုိ႔ ထင္ရွားတဲ့ အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ ၄ ဦးက အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ဟီလာရီ ကလင္တန္ထံ စာေရးၿပီး မတ္လ ၃၁ ရက္ မေန႔က ေတာင္းဆုိလုိက္ပါတယ္။
Photo: Courtesy of Sen. Mitch McConnell's Office
အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ ရီပတ္ဘလီကန္ အမတ္မ်ား၏ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ မစ္ခ်္ မက္ေကာနယ္လ္ ေဖေဖာ္ဝါရီ ၁၅ ရက္ေန႔က ျမန္မာ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ တယ္လီဖုန္း ဆက္ကာ စကားေျပာဆိုေနပံု ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
(Photo: Courtesy of Sen. Mitch McConnell's Office)
ဒါ့ျပင္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ေတြက ျမန္မာအစုိးရအေပၚ ဘဏ္လုပ္ငန္းဆုိင္ရာ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈေတြ တုိးျမွင့္ဖုိ႔ ေတာင္းဆုိထားၿပီး ျမန္မာအစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ သိသာထင္ရွားတဲ့ ဒီမုိကေရစီဆုိင္ရာ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ ျပဳလုပ္လာတဲ့ အထိ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈေတြကုိ ဆက္လက္ထားရွိဖုိ႔ မိမိတုိ႔ ဆႏၵရွိေၾကာင္း အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးထံ လက္မွတ္ေရးထုိး ေပးပုိ႔တဲ့စာမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
တဆက္တည္းမွာပဲ အခုလုိ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔ထားျခင္းအားျဖင့္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္နဲ႔ လက္တြဲကာ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈေတြ ပုိမုိ ထိေရာက္မႈရွိေအာင္ ေဆာင္႐ြက္ႏုိင္မွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔လည္း အဲဒီစာမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
ဒီေတာင္းဆုိခ်က္ဟာ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္တဲ့ အမ်ိဳးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ရဲ့ ရပ္တည္ခ်က္ကုိ ထင္ဟပ္ထားတာ ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔ ဝါရွင္တန္ၿမိဳ႕ေတာ္အေျခစုိက္ USBC ျမန္မာ့အေရး လႈပ္ရွား ေဆာင္႐ြက္မႈအဖြဲ႕ရဲ့ မူဝါဒေရးရာ ၫႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉး ဦးေအာင္ဒင္က ေျပာပါတယ္။
အခု စာေရးသားေတာင္းဆုိလုိက္ အမတ္ ၄ ဦးကေတာ့ အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ ရီပတ္ဘလီကန္ပါတီ လူနည္းစုေခါင္းေဆာင္ Mitch McConnell, ဆီးနိတ္လႊတ္ေတာ္ သဘာဝ ပတ္ဝန္းက်င္နဲ႔ ျပည္သူ႔လုပ္ငန္း ေကာ္မတီ ဥကၠ႒ Barbara Boxer, ဆီးနိတ္ စံုစမ္း ေထာက္လွမ္းေရး ေကာ္မတီ ဥကၠ႒ Dianne Feinstein နဲ႔ ရီပတ္ဘလီကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ Mark Kirk တုိ႔ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
Ref:
http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/lawmakers_ask_for_sanction_increase-04012011091800.html
2011-04-01
အေမရိကန္အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ ခ်မွတ္ထားတဲ့ ျပစ္ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔ အေရးယူမႈေတြကုိ တုိးျမွင့္ဖုိ႔ လုိအပ္ေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူး ကုိယ္စားလွယ္ တေယာက္ ခန္႔အပ္ဖုိ႔ ထင္ရွားတဲ့ အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ ၄ ဦးက အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ဟီလာရီ ကလင္တန္ထံ စာေရးၿပီး မတ္လ ၃၁ ရက္ မေန႔က ေတာင္းဆုိလုိက္ပါတယ္။
Photo: Courtesy of Sen. Mitch McConnell's Office
အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ ရီပတ္ဘလီကန္ အမတ္မ်ား၏ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ မစ္ခ်္ မက္ေကာနယ္လ္ ေဖေဖာ္ဝါရီ ၁၅ ရက္ေန႔က ျမန္မာ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ တယ္လီဖုန္း ဆက္ကာ စကားေျပာဆိုေနပံု ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
(Photo: Courtesy of Sen. Mitch McConnell's Office)
ဒါ့ျပင္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ေတြက ျမန္မာအစုိးရအေပၚ ဘဏ္လုပ္ငန္းဆုိင္ရာ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈေတြ တုိးျမွင့္ဖုိ႔ ေတာင္းဆုိထားၿပီး ျမန္မာအစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ သိသာထင္ရွားတဲ့ ဒီမုိကေရစီဆုိင္ရာ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ ျပဳလုပ္လာတဲ့ အထိ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈေတြကုိ ဆက္လက္ထားရွိဖုိ႔ မိမိတုိ႔ ဆႏၵရွိေၾကာင္း အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးထံ လက္မွတ္ေရးထုိး ေပးပုိ႔တဲ့စာမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
တဆက္တည္းမွာပဲ အခုလုိ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံဆုိင္ရာ အထူးကုိယ္စားလွယ္ ခန္႔ထားျခင္းအားျဖင့္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္နဲ႔ လက္တြဲကာ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈေတြ ပုိမုိ ထိေရာက္မႈရွိေအာင္ ေဆာင္႐ြက္ႏုိင္မွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔လည္း အဲဒီစာမွာ ေဖာ္ျပထားပါတယ္။
ဒီေတာင္းဆုိခ်က္ဟာ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ေခါင္းေဆာင္တဲ့ အမ်ိဳးသား ဒီမုိကေရစီအဖြဲ႕ခ်ဳပ္ရဲ့ ရပ္တည္ခ်က္ကုိ ထင္ဟပ္ထားတာ ျဖစ္တယ္လုိ႔ ဝါရွင္တန္ၿမိဳ႕ေတာ္အေျခစုိက္ USBC ျမန္မာ့အေရး လႈပ္ရွား ေဆာင္႐ြက္မႈအဖြဲ႕ရဲ့ မူဝါဒေရးရာ ၫႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉး ဦးေအာင္ဒင္က ေျပာပါတယ္။
အခု စာေရးသားေတာင္းဆုိလုိက္ အမတ္ ၄ ဦးကေတာ့ အေမရိကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္ ရီပတ္ဘလီကန္ပါတီ လူနည္းစုေခါင္းေဆာင္ Mitch McConnell, ဆီးနိတ္လႊတ္ေတာ္ သဘာဝ ပတ္ဝန္းက်င္နဲ႔ ျပည္သူ႔လုပ္ငန္း ေကာ္မတီ ဥကၠ႒ Barbara Boxer, ဆီးနိတ္ စံုစမ္း ေထာက္လွမ္းေရး ေကာ္မတီ ဥကၠ႒ Dianne Feinstein နဲ႔ ရီပတ္ဘလီကန္ အထက္လႊတ္ေတာ္အမတ္ Mark Kirk တုိ႔ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
Ref:
http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/lawmakers_ask_for_sanction_increase-04012011091800.html
Friday, April 1, 2011
ျမန္မာအစုိးရသစ္ကုိ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈမ်ား တုိးျမွင့္ဖုိ႔ ၿဗိတိသွ် ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ေျပာၾကား
ျမန္မာအစုိးရသစ္ကုိ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔မႈမ်ား တုိးျမွင့္ဖုိ႔ ၿဗိတိသွ် ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ေျပာၾကား
2011-04-01
ျမန္မာအစုိးရသစ္ကုိ အသိအမွတ္မျပဳပဲ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔ အေရးယူမႈေတြ တုိးျမွင့္ခ်မွတ္ဖုိ႔ လုိအပ္တယ္လုိ႔ ၿဗိတိန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ဝီလ်မ္ဟိတ္က မတ္လ ၃၁ မေန႔က ေျပာၾကားလုိက္ပါတယ္။
လန္ဒန္ၿမိဳ႕က ၿဗိတိန္ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရး ဝန္ႀကီးဌာနမွာ မေန႔က က်င္းပတဲ့ ၿဗိတိန္အစုိးရရဲ့ ၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ ႏုိင္ငံတကာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးနဲ႔ ဒီမုိကေရစီေရး ဆုိင္ရာ အစီရင္ခံစာ ထုတ္ျပန္ပြဲမွာ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရး ဝန္ႀကီး ဝီလ်မ္ဟိတ္က ခုလုိ ေျပာဆုိခဲ့တာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း အဲဒီအခမ္းအနား တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့တဲ့ Burma Campaign UK အဖြဲ႕က မဇုိရာဖန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။
“အဲဒီ မိန္႔ခြန္းထဲမွာေပါ့ေနာ္၊ အဓိက ေျပာသြားတာကေတာ့ ဒီ အခု အစိုးရသစ္ကိုေတာ့ သူတို႔ အသိအမွတ္ မျပဳဘူး ဆိုေတာ့ သူတို႔ ေျပာတယ္။ အာဏာရွင္ ျဖစ္ေနတုန္းပဲေပါ့ေနာ္။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ ဒီ အာဏာရွင္ေတြ သူတို႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္မႈေတြကို အဲဒါ အေရးယူ ေပးႏိုင္ဖို႔အတြက္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာရဲ့ စံုစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ တကယ္လိုအပ္ေၾကာင္း သူ အဲဒီမွာ ေျပာခဲ့ပါတယ္။”
“ၿပီးေတာ့ အခု ေလာေလာဆယ္ အီးယူဖက္က သူတို႔ ဒီ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး ေပၚလစီေပါ့ေနာ္၊ ဒီ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံကို ကိုင္တြယ္တဲ့ အခ်ိန္မွာ ဖိအားေပးမႈေတြ ပိုၿပီးေတာ့ လုပ္ႏိုင္ေအာင္ အီးယူကေနတဆင့္ အဲဒါ ၿဗိတိန္အစုိးရလည္း ႀကိဳးပမ္းေနတယ္လို႔ ကၽြန္မတို႔ သိရပါတယ္။”
ဒါ့ျပင္ ၿဗိတိန္အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ ဖိအားေပး ပိတ္ဆုိ႔အေရးယူမႈေတြ ထပ္မံတုိးျမွင့္ေရးကိစၥကုိတျခားအီးယူ ဥေရာပ သမဂၢ အဖြဲ႕ဝင္ႏုိ္င္ငံအမ်ားစုက ေထာက္ခံ အားေပး ေဆာင္႐ြက္လာေအာင္ တြန္းအားေပး ေဆာင္႐ြက္သြားဖုိ႔ ရွိတယ္လုိ႔ မဇုိရာဖန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။ ဒီအစီရင္ခံစာ ထုတ္ျပန္ပြဲမွာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္မႈ အေျခအေန ဆုိးဝါးေနတဲ့ ျမန္မာနဲ႔ အီရန္ႏုိင္ငံေတြအျပင္ အာဏာရွင္ အစုိးရဆန္႔က်င္ေရး လူထုလႈပ္ရွားမႈေတြ ေပၚေပါက္ေနတဲ့ အေရွ႕အလယ္ပုိင္းက ႏုိင္ငံေတြက အေျခအေနေတြကိုလည္း ၿဗိတိသွ် ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ဝီလ်မ္ဟိတ္က အေလးထား ေျပာဆုိသြားတယ္လုိ႔လည္း မဇုိရာဖန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။
“ဝီလ်မ္ ဟိတ္ကိုယ္တိုင္ သူ အမ်ားဆံုး ေျပာေနတာကေတာ့ အီရန္ရယ္၊ ျမန္မာျပည္ရယ္ အဲဒီ ႏွစ္ခုကို သူ ခဏခဏ ေျပာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ့ အျခားႏိုင္ငံေတြ ဆိုရင္ လစ္ဗ်ားတို႔ေပါ့ေနာ္၊ ၿပီးေတာ့ ယီမင္၊ ဘာရိန္း၊ အခုေလာေလာဆယ္ အေရွ႕အလယ္ပိုင္း ေဒသမွာ ရွိေနတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေတြအေၾကာင္း ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားလည္း သူေျပာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။”
“အခုေလာေလာဆယ္ ၿဗိတိသွ် အစိုးရရဲ့ ဒီ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး မူဝါဒေပါ့ေနာ္၊ ျမန္မာျပည္အေပၚမွာ သူတို႔ရဲ့ မူဝါဒကေတာ့ အင္မတန္ကို ေကာင္းတယ္လို႔ ကၽြန္မ ျမင္တယ္ေလ။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ ကၽြန္မတို႔ကေတာ့ ၿဗိတိသွ် အစိုးရကို အင္မတန္ကို ႀကိဳဆိုပါတယ္။ ဒီလိုမ်ိဳး သေဘာထား ရွိတဲ့အတြက္ေၾကာင့္ေပါ့ေနာ္။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ အျခား ႏိုင္ငံေတြလည္း ဒီလိုမ်ိဳး ျဖစ္လာေအာင္ ကၽြန္မတို႔လည္း အီးယူမွာ lobby ေတြ၊ လႈပ္ရွားမႈေတြ ရွိေနတယ္ေပါ့ေနာ္။”
ဒီအစီရင္ခံစာထုတ္ျပန္ပြဲကုိ ၿဗိတိသွ် အစုိးရဌာနေတြက အရာရွိေတြ၊ AI ႏုိင္ငံတကာ လြတ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသာခြင့္အဖြဲ႕၊ Burma Campaign-UK အဖြဲ႕အပါအဝင္ ႏုိင္ငံတကာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈအဖြဲ႕ေတြ၊ သတင္းမီဒီယာေတြက ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြ စုစုေပါင္း လူ ၁၀၀ ေက်ာ္ေလာက္ တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့ၾကတယ္လုိ႔ သိရပါတယ္။
ဒီအစီအရင္ခံပါ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တဲ့ ေဖာ္ျပခ်က္ေတြ၊ ၿဗိတိသွ် ႏုိ္င္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးရဲ့ ေျပာၾကားခ်က္ေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လုိ႔ Burma Campaign UK အဖြဲ႕က မဇုိရာဖန္းကုိ RFA အဖြဲ႕သား ကုိေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ေအာင္က ဆက္သြယ္ ေမးျမန္း တင္ျပထားပါတယ္။
B0331KYA
Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.
2011-04-01
ျမန္မာအစုိးရသစ္ကုိ အသိအမွတ္မျပဳပဲ ပိတ္ဆုိ႔ အေရးယူမႈေတြ တုိးျမွင့္ခ်မွတ္ဖုိ႔ လုိအပ္တယ္လုိ႔ ၿဗိတိန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ဝီလ်မ္ဟိတ္က မတ္လ ၃၁ မေန႔က ေျပာၾကားလုိက္ပါတယ္။
လန္ဒန္ၿမိဳ႕က ၿဗိတိန္ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရး ဝန္ႀကီးဌာနမွာ မေန႔က က်င္းပတဲ့ ၿဗိတိန္အစုိးရရဲ့ ၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ ႏုိင္ငံတကာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရးနဲ႔ ဒီမုိကေရစီေရး ဆုိင္ရာ အစီရင္ခံစာ ထုတ္ျပန္ပြဲမွာ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရး ဝန္ႀကီး ဝီလ်မ္ဟိတ္က ခုလုိ ေျပာဆုိခဲ့တာ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း အဲဒီအခမ္းအနား တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့တဲ့ Burma Campaign UK အဖြဲ႕က မဇုိရာဖန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။
“အဲဒီ မိန္႔ခြန္းထဲမွာေပါ့ေနာ္၊ အဓိက ေျပာသြားတာကေတာ့ ဒီ အခု အစိုးရသစ္ကိုေတာ့ သူတို႔ အသိအမွတ္ မျပဳဘူး ဆိုေတာ့ သူတို႔ ေျပာတယ္။ အာဏာရွင္ ျဖစ္ေနတုန္းပဲေပါ့ေနာ္။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ ဒီ အာဏာရွင္ေတြ သူတို႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္မႈေတြကို အဲဒါ အေရးယူ ေပးႏိုင္ဖို႔အတြက္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာရဲ့ စံုစမ္းစစ္ေဆးေရး ေကာ္မရွင္ တကယ္လိုအပ္ေၾကာင္း သူ အဲဒီမွာ ေျပာခဲ့ပါတယ္။”
“ၿပီးေတာ့ အခု ေလာေလာဆယ္ အီးယူဖက္က သူတို႔ ဒီ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး ေပၚလစီေပါ့ေနာ္၊ ဒီ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံကို ကိုင္တြယ္တဲ့ အခ်ိန္မွာ ဖိအားေပးမႈေတြ ပိုၿပီးေတာ့ လုပ္ႏိုင္ေအာင္ အီးယူကေနတဆင့္ အဲဒါ ၿဗိတိန္အစုိးရလည္း ႀကိဳးပမ္းေနတယ္လို႔ ကၽြန္မတို႔ သိရပါတယ္။”
ဒါ့ျပင္ ၿဗိတိန္အစုိးရအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ ဖိအားေပး ပိတ္ဆုိ႔အေရးယူမႈေတြ ထပ္မံတုိးျမွင့္ေရးကိစၥကုိတျခားအီးယူ ဥေရာပ သမဂၢ အဖြဲ႕ဝင္ႏုိ္င္ငံအမ်ားစုက ေထာက္ခံ အားေပး ေဆာင္႐ြက္လာေအာင္ တြန္းအားေပး ေဆာင္႐ြက္သြားဖုိ႔ ရွိတယ္လုိ႔ မဇုိရာဖန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။ ဒီအစီရင္ခံစာ ထုတ္ျပန္ပြဲမွာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္မႈ အေျခအေန ဆုိးဝါးေနတဲ့ ျမန္မာနဲ႔ အီရန္ႏုိင္ငံေတြအျပင္ အာဏာရွင္ အစုိးရဆန္႔က်င္ေရး လူထုလႈပ္ရွားမႈေတြ ေပၚေပါက္ေနတဲ့ အေရွ႕အလယ္ပုိင္းက ႏုိင္ငံေတြက အေျခအေနေတြကိုလည္း ၿဗိတိသွ် ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီး ဝီလ်မ္ဟိတ္က အေလးထား ေျပာဆုိသြားတယ္လုိ႔လည္း မဇုိရာဖန္းက ေျပာပါတယ္။
“ဝီလ်မ္ ဟိတ္ကိုယ္တိုင္ သူ အမ်ားဆံုး ေျပာေနတာကေတာ့ အီရန္ရယ္၊ ျမန္မာျပည္ရယ္ အဲဒီ ႏွစ္ခုကို သူ ခဏခဏ ေျပာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ၿပီးေတာ့ အျခားႏိုင္ငံေတြ ဆိုရင္ လစ္ဗ်ားတို႔ေပါ့ေနာ္၊ ၿပီးေတာ့ ယီမင္၊ ဘာရိန္း၊ အခုေလာေလာဆယ္ အေရွ႕အလယ္ပိုင္း ေဒသမွာ ရွိေနတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေတြအေၾကာင္း ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားလည္း သူေျပာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။”
“အခုေလာေလာဆယ္ ၿဗိတိသွ် အစိုးရရဲ့ ဒီ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရး မူဝါဒေပါ့ေနာ္၊ ျမန္မာျပည္အေပၚမွာ သူတို႔ရဲ့ မူဝါဒကေတာ့ အင္မတန္ကို ေကာင္းတယ္လို႔ ကၽြန္မ ျမင္တယ္ေလ။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ ကၽြန္မတို႔ကေတာ့ ၿဗိတိသွ် အစိုးရကို အင္မတန္ကို ႀကိဳဆိုပါတယ္။ ဒီလိုမ်ိဳး သေဘာထား ရွိတဲ့အတြက္ေၾကာင့္ေပါ့ေနာ္။ အဲဒါေၾကာင့္ အျခား ႏိုင္ငံေတြလည္း ဒီလိုမ်ိဳး ျဖစ္လာေအာင္ ကၽြန္မတို႔လည္း အီးယူမွာ lobby ေတြ၊ လႈပ္ရွားမႈေတြ ရွိေနတယ္ေပါ့ေနာ္။”
ဒီအစီရင္ခံစာထုတ္ျပန္ပြဲကုိ ၿဗိတိသွ် အစုိးရဌာနေတြက အရာရွိေတြ၊ AI ႏုိင္ငံတကာ လြတ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသာခြင့္အဖြဲ႕၊ Burma Campaign-UK အဖြဲ႕အပါအဝင္ ႏုိင္ငံတကာ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး လႈပ္ရွားမႈအဖြဲ႕ေတြ၊ သတင္းမီဒီယာေတြက ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြ စုစုေပါင္း လူ ၁၀၀ ေက်ာ္ေလာက္ တက္ေရာက္ခဲ့ၾကတယ္လုိ႔ သိရပါတယ္။
ဒီအစီအရင္ခံပါ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တဲ့ ေဖာ္ျပခ်က္ေတြ၊ ၿဗိတိသွ် ႏုိ္င္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးရဲ့ ေျပာၾကားခ်က္ေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လုိ႔ Burma Campaign UK အဖြဲ႕က မဇုိရာဖန္းကုိ RFA အဖြဲ႕သား ကုိေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ေအာင္က ဆက္သြယ္ ေမးျမန္း တင္ျပထားပါတယ္။
B0331KYA
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Thursday, March 31, 2011
ျမန္မာအစိုးရသစ္အေပၚ အေမရိကန္နဲ႔ ကုလသမဂၢ တုံ႔ျပန္
ျမန္မာအစိုးရသစ္အေပၚ အေမရိကန္နဲ႔ ကုလသမဂၢ တုံ႔ျပန္
ဗုဒၶဟူး, 30 မတ္ 2011
By ဦးသားၫြန္႔ဦး
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ အရပ္ဘက္ အစိုးရသစ္ ဖဲြ႕လိုက္ၿပီ ဆိုေပမဲ့ ယူနီေဖာင္းခၽြတ္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေဟာင္းေတြက ဆက္ၿပီး အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ေနရာေတြ ယူထားတာမို႔ ႀကီးႀကီးမားမား အေျပာင္းအလဲ မဟုတ္ဘူးလို႔ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုက ယူဆထားပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့ ဒီေျပာင္းလဲမႈဟာ အမ်ားလက္ခံႏိုင္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြအတြက္ အစျပဳခ်က္တရပ္ ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ေတာ့ ကုလသမဂၢက တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ အျပည့္အစုံကုိ ကိုသားၫြန္႔ဦးက တင္ျပေပးထားပါတယ္။
ႏိုင္ငံအာဏာကို ႏွစ္အေတာ္ၾကာ ထိန္းထားခဲ့တဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ေအးခ်မ္းသာယာေရးနဲ႔ ဖံြ႕ၿဖိဳးေရး ေကာင္စီကေန အခု အရပ္ဘက္ အစိုးရသစ္ကို မေန႔က တရား၀င္ အာဏာလဲႊေျပာင္းလိုက္ၿပီ ဆိုေပမဲ့ အစိုးရသစ္ရဲ႕ အဓိက ေနရာေတြ၊ အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေတြအတြက္ စစ္အုပ္စုရဲ႕ ၾသဇာအာဏာ ဆက္ၿပီး သက္ေရာက္ေနတုန္းပဲလို႔ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုက ယူဆပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံေရး ဖိႏွိပ္မႈေတြ ဆက္ရိွေနတာေၾကာင့္ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ လုပ္ဖို႔လိုမယ္လို႔ အေမရိကန္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာန ေျပာခြင့္ရသူ မာ့ခ္ တုိနာ (Mark Toner) က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“အေျခခံအားျဖင့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြရဲ႕ အားနည္းခ်က္ေတြေၾကာင့္ အေရးပါတဲ့ စစ္ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေတြဟာ အခု အစိုးရ အဖဲြ႕အတြင္း ဆက္ၿပီး ၾသဇာလႊမ္းထားႏိုင္သလို အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေတြမွာ ပါ၀င္ေဆာင္ရြက္ႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ ဒီဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေတြဟာ စစ္ယူနီေဖာင္းခြ်တ္ၿပီး အရပ္၀တ္ ေျပာင္းထားတာပါ။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္း ႏိုင္ငံေရး ဖိႏွိပ္မႈေတြ ဆက္ရိွေနတဲ့ အေပၚမွာ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ စိုးရိမ္ေနတုန္းပါပဲ။
“ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားေတြကို လႊတ္ေပးဖို႔နဲ႔ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖဲြ႕ခ်ဳပ္၊ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုေတြနဲ႔ တိုင္းရင္းသား ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီေတြကို အသိအမွတ္ျပဳဖို႔ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြကို တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ အမ်ဳိးသား ျပန္လည္သင့္ျမတ္ေရးရဲ႕ ပထမအဆင့္အျဖစ္ အဲဒီ အင္အားစုေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုညိႇႏိႈင္းမႈေတြ စလုပ္ဖို႔ တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။”
အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ လက္ရိွ က်င့္သံုးေနတဲ့ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔ ဖိအားေပးတဲ့ နည္းကိုေရာ အစိုးရသစ္နဲ႔ ထိစပ္ဆက္ဆံတဲ့ မူ၀ါဒကိုပါ ခ်ဥ္းကပ္မႈ ၂ မ်ဳိးစလံုး ဆက္က်င့္သံုးသြားမယ္လို႔ ဆိုပါတယ္။
ကုလသမဂၢ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္ကေတာ့ အခုလို အရပ္ဘက္ အစိုးရဘက္ကုိ အာဏာလဲႊေျပာင္းမႈကို အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ စႏိုင္တဲ့ အခြင့္အလမ္းအျဖစ္ ဆုပ္ကိုင္ဖို႔ လိုမယ္လို႔ တုိက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ ဒီကေန အမ်ားလက္ခံႏိုင္တဲ့ စနစ္တရပ္ ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ လုပ္သြားဖို႔ ကုလသမဂၢ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္႐ံုး ေျပာခြင့္ရသူ ဖာဟန္ ဟာ့က္ (Farhan Haq) က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“ႏွစ္ ၅၀ နီးပါးၾကာတဲ့ စစ္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးကေန အေျပာင္းအလဲအတြက္ ေျခလွမ္းအစ ျဖစ္တယ္ဆိုတာ သက္ေသျပႏိုင္ဖို႔ ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြအတြက္ အခြင့္အလမ္းတရပ္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာလူထုအတြက္ ဒီလို ေဆာင္ရြက္ဖို႔လည္း ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြမွာ တာ၀န္ရိွပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြ အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ ရင္ဆိုင္ေနရတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေရးနဲ႔ လူမႈေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး ျပႆနာရပ္ေတြကို ထိထိေရာက္ေရာက္ ေျဖရွင္းႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ အမ်ားယံုၾကည္ လက္ခံႏိုင္တဲ့ စနစ္တရပ္ ျဖစ္လာေစဖို႔ လိုအပ္တဲ့ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြအတြက္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ အဖဲြ႕အစည္းေတြ အားလံုးနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုညိႇႏိႈင္းမႈေတြ လုပ္ရမယ္လို႔ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္က ယံုၾကည္ထားပါတယ္။
“ျမန္မာျပည္သူေတြ ႏွစ္ရွည္လၾကာ ေတာင့္တေနခဲ့တဲ့ အမ်ဳိးသား ျပန္လည္သင့္ျမတ္ေရးအတြက္ တိုင္းျပည္အတြင္း တည္တံ့တဲ့ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းမႈ၊ ဖံြ႕ၿဖိဳးမႈေတြ ရိွလာေစဖို႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ျဖစ္ထြန္းမႈေတြနဲ႔ လူ႕အခြင့္အေရး ေလးစားလိုက္နာမႈေတြ မျဖစ္မေန လိုအပ္ေနပါတယ္။”
ကုလသမဂၢ အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ အနာဂတ္မွာ တည္ၿငိမ္ၿပီး ျပည့္၀တဲ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ျဖစ္လာေစေရးမွာ ႏိုင္ငံသားအားလံုး ပါ၀င္ႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ အေရးပါတဲ့ ပုဂၢိဳလ္အားလံုးနဲ႔ အတူတကြ လက္တဲြ ေဆာင္ရြက္သြားမယ္လို႔ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္႐ံုးက ထုတ္ျပန္ထားပါတယ္။
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/news/us-un-react-myanmar-new-gov-118959004.html
ဗုဒၶဟူး, 30 မတ္ 2011
By ဦးသားၫြန္႔ဦး
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ အရပ္ဘက္ အစိုးရသစ္ ဖဲြ႕လိုက္ၿပီ ဆိုေပမဲ့ ယူနီေဖာင္းခၽြတ္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေဟာင္းေတြက ဆက္ၿပီး အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ေနရာေတြ ယူထားတာမို႔ ႀကီးႀကီးမားမား အေျပာင္းအလဲ မဟုတ္ဘူးလို႔ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုက ယူဆထားပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့ ဒီေျပာင္းလဲမႈဟာ အမ်ားလက္ခံႏိုင္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြအတြက္ အစျပဳခ်က္တရပ္ ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ေတာ့ ကုလသမဂၢက တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ အျပည့္အစုံကုိ ကိုသားၫြန္႔ဦးက တင္ျပေပးထားပါတယ္။
ႏိုင္ငံအာဏာကို ႏွစ္အေတာ္ၾကာ ထိန္းထားခဲ့တဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ ေအးခ်မ္းသာယာေရးနဲ႔ ဖံြ႕ၿဖိဳးေရး ေကာင္စီကေန အခု အရပ္ဘက္ အစိုးရသစ္ကို မေန႔က တရား၀င္ အာဏာလဲႊေျပာင္းလိုက္ၿပီ ဆိုေပမဲ့ အစိုးရသစ္ရဲ႕ အဓိက ေနရာေတြ၊ အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေတြအတြက္ စစ္အုပ္စုရဲ႕ ၾသဇာအာဏာ ဆက္ၿပီး သက္ေရာက္ေနတုန္းပဲလို႔ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုက ယူဆပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံေရး ဖိႏွိပ္မႈေတြ ဆက္ရိွေနတာေၾကာင့္ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ လုပ္ဖို႔လိုမယ္လို႔ အေမရိကန္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာန ေျပာခြင့္ရသူ မာ့ခ္ တုိနာ (Mark Toner) က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“အေျခခံအားျဖင့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြရဲ႕ အားနည္းခ်က္ေတြေၾကာင့္ အေရးပါတဲ့ စစ္ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေတြဟာ အခု အစိုးရ အဖဲြ႕အတြင္း ဆက္ၿပီး ၾသဇာလႊမ္းထားႏိုင္သလို အေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ေတြမွာ ပါ၀င္ေဆာင္ရြက္ႏုိင္ပါတယ္။ ဒီဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးေတြဟာ စစ္ယူနီေဖာင္းခြ်တ္ၿပီး အရပ္၀တ္ ေျပာင္းထားတာပါ။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္း ႏိုင္ငံေရး ဖိႏွိပ္မႈေတြ ဆက္ရိွေနတဲ့ အေပၚမွာ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ စိုးရိမ္ေနတုန္းပါပဲ။
“ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားေတြကို လႊတ္ေပးဖို႔နဲ႔ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖဲြ႕ခ်ဳပ္၊ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုေတြနဲ႔ တိုင္းရင္းသား ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီေတြကို အသိအမွတ္ျပဳဖို႔ အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြကို တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ အမ်ဳိးသား ျပန္လည္သင့္ျမတ္ေရးရဲ႕ ပထမအဆင့္အျဖစ္ အဲဒီ အင္အားစုေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုညိႇႏိႈင္းမႈေတြ စလုပ္ဖို႔ တိုက္တြန္းပါတယ္။”
အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ လက္ရိွ က်င့္သံုးေနတဲ့ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔ ဖိအားေပးတဲ့ နည္းကိုေရာ အစိုးရသစ္နဲ႔ ထိစပ္ဆက္ဆံတဲ့ မူ၀ါဒကိုပါ ခ်ဥ္းကပ္မႈ ၂ မ်ဳိးစလံုး ဆက္က်င့္သံုးသြားမယ္လို႔ ဆိုပါတယ္။
ကုလသမဂၢ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္ကေတာ့ အခုလို အရပ္ဘက္ အစိုးရဘက္ကုိ အာဏာလဲႊေျပာင္းမႈကို အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ စႏိုင္တဲ့ အခြင့္အလမ္းအျဖစ္ ဆုပ္ကိုင္ဖို႔ လိုမယ္လို႔ တုိက္တြန္းပါတယ္။ ဒီကေန အမ်ားလက္ခံႏိုင္တဲ့ စနစ္တရပ္ ျဖစ္လာဖို႔ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ လုပ္သြားဖို႔ ကုလသမဂၢ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္႐ံုး ေျပာခြင့္ရသူ ဖာဟန္ ဟာ့က္ (Farhan Haq) က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“ႏွစ္ ၅၀ နီးပါးၾကာတဲ့ စစ္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးကေန အေျပာင္းအလဲအတြက္ ေျခလွမ္းအစ ျဖစ္တယ္ဆိုတာ သက္ေသျပႏိုင္ဖို႔ ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြအတြက္ အခြင့္အလမ္းတရပ္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာလူထုအတြက္ ဒီလို ေဆာင္ရြက္ဖို႔လည္း ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြမွာ တာ၀န္ရိွပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာအာဏာပိုင္ေတြ အေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ ရင္ဆိုင္ေနရတဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေရးနဲ႔ လူမႈေရး၊ စီးပြားေရး ျပႆနာရပ္ေတြကို ထိထိေရာက္ေရာက္ ေျဖရွင္းႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ အမ်ားယံုၾကည္ လက္ခံႏိုင္တဲ့ စနစ္တရပ္ ျဖစ္လာေစဖို႔ လိုအပ္တဲ့ ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြအတြက္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ အဖဲြ႕အစည္းေတြ အားလံုးနဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုညိႇႏိႈင္းမႈေတြ လုပ္ရမယ္လို႔ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္က ယံုၾကည္ထားပါတယ္။
“ျမန္မာျပည္သူေတြ ႏွစ္ရွည္လၾကာ ေတာင့္တေနခဲ့တဲ့ အမ်ဳိးသား ျပန္လည္သင့္ျမတ္ေရးအတြက္ တိုင္းျပည္အတြင္း တည္တံ့တဲ့ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းမႈ၊ ဖံြ႕ၿဖိဳးမႈေတြ ရိွလာေစဖို႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ျဖစ္ထြန္းမႈေတြနဲ႔ လူ႕အခြင့္အေရး ေလးစားလိုက္နာမႈေတြ မျဖစ္မေန လိုအပ္ေနပါတယ္။”
ကုလသမဂၢ အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ အနာဂတ္မွာ တည္ၿငိမ္ၿပီး ျပည့္၀တဲ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ျဖစ္လာေစေရးမွာ ႏိုင္ငံသားအားလံုး ပါ၀င္ႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ အေရးပါတဲ့ ပုဂၢိဳလ္အားလံုးနဲ႔ အတူတကြ လက္တဲြ ေဆာင္ရြက္သြားမယ္လို႔ အတြင္းေရးမွဴးခ်ဳပ္႐ံုးက ထုတ္ျပန္ထားပါတယ္။
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/news/us-un-react-myanmar-new-gov-118959004.html
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
စစ္မွန္တဲ့ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈ မရိွဘဲ အေမရိကန္ ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈ ႐ုပ္သိမ္းမည္မဟုတ္
စစ္မွန္တဲ့ ေျပာင္းလဲမႈ မရိွဘဲ အေမရိကန္ ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈ ႐ုပ္သိမ္းမည္မဟုတ္
တနလၤာ, 28 မတ္ 2011
By ဦးသားၫြန္႔ဦး
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရးအရ အေရးယူ ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈေတြကို ႐ုပ္သိမ္းေပးၾကဖို႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္း တိုက္တြန္းမႈတခ်ဳိ႕ ရိွေနေပမဲ့ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေရး ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ မေတြ႕ရမခ်င္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္ထားရိွမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ အေမရိကန္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာနက ေျပာပါတယ္။ အျပည့္အစုံကို စံုစမ္းေမးျမန္းထားတဲ့ ကိုသားၫြန္႔ဦးက တင္ျပေပးထားပါတယ္။
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕က အေမရိကန္သံ႐ံုး ယာယီတာ၀န္ခံနဲ႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီပါတီအခ်ဳိ႕ မေန႔က ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၿပီး ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈ ကိစၥေတြကို ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့လည္း အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ အေရးယူ ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈေတြကို ဆက္လုပ္သြားမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာနက ေျပာပါတယ္။
ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့အပတ္ ေသာၾကာေန႔ ျပည္ေထာင္စုလႊတ္ေတာ္အတြင္း ႏိုင္ငံတကာရဲ႕ စီးပြားေရး ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကၿပီး ဒီပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြဟာ အမ်ားျပည္သူေတြနဲ႔ တိုင္းျပည္ စီးပြားေရးကို ထိခိုက္ေစတယ္ဆိုၿပီး ျပည္ေထာင္စုလႊတ္ေတာ္က ဒီပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြကို ကန္႔ကြက္ေၾကာင္း ဆံုးျဖတ္ခဲ့ၾကပါတယ္။ လႊတ္ေတာ္ရဲ႕ ဒီဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ဟာ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈ လုပ္ထားတဲ့ ကာယကံရွင္ ႏိုင္ငံေတြ အေပၚမွာေတာ့ ၾသဇာသက္ေရာက္ႏိုင္မယ့္ အေျခအေန မရိွပါဘူး။
အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ မျဖစ္မခ်င္း အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္လုပ္သြားမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဌာနက ထုတ္ျပန္ပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာန အရာရိွတဦးက ဒီေၾကညာခ်က္ကို အခုလို ဖတ္ျပပါတယ္။
“ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀ိုင္းရဲ႕ စိုးရိမ္ပူပန္မႈေတြ အေပၚမွာ သိသာထင္ရွားတဲ့ အေရးယူ ေဆာင္ရြက္မႈေတြ လုပ္လာေရး အာဏာပိုင္ေတြကို ဖိအားေပးႏုိင္ဖို႔ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္လုပ္ထားမွာပါ။ တိုက္တြန္း ဖိအားေပးထားတဲ့ အထဲမွာေတာ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီေရး ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ လုပ္ဖို႔၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားေတြကို လႊတ္ေပးဖို႔နဲ႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုေတြ၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား အင္အားစုေတြနဲ႔ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးမႈေတြ စတင္လုပ္ႏုိင္ဖို႔ ဆိုတာေတြ ပါ၀င္ပါတယ္။”
အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ အခုလို အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔ထားသလိုပဲ တဘက္မွာ လာမယ့္ အစိုးရသစ္နဲ႔ ထိစပ္ ဆက္ဆံေရးမူကိုလည္း က်င့္သံုးသြားမယ္လို႔ ေၾကညာထားပါတယ္။ အေမရိကန္ရဲ႕ မူ၀ါဒေတြ ဘယ္ေလာက္ ထိေရာက္မႈ ရိွမရိွကိုလည္း သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြနဲ႔ မျပတ္ထိစပ္ ေဆြးေႏြးေနတယ္လို႔ ေျပာပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္လည္း မေန႔က သံ႐ံုး ယာယီတာ၀န္ခံနဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီေတြ ေတြ႕ဆံုမႈဟာ ဒီလုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ရဲ႕ အစိတ္အပိုင္း ျဖစ္တယ္လို႕ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာန အရာရိွက ေျပာပါတယ္။
“အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုရဲ႕ ပိတ္ဆို႔ အေရးယူမႈဟာ ဘယ္ေလာက္ ထိေရာက္သလဲ၊ ဘာေတြအေပၚ သက္ေရာက္မႈ ရိွေနသလဲဆိုတာ သိႏိုင္ဖို႔ အတိုက္အခံ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုေတြ၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား လူနည္းစုေတြ၊ ႏိုင္ငံတကာက ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြ အပါအ၀င္ ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးမွာ အဓိကက်သူေတြနဲ႔ ပံုမွန္ဆိုသလိုပဲ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးေလ့ ရိွပါတယ္။”
၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ၀င္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ပါတီေတြကေတာ့ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြကို ဖယ္ရွားေရးအတြက္ လႊတ္ေတာ္ထဲမွာ ေ၀ဖန္ ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကသလို သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ႏိုင္ငံေတြကို သီးျခား ပန္ၾကားခ်က္ေတြလည္း ထုတ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ သူတို႔အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈဟာ ရည္မွန္းသလို အေျပာင္းအလဲအတြက္ မထိေရာက္ဘူးလို႔ ျမင္တဲ့အေၾကာင္း မေန႔က အေမရိကန္ သံတမန္နဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုတဲ့အထဲ ပါ၀င္တဲ့ ျပည္ေထာင္စု ဒီမိုကေရစီပါတီ ဥကၠ႒ ကိုသိန္းတင္ေအာင္က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္က Sanction ဟာ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ထြန္းကားေရးနဲ႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈေတြ ကာကြယ္ေပးဖို႔ပဲ ရည္ရြယ္တာကုိး။ လူထုထိခုိက္ဖို႔လည္း မဟုတ္ဘူး၊ စစ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ထိခုိက္ဖို႔လည္း မဟုတ္ဘူးဆုိေတာ့ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ကိုက လြဲေနေတာ့ ဘာလုိ႔သုံးမလဲ၊ အဲဒါကို က်ေနာ္တုိ႔က ဆုိလိုတာပါ။ တခ်ဳိ႕မွာေတာ့ ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေရးအရ ေငြေရး ေၾကးေရး ထိခုိက္မႈ ရွိေပမဲ့ သူတုိ႔က ဆင္ပိန္ကၽြဲေပါ့ဗ်ာ။ အဲဒီလို ထိခုိက္ေပမဲ့လည္း ဒီမုိကေရစီ ခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈေတြက ေလ်ာ့မသြားဘူးေလ။ ဒီမုိကေရစီကို ျမႇင့္တင္ေရးေတြက အေကာင္အထည္ ေပၚမလာဘူး။”
အဓိက အတိုက္အခံ ဒီမိုကေရစီပါတီႀကီး ျဖစ္တဲ့ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖဲြ႕ခ်ဳပ္ကေတာ့ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြရဲ႕ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ သူတို႔ရဲ႕ သေဘာထားကို တရား၀င္ ထုတ္ျပန္ၿပီးသားပါ။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ စီးပြားေရး ခြ်တ္ၿခံဳက်မႈဟာ အေနာက္ႏုိင္ငံေတြရဲ႕ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြေၾကာင့္ မဟုတ္ဘဲ အစိုးရရဲ႕ စီမံခန္႕ခဲြမႈ ညံ့ဖ်င္းမႈေၾကာင့္သာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ အျပစ္တင္ပါတယ္။ ဒါ့အျပင္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံထဲ လူ႕အခြင့္အေရး အေျခအေန တိုးတက္မႈေတြ မရိွတာေၾကာင့္ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္ထားသင့္တယ္လို႔ သံုးသပ္ထားပါတယ္။
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/news/burma-us-sanction-118814794.html
တနလၤာ, 28 မတ္ 2011
By ဦးသားၫြန္႔ဦး
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရးအရ အေရးယူ ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈေတြကို ႐ုပ္သိမ္းေပးၾကဖို႔ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္း တိုက္တြန္းမႈတခ်ဳိ႕ ရိွေနေပမဲ့ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ ႏိုင္ငံေရး ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ မေတြ႕ရမခ်င္း ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္ထားရိွမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ အေမရိကန္ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာနက ေျပာပါတယ္။ အျပည့္အစုံကို စံုစမ္းေမးျမန္းထားတဲ့ ကိုသားၫြန္႔ဦးက တင္ျပေပးထားပါတယ္။
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕က အေမရိကန္သံ႐ံုး ယာယီတာ၀န္ခံနဲ႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီပါတီအခ်ဳိ႕ မေန႔က ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၿပီး ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈ ကိစၥေတြကို ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမဲ့လည္း အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံအေပၚ အေရးယူ ဒဏ္ခတ္မႈေတြကို ဆက္လုပ္သြားမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာနက ေျပာပါတယ္။
ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့အပတ္ ေသာၾကာေန႔ ျပည္ေထာင္စုလႊတ္ေတာ္အတြင္း ႏိုင္ငံတကာရဲ႕ စီးပြားေရး ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကၿပီး ဒီပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြဟာ အမ်ားျပည္သူေတြနဲ႔ တိုင္းျပည္ စီးပြားေရးကို ထိခိုက္ေစတယ္ဆိုၿပီး ျပည္ေထာင္စုလႊတ္ေတာ္က ဒီပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြကို ကန္႔ကြက္ေၾကာင္း ဆံုးျဖတ္ခဲ့ၾကပါတယ္။ လႊတ္ေတာ္ရဲ႕ ဒီဆံုးျဖတ္ခ်က္ဟာ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈ လုပ္ထားတဲ့ ကာယကံရွင္ ႏိုင္ငံေတြ အေပၚမွာေတာ့ ၾသဇာသက္ေရာက္ႏိုင္မယ့္ အေျခအေန မရိွပါဘူး။
အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ အေျပာင္းအလဲေတြ မျဖစ္မခ်င္း အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္လုပ္သြားမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ အေမရိကန္ ႏုိင္ငံျခားေရးဌာနက ထုတ္ျပန္ပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာန အရာရိွတဦးက ဒီေၾကညာခ်က္ကို အခုလို ဖတ္ျပပါတယ္။
“ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ အသိုင္းအ၀ိုင္းရဲ႕ စိုးရိမ္ပူပန္မႈေတြ အေပၚမွာ သိသာထင္ရွားတဲ့ အေရးယူ ေဆာင္ရြက္မႈေတြ လုပ္လာေရး အာဏာပိုင္ေတြကို ဖိအားေပးႏုိင္ဖို႔ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္လုပ္ထားမွာပါ။ တိုက္တြန္း ဖိအားေပးထားတဲ့ အထဲမွာေတာ့ ဒီမိုကေရစီေရး ျပဳျပင္ေျပာင္းလဲမႈေတြ လုပ္ဖို႔၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားေတြကို လႊတ္ေပးဖို႔နဲ႔ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုေတြ၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား အင္အားစုေတြနဲ႔ စစ္မွန္တဲ့ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးမႈေတြ စတင္လုပ္ႏုိင္ဖို႔ ဆိုတာေတြ ပါ၀င္ပါတယ္။”
အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စု အေနနဲ႔ အခုလို အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔ထားသလိုပဲ တဘက္မွာ လာမယ့္ အစိုးရသစ္နဲ႔ ထိစပ္ ဆက္ဆံေရးမူကိုလည္း က်င့္သံုးသြားမယ္လို႔ ေၾကညာထားပါတယ္။ အေမရိကန္ရဲ႕ မူ၀ါဒေတြ ဘယ္ေလာက္ ထိေရာက္မႈ ရိွမရိွကိုလည္း သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြနဲ႔ မျပတ္ထိစပ္ ေဆြးေႏြးေနတယ္လို႔ ေျပာပါတယ္။ ဒါေၾကာင့္လည္း မေန႔က သံ႐ံုး ယာယီတာ၀န္ခံနဲ႔ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီေတြ ေတြ႕ဆံုမႈဟာ ဒီလုပ္ငန္းစဥ္ရဲ႕ အစိတ္အပိုင္း ျဖစ္တယ္လို႕ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရးဌာန အရာရိွက ေျပာပါတယ္။
“အေမရိကန္ျပည္ေထာင္စုရဲ႕ ပိတ္ဆို႔ အေရးယူမႈဟာ ဘယ္ေလာက္ ထိေရာက္သလဲ၊ ဘာေတြအေပၚ သက္ေရာက္မႈ ရိွေနသလဲဆိုတာ သိႏိုင္ဖို႔ အတိုက္အခံ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အင္အားစုေတြ၊ တိုင္းရင္းသား လူနည္းစုေတြ၊ ႏိုင္ငံတကာက ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေတြ အပါအ၀င္ ျမန္မာ့ႏုိင္ငံေရးမွာ အဓိကက်သူေတြနဲ႔ ပံုမွန္ဆိုသလိုပဲ ေတြ႕ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးေလ့ ရိွပါတယ္။”
၂၀၁၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပဲြ၀င္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ပါတီေတြကေတာ့ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြကို ဖယ္ရွားေရးအတြက္ လႊတ္ေတာ္ထဲမွာ ေ၀ဖန္ ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ၾကသလို သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ႏိုင္ငံေတြကို သီးျခား ပန္ၾကားခ်က္ေတြလည္း ထုတ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။ သူတို႔အေနနဲ႔ကေတာ့ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈဟာ ရည္မွန္းသလို အေျပာင္းအလဲအတြက္ မထိေရာက္ဘူးလို႔ ျမင္တဲ့အေၾကာင္း မေန႔က အေမရိကန္ သံတမန္နဲ႔ ေတြ႕ဆံုတဲ့အထဲ ပါ၀င္တဲ့ ျပည္ေထာင္စု ဒီမိုကေရစီပါတီ ဥကၠ႒ ကိုသိန္းတင္ေအာင္က ေျပာပါတယ္။
“က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္က Sanction ဟာ ဒီမိုကေရစီ ထြန္းကားေရးနဲ႔ လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး ခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈေတြ ကာကြယ္ေပးဖို႔ပဲ ရည္ရြယ္တာကုိး။ လူထုထိခုိက္ဖို႔လည္း မဟုတ္ဘူး၊ စစ္ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ထိခုိက္ဖို႔လည္း မဟုတ္ဘူးဆုိေတာ့ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ကိုက လြဲေနေတာ့ ဘာလုိ႔သုံးမလဲ၊ အဲဒါကို က်ေနာ္တုိ႔က ဆုိလိုတာပါ။ တခ်ဳိ႕မွာေတာ့ ပုဂၢိဳလ္ေရးအရ ေငြေရး ေၾကးေရး ထိခုိက္မႈ ရွိေပမဲ့ သူတုိ႔က ဆင္ပိန္ကၽြဲေပါ့ဗ်ာ။ အဲဒီလို ထိခုိက္ေပမဲ့လည္း ဒီမုိကေရစီ ခ်ဳိးေဖာက္မႈေတြက ေလ်ာ့မသြားဘူးေလ။ ဒီမုိကေရစီကို ျမႇင့္တင္ေရးေတြက အေကာင္အထည္ ေပၚမလာဘူး။”
အဓိက အတိုက္အခံ ဒီမိုကေရစီပါတီႀကီး ျဖစ္တဲ့ အမ်ဳိးသား ဒီမိုကေရစီ အဖဲြ႕ခ်ဳပ္ကေတာ့ အေနာက္ႏိုင္ငံေတြရဲ႕ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္လို႔ သူတို႔ရဲ႕ သေဘာထားကို တရား၀င္ ထုတ္ျပန္ၿပီးသားပါ။ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံ စီးပြားေရး ခြ်တ္ၿခံဳက်မႈဟာ အေနာက္ႏုိင္ငံေတြရဲ႕ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြေၾကာင့္ မဟုတ္ဘဲ အစိုးရရဲ႕ စီမံခန္႕ခဲြမႈ ညံ့ဖ်င္းမႈေၾကာင့္သာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ အျပစ္တင္ပါတယ္။ ဒါ့အျပင္ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံထဲ လူ႕အခြင့္အေရး အေျခအေန တိုးတက္မႈေတြ မရိွတာေၾကာင့္ အေရးယူ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြ ဆက္ထားသင့္တယ္လို႔ သံုးသပ္ထားပါတယ္။
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/burmese/news/burma-us-sanction-118814794.html
အေမရိကန္ သံ႐ံုးတာဝန္ခံက ပါတီအခ်ိဳ႕ႏွင့္ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔မႈ ကိစၥေဆြးေႏြး
အေမရိကန္ သံ႐ံုးတာဝန္ခံက ပါတီအခ်ိဳ႕ႏွင့္ စီးပြားေရးပိတ္ဆို႔မႈ ကိစၥေဆြးေႏြး
2011-03-28
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရးအရ ပိတ္ဆို႔ အေရးယူေရး ျပန္႐ုပ္သိမ္းဖို႔ တင္ျပထားတဲ့ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ ပါတီေတြကို အေမရိကန္သံ႐ံုးက ဒီကေန႔ မတ္လ ၂၈ ရက္မွာ ေတြ႕ဆံုၿပီး အခ်က္အလက္ေတြ ရယူခဲ့တယ္လို႔ စံုစမ္း သိရွိရပါတယ္။
ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့လအတြင္း ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ ၁၀ ပါတီက ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရး အရ ပိတ္ဆို႔ အေရးယူတာေတြကို ဖယ္ရွားဖို႔ ေတာင္းဆိုခဲ့တာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္နဲ႔႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး အေမရိကန္ သံ႐ံုး ယာယီတာဝန္ခံ မစၥတာ လယ္ရီဒင္းဂါးက ပါတီေတြကို ဒီကေန႔ မြန္းလြဲပိုင္းက ေနအိမ္မွာ ေတြ႕ဆံု ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့တာပါ။ ေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲကို တက္ေရာက္တဲ့ NDF ပါတီက ဦးခင္ေမာင္ေဆြက ခုလိုေျပာပါတယ္။
“Sanction ကို လႊတ္ဖို႔၊ ႐ုပ္သိမ္းဖို႔ လိုသလား မလိုသလား ဆိုတဲ့ အခ်က္ေလာက္ အနည္းငယ္ေလာက္ေပါ့ခင္ဗ်ာ။ သူတို႔ဖက္ကလည္းပဲ ျပန္ေျပာတာေတြ ရွိတာေပါ့။ ေလာေလာဆယ္ေတာ့ ႐ုပ္သိမ္းဖို႔ အေနအထား မရွိေသးဘူး၊ လက္ရွိအစိုးရနဲ႔ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ထိေတြ႕ ဆက္ဆံသြားဖို႔ sanction ကလည္း ဒီအတိုင္း ဆက္ရွိေနဦးမယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ သေဘာထားေတြကေတာ့ သူတို႔ အဆင့္ကေတာ့ ဘယ္ေျပာင္းႏိုင္မလဲဗ်ာ။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ ဒီဟာေတြကို ေလ့လာ သံုးသပ္ၿပီးတဲ့အခါ ခိုင္မာတဲ့ အေထာက္အထားေတြ ရွိရင္ေတာ့ ျပန္လည္ စဥ္းစားဖို႔ ျဖစ္ေကာင္း ျဖစ္လာႏိုင္တယ္ေပါ့ဗ်ာ။ ခုေနမွာ ဒီတိုင္းပဲေပါ့။ ဟိုသေဘာကေတာ့ဗ်ာ facts finding ေပါ့ဗ်ာ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီေတြရဲ့ သေဘာထားကေတာ့ သိေနၿပီေပါ့ဗ်ာ။ ဒီဟာေတြက ဘယ္ေလာက္ထိ ခိုင္ခိုင္မာမာ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔က ကိုယ္ယံုၾကည္ခ်က္ကို တည္ေဆာက္ထားသလဲ။ ဘယ္အေျခခံေပၚမွာ ေဆာက္ထားသလဲ ဆိုတာကို သိခ်င္တဲ့ အေျခအေနေလာက္ပါပဲ။”
အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူထားတာေတြကို လတ္တေလာ ဆက္လက္ ထားရွိဦးမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ဆိုပါတယ္။ အခုေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲဟာ အေမရိကန္ အေနနဲ႔ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ ပါတီေတြရဲ့ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈ ဖယ္ရွားေရး အဆိုအတြက္ အခ်က္အလက္ ရွာေဖြတာ ျဖစ္ၿပီး ဥေရာပႏုိင္ငံေတြက ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံအေပၚ ကန္႔သတ္ထားတဲ့ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္မႈ မရွိဘူးလို႔ သိရပါတယ္၊ ေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲဟာ တနာရီေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ ၾကာတယ္လို႔ သိရွိရပါတယ္။
Ref:
http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/us_embassy_finding_facts_over_sanction-03282011141716.html
2011-03-28
ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရးအရ ပိတ္ဆို႔ အေရးယူေရး ျပန္႐ုပ္သိမ္းဖို႔ တင္ျပထားတဲ့ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ ပါတီေတြကို အေမရိကန္သံ႐ံုးက ဒီကေန႔ မတ္လ ၂၈ ရက္မွာ ေတြ႕ဆံုၿပီး အခ်က္အလက္ေတြ ရယူခဲ့တယ္လို႔ စံုစမ္း သိရွိရပါတယ္။
ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့လအတြင္း ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ ၁၀ ပါတီက ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံအေပၚ စီးပြားေရး အရ ပိတ္ဆို႔ အေရးယူတာေတြကို ဖယ္ရွားဖို႔ ေတာင္းဆိုခဲ့တာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္နဲ႔႔ ပတ္သက္ၿပီး အေမရိကန္ သံ႐ံုး ယာယီတာဝန္ခံ မစၥတာ လယ္ရီဒင္းဂါးက ပါတီေတြကို ဒီကေန႔ မြန္းလြဲပိုင္းက ေနအိမ္မွာ ေတြ႕ဆံု ေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့တာပါ။ ေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲကို တက္ေရာက္တဲ့ NDF ပါတီက ဦးခင္ေမာင္ေဆြက ခုလိုေျပာပါတယ္။
“Sanction ကို လႊတ္ဖို႔၊ ႐ုပ္သိမ္းဖို႔ လိုသလား မလိုသလား ဆိုတဲ့ အခ်က္ေလာက္ အနည္းငယ္ေလာက္ေပါ့ခင္ဗ်ာ။ သူတို႔ဖက္ကလည္းပဲ ျပန္ေျပာတာေတြ ရွိတာေပါ့။ ေလာေလာဆယ္ေတာ့ ႐ုပ္သိမ္းဖို႔ အေနအထား မရွိေသးဘူး၊ လက္ရွိအစိုးရနဲ႔ ဆက္ၿပီးေတာ့ ထိေတြ႕ ဆက္ဆံသြားဖို႔ sanction ကလည္း ဒီအတိုင္း ဆက္ရွိေနဦးမယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ သေဘာထားေတြကေတာ့ သူတို႔ အဆင့္ကေတာ့ ဘယ္ေျပာင္းႏိုင္မလဲဗ်ာ။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ ဒီဟာေတြကို ေလ့လာ သံုးသပ္ၿပီးတဲ့အခါ ခိုင္မာတဲ့ အေထာက္အထားေတြ ရွိရင္ေတာ့ ျပန္လည္ စဥ္းစားဖို႔ ျဖစ္ေကာင္း ျဖစ္လာႏိုင္တယ္ေပါ့ဗ်ာ။ ခုေနမွာ ဒီတိုင္းပဲေပါ့။ ဟိုသေဘာကေတာ့ဗ်ာ facts finding ေပါ့ဗ်ာ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပါတီေတြရဲ့ သေဘာထားကေတာ့ သိေနၿပီေပါ့ဗ်ာ။ ဒီဟာေတြက ဘယ္ေလာက္ထိ ခိုင္ခိုင္မာမာ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔က ကိုယ္ယံုၾကည္ခ်က္ကို တည္ေဆာက္ထားသလဲ။ ဘယ္အေျခခံေပၚမွာ ေဆာက္ထားသလဲ ဆိုတာကို သိခ်င္တဲ့ အေျခအေနေလာက္ပါပဲ။”
အေမရိကန္ ျပည္ေထာင္စုအေနနဲ႔ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံအေပၚ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူထားတာေတြကို လတ္တေလာ ဆက္လက္ ထားရွိဦးမွာ ျဖစ္တယ္လို႔ ဆိုပါတယ္။ အခုေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲဟာ အေမရိကန္ အေနနဲ႔ ေ႐ြးေကာက္ပြဲဝင္ ပါတီေတြရဲ့ ပိတ္ဆို႔အေရးယူမႈ ဖယ္ရွားေရး အဆိုအတြက္ အခ်က္အလက္ ရွာေဖြတာ ျဖစ္ၿပီး ဥေရာပႏုိင္ငံေတြက ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံအေပၚ ကန္႔သတ္ထားတဲ့ ပိတ္ဆို႔မႈေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္မႈ မရွိဘူးလို႔ သိရပါတယ္၊ ေတြ႕ဆံုပြဲဟာ တနာရီေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ ၾကာတယ္လို႔ သိရွိရပါတယ္။
Ref:
http://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/us_embassy_finding_facts_over_sanction-03282011141716.html
Radioactive Plutonium Found in Soil Around Damaged Japanese Nuclear Plant
Radioactive Plutonium Found in Soil Around Damaged Japanese Nuclear Plant
March 28, 2011
VOA News
Officials say highly radioactive plutonium has been detected in the soil in five locations around Japan's earthquake-disabled nuclear reactor, adding to the problems faced by workers struggling to get the power plant under control.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO, that runs the Fukushima plant said late Monday it believed some of the plutonium came from nuclear fuel in the damaged reactors. But the company insisted the levels were not high enough to be considered a risk to human health.
The US embassy in Tokyo said the chief of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, was on his way to Japan Monday to assess the current situation. Jaczko said the NRC was ready to provide any assistance it can to ease the nuclear crisis.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday the situation at the nuclear station is still very serious.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said earlier Monday he suspected a partial meltdown of one of the Fukushima earthquake-disabled nuclear reactors was leading to pools of highly radioactive water that plant operators say have been found in trenches outside the plant's buildings.
Plant workers are caught between trying to pump uncontaminated water into the reactors to cool them so that they can fix the damage inside, and getting rid of the radioactive water.
Edano said the government's top priority was to prevent the contaminated water from seeping into the ground water system. He urged residents to stay away from the 20-kilometer evacuation zone as the area continued to be very risky.
Greenpeace called on the government to extend the evacuation zone, as their experts have found unsafe radiation levels 40 kilometers northwest of the plant.
Radioactive contamination has been spreading into the seawater and soil for the past two weeks, since the reactors' cooling systems were seriously damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The contaminated water appears to be leaking from the one of the damaged plant's reactors after having been in contact with melted-down fuel rods inside the reactor's core. The discovery is the latest setback for crews that have been battling fires, explosions and spikes in radioactivity in their efforts to repair the cooling systems.
More than 10,800 people have been confirmed dead since the quake and 16,200 are missing, according to national NHK television. It said 193,000 people are living in evacuation centers, down from about 300,000 last week.
TEPCO officials said Monday radiation levels in the leaked water were "extremely high". Company officials said they were continuing to monitor seawater for radioactivity, and that it would have to develop a plan to monitor radiation levels underground.
Edano said the water seems to be coming from inside the plant's pressure chamber where it has been exposed to melted-down fuel rods in the reactor's core. That would confirm suspicions that the reactor suffered at least a partial meltdown, and that water is escaping from the pressure chamber.
The power company said Monday that water found in a utility trench outside the number two reactor building was emitting radiation at a rate of more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour. Officials said that is about the same level as the water inside the building, which was reported Sunday to be 100,000 times higher than normal.
Two workers were taken to a hospital last week after suffering burns to their feet while wading in the radioactive water. Officials said Monday the workers were recuperating.
Radiation from the plant, which lost its cooling systems during the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, has also been detected in milk and vegetables in a wide area around the plant and in tap water as far away as Tokyo, 220 kilometers to the south.
Related video by Melinda Smith:
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Radioactive-Plutonium-Found-in-Soil-Around-Damaged-Japanese-Nuclear-Plant-118779069.html
March 28, 2011
VOA News
Officials say highly radioactive plutonium has been detected in the soil in five locations around Japan's earthquake-disabled nuclear reactor, adding to the problems faced by workers struggling to get the power plant under control.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, TEPCO, that runs the Fukushima plant said late Monday it believed some of the plutonium came from nuclear fuel in the damaged reactors. But the company insisted the levels were not high enough to be considered a risk to human health.
The US embassy in Tokyo said the chief of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, was on his way to Japan Monday to assess the current situation. Jaczko said the NRC was ready to provide any assistance it can to ease the nuclear crisis.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday the situation at the nuclear station is still very serious.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said earlier Monday he suspected a partial meltdown of one of the Fukushima earthquake-disabled nuclear reactors was leading to pools of highly radioactive water that plant operators say have been found in trenches outside the plant's buildings.
Plant workers are caught between trying to pump uncontaminated water into the reactors to cool them so that they can fix the damage inside, and getting rid of the radioactive water.
Edano said the government's top priority was to prevent the contaminated water from seeping into the ground water system. He urged residents to stay away from the 20-kilometer evacuation zone as the area continued to be very risky.
Greenpeace called on the government to extend the evacuation zone, as their experts have found unsafe radiation levels 40 kilometers northwest of the plant.
Radioactive contamination has been spreading into the seawater and soil for the past two weeks, since the reactors' cooling systems were seriously damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The contaminated water appears to be leaking from the one of the damaged plant's reactors after having been in contact with melted-down fuel rods inside the reactor's core. The discovery is the latest setback for crews that have been battling fires, explosions and spikes in radioactivity in their efforts to repair the cooling systems.
More than 10,800 people have been confirmed dead since the quake and 16,200 are missing, according to national NHK television. It said 193,000 people are living in evacuation centers, down from about 300,000 last week.
TEPCO officials said Monday radiation levels in the leaked water were "extremely high". Company officials said they were continuing to monitor seawater for radioactivity, and that it would have to develop a plan to monitor radiation levels underground.
Edano said the water seems to be coming from inside the plant's pressure chamber where it has been exposed to melted-down fuel rods in the reactor's core. That would confirm suspicions that the reactor suffered at least a partial meltdown, and that water is escaping from the pressure chamber.
The power company said Monday that water found in a utility trench outside the number two reactor building was emitting radiation at a rate of more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour. Officials said that is about the same level as the water inside the building, which was reported Sunday to be 100,000 times higher than normal.
Two workers were taken to a hospital last week after suffering burns to their feet while wading in the radioactive water. Officials said Monday the workers were recuperating.
Radiation from the plant, which lost its cooling systems during the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, has also been detected in milk and vegetables in a wide area around the plant and in tap water as far away as Tokyo, 220 kilometers to the south.
Related video by Melinda Smith:
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Radioactive-Plutonium-Found-in-Soil-Around-Damaged-Japanese-Nuclear-Plant-118779069.html
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Burma's Stubborn State How to Curtail the Military Junta By Michael Green
Burma's Stubborn State
How to Curtail the Military Junta
By Michael Green
November 23, 2010
Summary:
Although freeing Aung Suu Kyi may allow Burma’s military leaders to escape scrutiny for now, their budding nuclear ambitions could rejuvenate international interest in placing pressure on their regime.
MICHAEL GREEN is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served on the staff of the National Security Council from 2001–5.
In November 2007, Derek Mitchell and I published an essay in Foreign Affairs (“Asia’s Forgotten Crisis,” November/December 2007) arguing that U.S. policy toward Burma (renamed Myanmar by the country’s military junta) needed to move beyond the debate over whether to place sanctions on the country’s repressive military junta or engage it. We also asserted that Washington must form a comprehensive strategy that leverages regional relationships and uses a mix of incentives to nudge the isolated regime toward democracy.
Three years later, the junta has released the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the longtime inspirational leader of Burma’s democratic opposition who had been under some form of house arrest or detention for the last 14 years. Although the release of Suu Kyi has to be welcomed by her supporters worldwide, it falls far short of objectives set for Burma policy by the Obama administration and others in the international community. They sought not only Suu Kyi’s unconditional and permanent release but also the inclusion of the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities in Burma’s political process, as well as the establishment of international standards and monitoring for the country’s elections on November 7.
None of this happened. Meanwhile, the regime has opened a dangerous new path by partnering with North Korea to explore nuclear capabilities, a potentially explosive issue given recent revelations that Pyongyang has successfully moved forward with its own program for highly enriched uranium. Although freeing Suu Kyi may allow Burma’s leaders to escape scrutiny for now, their budding nuclear ambitions could rejuvenate international interest in placing pressure on their regime.
Suu Kyi was released in the wake of Burma’s early November elections, which solidified the rule of the regime’s Union Solidarity and Development Party. The international community rightly dismissed the elections as fraudulent. The election stuffed the legislature with former military men who had swapped their uniforms for suits. Burma’s constitution -- passed overwhelmingly in a referendum staged by the junta in 2009, while of the country dealt with severe flooding -- locks in a controlling share of the seats in the legislature for the military or their proxies and authorizes the generals still in the military command structure to declare martial law again at their own discretion. The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was disbanded pursuant to a new election law before the elections, and the ethnic minorities who refused to bow to the new law’s restrictions have come under renewed military assaults, causing thousands to flee into Bangladesh, China, and Thailand. The junta justifies its repressive measures against the democratic opposition as necessary to hold together the country’s fractured ethnic groups.
It was no coincidence that North Koreans led the election monitoring in Burma on November 7.
Some optimists have argued that Burmese politics might be moving, however gradually, in the right direction. Countries such as Indonesia and South Korea, they point out, began their own transitions to full democracy after their previously authoritarian regimes conducted less than perfect elections. By comparison, then, the release of Suu Kyi would be the junta’s signal to the world that it is willing to open more political space for different viewpoints within the country, albeit slowly.
But at this time, neither the Indonesian nor South Korean scenario is likely. The military leaders of Indonesia and South Korea actually intended to transform their countries into democracies, not reconsolidate their own rule. Civil society was allowed to mobilize in both countries, and the major opposition parties were not forced to disband by new election laws. Burma’s leader, Senior General Than Shwe, and his generals have no intention of following the Indonesian or South Korean model. It was no coincidence that North Koreans led the election monitoring in Burma on November 7.
Nor did Than Shwe free Suu Kyi to reconcile with the democratic opposition. The junta has released her before, only to re-arrest her or turn its thugs on her, as in 1996 and 2003, when political supporters of the regime attacked her motorcade. In negotiations prior to Burma’s elections this month, the Obama administration offered to relax sanctions in exchange for modest steps toward reconciliation with the opposition and ethnic minorities. U.S. negotiators came away with nothing. And despite Suu Kyi’s release, more than 2,000 other political prisoners continue to languish in prison.
page 2
These are not the actions of a regime interested in reconciliation with the democratic opposition. More likely, Than Shwe freed Suu Kyi to stave off a growing tide of international scrutiny related to his regime’s forged election results and suspected nuclear ambitions. The junta’s interest in nuclear weapons was revealed by defectors and internal sources in Burma, and nuclear experts validated their concern in a report to the UN Security Council this year (evidence to date points to Burma’s pursuit of capabilities from North Korea but not yet a major program). The regime probably also worries about movement at the United Nations for a commission of inquiry into its internal repression, particularly after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed support for such a commission while traveling in the region earlier this month. By releasing Suu Kyi with unclear conditions and duration, the regime encourages supporters in the West to argue that the international community should be patient with Burma’s apparent progress rather than levy new sanctions on the junta. Meanwhile, Burma’s neighbors, China and India, continue to vie for strategic access to Burma’s natural resources (especially natural gas) -- a rivalry that has undermined U.S.-led efforts to press for Burmese democratic reform.
The situation in Burma thus seems worse than it did when Derek Mitchell and I called on Washington to adopt a new approach to the country that would engage Burma and foster the formation of an international negotiation group composed of Burma’s neighbors, similar to the six-party talks set up to coordinate negotiations with North Korea. This group would create a package of incentives to reward reform and sanctions to punish continued repression and the pursuit of nuclear technology. We suggested that the Obama administration appoint a coordinator for Burma affairs to manage this group and help it establish benchmarks for measuring the regime’s behavior.
Although little of this has materialized, the Obama administration has tried to adopt some of these tracks. It intensified engagement with Burma based on a specific set of actions that the junta would need to follow in exchange for the relaxation of U.S.-specific sanctions and began the process by warning that U.S. sanctions might be increased if the regime were not forthcoming. The administration also sent envoys to explain its approach to Burma’s neighbors. Yet these disparate parts did not add up to a consistent or comprehensive strategy. The United States did not unite nations surrounding Burma in a negotiating coalition, nor did it successfully rally the international community to step in and pressure the junta should it undermine negotiations. The administration never appointed a Burma coordinator, despite the fact that the U.S. Congress passed legislation mandating the position. (I was nominated for the post at the end of the Bush administration, but it remains unfilled.) Finally, the Obama administration has not lived up to its promise of ramping up sanctions in the wake of Burmese intransigence. Although Obama’s direct diplomacy with the regime was skillful, it would have been bolstered by these other elements of a comprehensive strategic approach to the problem.
Nevertheless, opportunities to pressure Burma’s military leaders remain open. First, the junta may be mistaken in thinking that it could control the impact of Suu Kyi’s release. It has consistently underestimated her. In 1990, for instance, it permitted the National League for Democracy to participate in elections and watched as the party won a landslide victory (albeit quickly dismissed by the military). Since her release, Suu Kyi has carefully calibrated her public comments -- suggesting that efforts by the regime to engage her supporters could lead to the relaxation of international sanctions, but also standing by the principle that Burma must move toward real democracy. In so doing, she has seized the moral high ground both internationally and within Burma. The regime has not yet figured out how to suppress the hope that she engenders in the Burmese people.
Second, in its paranoid search for security, the regime may have made a drastic miscalculation. The United States may have difficulty organizing countries to sustain a campaign for democratic change in Burma, but Burma’s partnership with North Korea in its quest for nuclear technology will surely attract international attention. In March 2003, North Korean officials warned a George W. Bush administration delegation, of which I was a member, that they would transfer nuclear capabilities to other countries if there were not sufficient U.S. concessions (such as ending the U.S. nuclear umbrella over Japan and South Korea, withdrawing troops from Northeast Asia, providing economic aid, and recognizing Pyongyang as a nuclear weapons state). In September 2007, the Israeli air force bombed a reactor construction site in Syria that the CIA later said had been built with North Korean assistance. The North Korean nuclear connection to Burma has attracted the notice of credible proliferation experts reporting to the UN Security Council.
Than Shwe’s search for security from his own people may not have aroused sufficient international concern, but his pursuit of the bomb will. There is not yet clear evidence of any nuclear program or capability, but the evidence of intent is growing. If this newest crisis erupts as many expect, the United States will need to do a better job formulating a strategy that combines direct engagement with pressure and international diplomatic coordination. And in the midst of this storm will stand Suu Kyi, a courageous women backed by her countrymen and thousands more still under arrest. On her shoulders much of the hope for the people of Burma continues to rest.
Ref:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67014/michael-green/burmas-stubborn-state
How to Curtail the Military Junta
By Michael Green
November 23, 2010
Summary:
Although freeing Aung Suu Kyi may allow Burma’s military leaders to escape scrutiny for now, their budding nuclear ambitions could rejuvenate international interest in placing pressure on their regime.
MICHAEL GREEN is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served on the staff of the National Security Council from 2001–5.
In November 2007, Derek Mitchell and I published an essay in Foreign Affairs (“Asia’s Forgotten Crisis,” November/December 2007) arguing that U.S. policy toward Burma (renamed Myanmar by the country’s military junta) needed to move beyond the debate over whether to place sanctions on the country’s repressive military junta or engage it. We also asserted that Washington must form a comprehensive strategy that leverages regional relationships and uses a mix of incentives to nudge the isolated regime toward democracy.
Three years later, the junta has released the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the longtime inspirational leader of Burma’s democratic opposition who had been under some form of house arrest or detention for the last 14 years. Although the release of Suu Kyi has to be welcomed by her supporters worldwide, it falls far short of objectives set for Burma policy by the Obama administration and others in the international community. They sought not only Suu Kyi’s unconditional and permanent release but also the inclusion of the democratic opposition and ethnic minorities in Burma’s political process, as well as the establishment of international standards and monitoring for the country’s elections on November 7.
None of this happened. Meanwhile, the regime has opened a dangerous new path by partnering with North Korea to explore nuclear capabilities, a potentially explosive issue given recent revelations that Pyongyang has successfully moved forward with its own program for highly enriched uranium. Although freeing Suu Kyi may allow Burma’s leaders to escape scrutiny for now, their budding nuclear ambitions could rejuvenate international interest in placing pressure on their regime.
Suu Kyi was released in the wake of Burma’s early November elections, which solidified the rule of the regime’s Union Solidarity and Development Party. The international community rightly dismissed the elections as fraudulent. The election stuffed the legislature with former military men who had swapped their uniforms for suits. Burma’s constitution -- passed overwhelmingly in a referendum staged by the junta in 2009, while of the country dealt with severe flooding -- locks in a controlling share of the seats in the legislature for the military or their proxies and authorizes the generals still in the military command structure to declare martial law again at their own discretion. The main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was disbanded pursuant to a new election law before the elections, and the ethnic minorities who refused to bow to the new law’s restrictions have come under renewed military assaults, causing thousands to flee into Bangladesh, China, and Thailand. The junta justifies its repressive measures against the democratic opposition as necessary to hold together the country’s fractured ethnic groups.
It was no coincidence that North Koreans led the election monitoring in Burma on November 7.
Some optimists have argued that Burmese politics might be moving, however gradually, in the right direction. Countries such as Indonesia and South Korea, they point out, began their own transitions to full democracy after their previously authoritarian regimes conducted less than perfect elections. By comparison, then, the release of Suu Kyi would be the junta’s signal to the world that it is willing to open more political space for different viewpoints within the country, albeit slowly.
But at this time, neither the Indonesian nor South Korean scenario is likely. The military leaders of Indonesia and South Korea actually intended to transform their countries into democracies, not reconsolidate their own rule. Civil society was allowed to mobilize in both countries, and the major opposition parties were not forced to disband by new election laws. Burma’s leader, Senior General Than Shwe, and his generals have no intention of following the Indonesian or South Korean model. It was no coincidence that North Koreans led the election monitoring in Burma on November 7.
Nor did Than Shwe free Suu Kyi to reconcile with the democratic opposition. The junta has released her before, only to re-arrest her or turn its thugs on her, as in 1996 and 2003, when political supporters of the regime attacked her motorcade. In negotiations prior to Burma’s elections this month, the Obama administration offered to relax sanctions in exchange for modest steps toward reconciliation with the opposition and ethnic minorities. U.S. negotiators came away with nothing. And despite Suu Kyi’s release, more than 2,000 other political prisoners continue to languish in prison.
page 2
These are not the actions of a regime interested in reconciliation with the democratic opposition. More likely, Than Shwe freed Suu Kyi to stave off a growing tide of international scrutiny related to his regime’s forged election results and suspected nuclear ambitions. The junta’s interest in nuclear weapons was revealed by defectors and internal sources in Burma, and nuclear experts validated their concern in a report to the UN Security Council this year (evidence to date points to Burma’s pursuit of capabilities from North Korea but not yet a major program). The regime probably also worries about movement at the United Nations for a commission of inquiry into its internal repression, particularly after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed support for such a commission while traveling in the region earlier this month. By releasing Suu Kyi with unclear conditions and duration, the regime encourages supporters in the West to argue that the international community should be patient with Burma’s apparent progress rather than levy new sanctions on the junta. Meanwhile, Burma’s neighbors, China and India, continue to vie for strategic access to Burma’s natural resources (especially natural gas) -- a rivalry that has undermined U.S.-led efforts to press for Burmese democratic reform.
The situation in Burma thus seems worse than it did when Derek Mitchell and I called on Washington to adopt a new approach to the country that would engage Burma and foster the formation of an international negotiation group composed of Burma’s neighbors, similar to the six-party talks set up to coordinate negotiations with North Korea. This group would create a package of incentives to reward reform and sanctions to punish continued repression and the pursuit of nuclear technology. We suggested that the Obama administration appoint a coordinator for Burma affairs to manage this group and help it establish benchmarks for measuring the regime’s behavior.
Although little of this has materialized, the Obama administration has tried to adopt some of these tracks. It intensified engagement with Burma based on a specific set of actions that the junta would need to follow in exchange for the relaxation of U.S.-specific sanctions and began the process by warning that U.S. sanctions might be increased if the regime were not forthcoming. The administration also sent envoys to explain its approach to Burma’s neighbors. Yet these disparate parts did not add up to a consistent or comprehensive strategy. The United States did not unite nations surrounding Burma in a negotiating coalition, nor did it successfully rally the international community to step in and pressure the junta should it undermine negotiations. The administration never appointed a Burma coordinator, despite the fact that the U.S. Congress passed legislation mandating the position. (I was nominated for the post at the end of the Bush administration, but it remains unfilled.) Finally, the Obama administration has not lived up to its promise of ramping up sanctions in the wake of Burmese intransigence. Although Obama’s direct diplomacy with the regime was skillful, it would have been bolstered by these other elements of a comprehensive strategic approach to the problem.
Nevertheless, opportunities to pressure Burma’s military leaders remain open. First, the junta may be mistaken in thinking that it could control the impact of Suu Kyi’s release. It has consistently underestimated her. In 1990, for instance, it permitted the National League for Democracy to participate in elections and watched as the party won a landslide victory (albeit quickly dismissed by the military). Since her release, Suu Kyi has carefully calibrated her public comments -- suggesting that efforts by the regime to engage her supporters could lead to the relaxation of international sanctions, but also standing by the principle that Burma must move toward real democracy. In so doing, she has seized the moral high ground both internationally and within Burma. The regime has not yet figured out how to suppress the hope that she engenders in the Burmese people.
Second, in its paranoid search for security, the regime may have made a drastic miscalculation. The United States may have difficulty organizing countries to sustain a campaign for democratic change in Burma, but Burma’s partnership with North Korea in its quest for nuclear technology will surely attract international attention. In March 2003, North Korean officials warned a George W. Bush administration delegation, of which I was a member, that they would transfer nuclear capabilities to other countries if there were not sufficient U.S. concessions (such as ending the U.S. nuclear umbrella over Japan and South Korea, withdrawing troops from Northeast Asia, providing economic aid, and recognizing Pyongyang as a nuclear weapons state). In September 2007, the Israeli air force bombed a reactor construction site in Syria that the CIA later said had been built with North Korean assistance. The North Korean nuclear connection to Burma has attracted the notice of credible proliferation experts reporting to the UN Security Council.
Than Shwe’s search for security from his own people may not have aroused sufficient international concern, but his pursuit of the bomb will. There is not yet clear evidence of any nuclear program or capability, but the evidence of intent is growing. If this newest crisis erupts as many expect, the United States will need to do a better job formulating a strategy that combines direct engagement with pressure and international diplomatic coordination. And in the midst of this storm will stand Suu Kyi, a courageous women backed by her countrymen and thousands more still under arrest. On her shoulders much of the hope for the people of Burma continues to rest.
Ref:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67014/michael-green/burmas-stubborn-state
Friday, March 11, 2011
Quake and Tsunami Leave Wake of Destruction Across Northern Japan
Quake and Tsunami Leave Wake of Destruction Across Northern Japan
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: March 11, 2011
TOKYO — Rescuers struggled to reach survivors on Saturday morning as Japan reeled after an earthquake and a tsunami struck in deadly tandem. An 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, set off a devastating tsunami that sent walls of water washing over coastal cities in the north. Concerns mounted over possible radiation leaks from two nuclear plants near the earthquake zone.
The death toll was in the hundreds, but Japanese media quoted government officials as saying that it would almost certainly rise to more than 1,000. About 200 to 300 bodies were found along the waterline in Sendai, a port city in the northeastern part of the country and the closest major city to the epicenter.
Thousands of homes were destroyed, many roads were impassible, trains and buses were not running, and power and cellphones remained down in the region. Japanese officials on Saturday issued broad evacuation orders for people living in the vicinity of two separate nuclear power plants that had experienced breakdowns in their cooling systems as a result of the earthquake, and they warned that small amounts of radiation could leak from both plants.
While the loss of life and property may yet be considerable, many lives were certainly saved by Japan’s extensive disaster preparedness and strict construction codes. Japan’s economy was spared a more devastating blow because the earthquake hit far from its industrial heartland.
On Friday, at 2:46 p.m. Tokyo time, the quake struck. First came the roar and rumble of the temblor, shaking skyscrapers, toppling furniture and buckling highways. Then waves as high as 30 feet rushed onto shore, whisking away cars and carrying blazing buildings toward factories, fields and highways.
By Saturday morning, Japan was filled with scenes of desperation, as stranded survivors called for help and rescuers searched for people buried in the rubble. Kazushige Itabashi, an official in Natori City, one of the areas hit hardest by the tsunami, said that several districts in an area near Sendai airport had been annihilated.
Rescuers found 870 people in one elementary school on Saturday morning and were trying to reach 1,200 people in the junior high school, closer to the water. There was no electricity and no water for people in shelters. According to a newspaper, the Mainichi Shimbun, about 600 people were on the roof of a public grade school, in Sendai City. By Saturday morning, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and firefighters had evacuated about 150 of them.
On the rooftop of Chuo Hospital in the city of Iwanuma, doctors and nurses were waving white flags and pink umbrellas, according to TV Asahi. On the floor of the roof, they wrote “Help” in English, and “Food” in Japanese. The television reporter, observing the scene from a helicopter, said, “If anyone in the City Hall office is watching, please help them.”
The station also showed scenes of people stranded on a bridge, cut off by water on both sides near the mouth of the Abukuma River in Miyagi Prefecture.
People were frantically searching for their relatives. Fumiaki Yamato, 70, was in his second home in a mountain village outside of Sendai when the earthquake struck. He spoke from his car as he was driving toward Sendai trying to find the rest of his family. While it usually takes about an hour to drive to the city, parts of the road were impassible. “I’m getting worried,” he said as he pulled over to take a reporter’s call. “I don’t know how many hours it’s going to take.”
Japanese, accustomed to frequent earthquakes, were stunned by this one’s magnitude and the more than 100 aftershocks, many of them equivalent to major earthquakes.
“I never experienced such a strong earthquake in my life,” said Toshiaki Takahashi, 49, an official in the Sendai City Hall office. “I thought it would stop, but it just kept shaking and shaking, and getting stronger.”
Train service was shut down across central and northern Japan, including Tokyo, and air travel was severely disrupted.
................
Page 2
On Friday, television images showed waves of more than 12 feet roaring inland in Japan. The floodwaters, thick with floating debris shoved inland, pushed aside heavy trucks as if they were toys. The spectacle was all the more remarkable for being carried live on television, even as the waves engulfed flat farmland that offered no resistance. The tsunami could be seen scooping up every vessel in the ocean off Sendai, and churning everything inland. The gigantic wave swept up a ship carrying more than 100 people, Kyodo News reported.
Vasily V. Titov, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Tsunami Research, said that coastal areas closest to the center of the earthquake probably had about 15 to 30 minutes before the first wave of the tsunami struck. “It’s not very much time,” he said. “In Japan, the public is among the best educated in the world about earthquakes and tsunamis. But it’s still not enough time.”
Complicating the issue, he added, is that the flat terrain in the area would have made it difficult for people to reach higher, and thus safer, ground. On Friday, NHK television showed images of a huge fire sweeping across Kesennuma, a city of more than 70,000 people in the northeast. Whole blocks appeared to be ablaze. NHK also showed aerial images of columns of flame rising from an oil refinery and flood waters engulfing the Sendai airport, where survivors clustered on the roof. The runway was partly submerged. The refinery fire sent a plume of thick black smoke from blazing spherical storage tanks.
Even in Tokyo, far from the epicenter, the quake struck hard. William M. Tsutsui, a professor of Japanese business and economic history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was traveling in Tokyo with a business delegation when the ground began to shake. “What was scariest was to look up at the skyscrapers all around,” he said. “They were swaying like trees in the breeze.”
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the quake and tsunami caused major damage across wide areas.
The United States Geological Survey said the quake was the most severe worldwide since an 8.8-magnitude quake off the coast of Chile a little more than a year ago that killed more than 400. It was less powerful than the 9.1-magnitude quake that struck off Northern Sumatra in late 2004. That quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
The survey said that Friday’s quake was centered off the coast of Honshu, the most populous of the Japanese islands, at a point about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo and a depth of about 15 miles below the earth’s surface.
President Obama said the United States “stands ready to help” Japan deal with the aftermath. “Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the people of Japan,” he said in a statement. He later spoke with Mr. Kan and offered assistance.
American military airfields in Japan began accepting civilian flights diverted from airports that suffered damage, American officials said early Friday.
A spokesman for the American Seventh Fleet in Japan said that Naval Air Field Atsugi had received several commercial passenger planes that could not land at Narita airport outside Tokyo. Officials said that Yokota Air Base also received civilian flights. Three American warships in Southeast Asia will be ordered out to sea to reposition themselves in case they need to provide assistance, said a fleet spokesman.
The tsunami assaulted Hawaii with seven-foot waves, although it caused little damage. Powerful surges that hit the West Coast of the United States caused boats to sink in Santa Cruz harbor. The Coast Guard reported that one person was swept to sea near McKinleyville, Calif., while trying to take pictures of the waves, and a search had begun.
In Japan, the Tokyo subways emptied, and airports were closed. Many residents set off on epic journeys home, walking for miles across a vast metropolitan area. In a video posted on YouTube, rumbles shook a supermarket as shopkeepers rushed to steady toppling wares and a classical music soundtrack played.
On Twitter, a person who used the name sinonosama said that students at an agricultural high school in Miyagi Prefecture were fine, but had to take refuge on the third floor after the tsunami flooded the first two floors. The writer said the people there had wrapped themselves in blankets and curtains to keep warm.
The quake occurred in what is called a subduction zone, where one of the Earth’s tectonic plates is sliding beneath another. In this case, the Pacific plate is sliding beneath the North American plate at a rate of about three inches a year. The earthquake occurred at a depth of about 15 miles, which while relatively shallow by global standards is about normal for quakes in this zone, said Emily So, an engineer with the United States Geological Survey in Golden, Colo.
When such quakes set off a tsunami, the devastation often comes from a succession of waves, with the first few being relatively small. The waves can travel across oceans at speeds of 500 miles per hour or more.
...............
Reporting was contributed by Yasuko Kamiizumi from Tokyo; Ken Belson, Maria Newman and Henry Fountain from New York; Daniel Krieger from Osaka, Japan; Kevin Drew and Bettina Wassener from Hong Kong; Alan Cowell and Richard Berry from Paris; Michael Schwirtz from Moscow; Thom Shanker from Washington; Mike Hale from Honolulu; and Elisabeth Bumiller from Brussels.
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12japan.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: March 11, 2011
TOKYO — Rescuers struggled to reach survivors on Saturday morning as Japan reeled after an earthquake and a tsunami struck in deadly tandem. An 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, set off a devastating tsunami that sent walls of water washing over coastal cities in the north. Concerns mounted over possible radiation leaks from two nuclear plants near the earthquake zone.
The death toll was in the hundreds, but Japanese media quoted government officials as saying that it would almost certainly rise to more than 1,000. About 200 to 300 bodies were found along the waterline in Sendai, a port city in the northeastern part of the country and the closest major city to the epicenter.
Thousands of homes were destroyed, many roads were impassible, trains and buses were not running, and power and cellphones remained down in the region. Japanese officials on Saturday issued broad evacuation orders for people living in the vicinity of two separate nuclear power plants that had experienced breakdowns in their cooling systems as a result of the earthquake, and they warned that small amounts of radiation could leak from both plants.
While the loss of life and property may yet be considerable, many lives were certainly saved by Japan’s extensive disaster preparedness and strict construction codes. Japan’s economy was spared a more devastating blow because the earthquake hit far from its industrial heartland.
On Friday, at 2:46 p.m. Tokyo time, the quake struck. First came the roar and rumble of the temblor, shaking skyscrapers, toppling furniture and buckling highways. Then waves as high as 30 feet rushed onto shore, whisking away cars and carrying blazing buildings toward factories, fields and highways.
By Saturday morning, Japan was filled with scenes of desperation, as stranded survivors called for help and rescuers searched for people buried in the rubble. Kazushige Itabashi, an official in Natori City, one of the areas hit hardest by the tsunami, said that several districts in an area near Sendai airport had been annihilated.
Rescuers found 870 people in one elementary school on Saturday morning and were trying to reach 1,200 people in the junior high school, closer to the water. There was no electricity and no water for people in shelters. According to a newspaper, the Mainichi Shimbun, about 600 people were on the roof of a public grade school, in Sendai City. By Saturday morning, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and firefighters had evacuated about 150 of them.
On the rooftop of Chuo Hospital in the city of Iwanuma, doctors and nurses were waving white flags and pink umbrellas, according to TV Asahi. On the floor of the roof, they wrote “Help” in English, and “Food” in Japanese. The television reporter, observing the scene from a helicopter, said, “If anyone in the City Hall office is watching, please help them.”
The station also showed scenes of people stranded on a bridge, cut off by water on both sides near the mouth of the Abukuma River in Miyagi Prefecture.
People were frantically searching for their relatives. Fumiaki Yamato, 70, was in his second home in a mountain village outside of Sendai when the earthquake struck. He spoke from his car as he was driving toward Sendai trying to find the rest of his family. While it usually takes about an hour to drive to the city, parts of the road were impassible. “I’m getting worried,” he said as he pulled over to take a reporter’s call. “I don’t know how many hours it’s going to take.”
Japanese, accustomed to frequent earthquakes, were stunned by this one’s magnitude and the more than 100 aftershocks, many of them equivalent to major earthquakes.
“I never experienced such a strong earthquake in my life,” said Toshiaki Takahashi, 49, an official in the Sendai City Hall office. “I thought it would stop, but it just kept shaking and shaking, and getting stronger.”
Train service was shut down across central and northern Japan, including Tokyo, and air travel was severely disrupted.
................
Page 2
On Friday, television images showed waves of more than 12 feet roaring inland in Japan. The floodwaters, thick with floating debris shoved inland, pushed aside heavy trucks as if they were toys. The spectacle was all the more remarkable for being carried live on television, even as the waves engulfed flat farmland that offered no resistance. The tsunami could be seen scooping up every vessel in the ocean off Sendai, and churning everything inland. The gigantic wave swept up a ship carrying more than 100 people, Kyodo News reported.
Vasily V. Titov, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Tsunami Research, said that coastal areas closest to the center of the earthquake probably had about 15 to 30 minutes before the first wave of the tsunami struck. “It’s not very much time,” he said. “In Japan, the public is among the best educated in the world about earthquakes and tsunamis. But it’s still not enough time.”
Complicating the issue, he added, is that the flat terrain in the area would have made it difficult for people to reach higher, and thus safer, ground. On Friday, NHK television showed images of a huge fire sweeping across Kesennuma, a city of more than 70,000 people in the northeast. Whole blocks appeared to be ablaze. NHK also showed aerial images of columns of flame rising from an oil refinery and flood waters engulfing the Sendai airport, where survivors clustered on the roof. The runway was partly submerged. The refinery fire sent a plume of thick black smoke from blazing spherical storage tanks.
Even in Tokyo, far from the epicenter, the quake struck hard. William M. Tsutsui, a professor of Japanese business and economic history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was traveling in Tokyo with a business delegation when the ground began to shake. “What was scariest was to look up at the skyscrapers all around,” he said. “They were swaying like trees in the breeze.”
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the quake and tsunami caused major damage across wide areas.
The United States Geological Survey said the quake was the most severe worldwide since an 8.8-magnitude quake off the coast of Chile a little more than a year ago that killed more than 400. It was less powerful than the 9.1-magnitude quake that struck off Northern Sumatra in late 2004. That quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean.
The survey said that Friday’s quake was centered off the coast of Honshu, the most populous of the Japanese islands, at a point about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo and a depth of about 15 miles below the earth’s surface.
President Obama said the United States “stands ready to help” Japan deal with the aftermath. “Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the people of Japan,” he said in a statement. He later spoke with Mr. Kan and offered assistance.
American military airfields in Japan began accepting civilian flights diverted from airports that suffered damage, American officials said early Friday.
A spokesman for the American Seventh Fleet in Japan said that Naval Air Field Atsugi had received several commercial passenger planes that could not land at Narita airport outside Tokyo. Officials said that Yokota Air Base also received civilian flights. Three American warships in Southeast Asia will be ordered out to sea to reposition themselves in case they need to provide assistance, said a fleet spokesman.
The tsunami assaulted Hawaii with seven-foot waves, although it caused little damage. Powerful surges that hit the West Coast of the United States caused boats to sink in Santa Cruz harbor. The Coast Guard reported that one person was swept to sea near McKinleyville, Calif., while trying to take pictures of the waves, and a search had begun.
In Japan, the Tokyo subways emptied, and airports were closed. Many residents set off on epic journeys home, walking for miles across a vast metropolitan area. In a video posted on YouTube, rumbles shook a supermarket as shopkeepers rushed to steady toppling wares and a classical music soundtrack played.
On Twitter, a person who used the name sinonosama said that students at an agricultural high school in Miyagi Prefecture were fine, but had to take refuge on the third floor after the tsunami flooded the first two floors. The writer said the people there had wrapped themselves in blankets and curtains to keep warm.
The quake occurred in what is called a subduction zone, where one of the Earth’s tectonic plates is sliding beneath another. In this case, the Pacific plate is sliding beneath the North American plate at a rate of about three inches a year. The earthquake occurred at a depth of about 15 miles, which while relatively shallow by global standards is about normal for quakes in this zone, said Emily So, an engineer with the United States Geological Survey in Golden, Colo.
When such quakes set off a tsunami, the devastation often comes from a succession of waves, with the first few being relatively small. The waves can travel across oceans at speeds of 500 miles per hour or more.
...............
Reporting was contributed by Yasuko Kamiizumi from Tokyo; Ken Belson, Maria Newman and Henry Fountain from New York; Daniel Krieger from Osaka, Japan; Kevin Drew and Bettina Wassener from Hong Kong; Alan Cowell and Richard Berry from Paris; Michael Schwirtz from Moscow; Thom Shanker from Washington; Mike Hale from Honolulu; and Elisabeth Bumiller from Brussels.
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12japan.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Tea Party and U.S. Foreign Policy By WALTER RUSSELL MEAD
The Tea Party and U.S. Foreign Policy
By WALTER RUSSELL MEAD
Published: February 21, 2011
I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
The rise of the Tea Party movement has been the most controversial and dramatic development in U.S. politics in many years. Supporters have hailed it as a return to core American values; opponents have seen it as a racist, reactionary and ultimately futile protest against the emerging reality of a multicultural, multiracial United States and a new era of government activism.
Nonetheless, the Tea Party movement has clearly struck a nerve in American politics, and students of American foreign policy need to think through the consequences of this populist and nationalist political insurgency.
As is so often the case in the United States, to understand the present and future of American politics, one must begin by coming to grips with the past.
The Tea Party movement taps deep roots in U.S. history. It is best understood as a contemporary revolt of Jacksonian common sense — the idea that moral, scientific, political and religious truths can be ascertained by the average person — against elites perceived as both misguided and corrupt.
And although the movement itself may splinter and even disappear, the populist energy that powers it will not go away any time soon. Jacksonianism is always an important force in American politics; at times of social and economic stress and change, like the present, its importance tends to grow.
In foreign policy, Jacksonians embrace a set of strongly nationalist ideas. They combine a firm belief in American exceptionalism with deep skepticism about the nation’s ability to create a liberal world order. The Obama administration is trying to steer U.S. foreign policy away from Jacksonian approaches just as a confluence of foreign and domestic developments are creating a Jacksonian moment.
Forecasting how this newly energized populist movement will influence foreign policy is difficult. Public opinion is responsive to events; a terrorist attack inside U.S. borders or a crisis in East Asia or the Middle East, for example, could transform the politics of U.S. foreign policy overnight.
Nevertheless, some trends seem clear.
The first is that the contest in the Tea Party between what might be called its Palinite and its Paulite wings will likely end in a victory for the Palinites. The Palinite wing of the Tea Party (after Sarah Palin) wants a vigorous, proactive approach to the problem of terrorism in the Middle East, one that rests on a close alliance between the United States and Israel. The Paulite wing (Rand Paul) would rather distance the United States from Israel as part of a general reduction of the United States’ profile in a part of the world from which little good can be expected.
The Paulites are likely to lose this contest because the commonsense reasoning of the American people now generally takes as axiomatic that security at home cannot be protected without substantial engagement overseas.
Terrorist attacks and events such as the Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons are likely to keep that sense of international danger alive (recent polls show that up to 64 percent of the U.S. public favors military strikes to end the Iranian nuclear program). Widespread public concern about perceived threats from a rising China will also strengthen public support for a strong military force and global American engagement.
Paulites and Palinites are united in their dislike for liberal internationalism — the attempt to conduct international relations through multilateral institutions under an ever-tightening web of international laws and treaties.
There is much in the Tea Party movement to give pause, but effective foreign policy must always begin with a realistic assessment of the facts on the ground.
Today’s Jacksonians are unlikely to disappear. Americans should rejoice that in many ways the Tea Party movement, warts and all, is a significantly more capable and reliable partner for the United States’ world-order-building tasks than were the isolationists of 60 years ago. Compared to the Jacksonians during the Truman administration, today’s are less racist, less antifeminist, less homophobic, and more open to an appreciation of other cultures and worldviews.
Furthermore, today’s southern Republican populists are far more sympathetic to core liberal capitalist concepts than were the populist supporters of William Jennings Bryan a century ago.
Foreign policy mandarins often wish the public would leave them alone so that they can get on with the serious business of statecraft. That is not going to happen in the United States. If the Tea Party movement fades away, other voices of populist protest will take its place. American policymakers and their counterparts overseas simply cannot do their jobs well without a deep understanding of what is one of the principal forces in American political life.
Walter Russell Mead is professor of foreign affairs and the humanities at Bard College and editor-at-large of The American Interest. A longer version of this article appears in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/opinion/22iht-edrusselmead22.html?_r=1&ref=global
The Opinion Pages/The New York Times & International Herald Tribune
By WALTER RUSSELL MEAD
Published: February 21, 2011
I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
The rise of the Tea Party movement has been the most controversial and dramatic development in U.S. politics in many years. Supporters have hailed it as a return to core American values; opponents have seen it as a racist, reactionary and ultimately futile protest against the emerging reality of a multicultural, multiracial United States and a new era of government activism.
Nonetheless, the Tea Party movement has clearly struck a nerve in American politics, and students of American foreign policy need to think through the consequences of this populist and nationalist political insurgency.
As is so often the case in the United States, to understand the present and future of American politics, one must begin by coming to grips with the past.
The Tea Party movement taps deep roots in U.S. history. It is best understood as a contemporary revolt of Jacksonian common sense — the idea that moral, scientific, political and religious truths can be ascertained by the average person — against elites perceived as both misguided and corrupt.
And although the movement itself may splinter and even disappear, the populist energy that powers it will not go away any time soon. Jacksonianism is always an important force in American politics; at times of social and economic stress and change, like the present, its importance tends to grow.
In foreign policy, Jacksonians embrace a set of strongly nationalist ideas. They combine a firm belief in American exceptionalism with deep skepticism about the nation’s ability to create a liberal world order. The Obama administration is trying to steer U.S. foreign policy away from Jacksonian approaches just as a confluence of foreign and domestic developments are creating a Jacksonian moment.
Forecasting how this newly energized populist movement will influence foreign policy is difficult. Public opinion is responsive to events; a terrorist attack inside U.S. borders or a crisis in East Asia or the Middle East, for example, could transform the politics of U.S. foreign policy overnight.
Nevertheless, some trends seem clear.
The first is that the contest in the Tea Party between what might be called its Palinite and its Paulite wings will likely end in a victory for the Palinites. The Palinite wing of the Tea Party (after Sarah Palin) wants a vigorous, proactive approach to the problem of terrorism in the Middle East, one that rests on a close alliance between the United States and Israel. The Paulite wing (Rand Paul) would rather distance the United States from Israel as part of a general reduction of the United States’ profile in a part of the world from which little good can be expected.
The Paulites are likely to lose this contest because the commonsense reasoning of the American people now generally takes as axiomatic that security at home cannot be protected without substantial engagement overseas.
Terrorist attacks and events such as the Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons are likely to keep that sense of international danger alive (recent polls show that up to 64 percent of the U.S. public favors military strikes to end the Iranian nuclear program). Widespread public concern about perceived threats from a rising China will also strengthen public support for a strong military force and global American engagement.
Paulites and Palinites are united in their dislike for liberal internationalism — the attempt to conduct international relations through multilateral institutions under an ever-tightening web of international laws and treaties.
There is much in the Tea Party movement to give pause, but effective foreign policy must always begin with a realistic assessment of the facts on the ground.
Today’s Jacksonians are unlikely to disappear. Americans should rejoice that in many ways the Tea Party movement, warts and all, is a significantly more capable and reliable partner for the United States’ world-order-building tasks than were the isolationists of 60 years ago. Compared to the Jacksonians during the Truman administration, today’s are less racist, less antifeminist, less homophobic, and more open to an appreciation of other cultures and worldviews.
Furthermore, today’s southern Republican populists are far more sympathetic to core liberal capitalist concepts than were the populist supporters of William Jennings Bryan a century ago.
Foreign policy mandarins often wish the public would leave them alone so that they can get on with the serious business of statecraft. That is not going to happen in the United States. If the Tea Party movement fades away, other voices of populist protest will take its place. American policymakers and their counterparts overseas simply cannot do their jobs well without a deep understanding of what is one of the principal forces in American political life.
Walter Russell Mead is professor of foreign affairs and the humanities at Bard College and editor-at-large of The American Interest. A longer version of this article appears in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/opinion/22iht-edrusselmead22.html?_r=1&ref=global
The Opinion Pages/The New York Times & International Herald Tribune
Libya's Gadhafi Vows He Will Not Leave
Libya's Gadhafi Vows He Will Not Leave
February 22, 2011/VOA News
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says anti-government protests will not force him out, and that he expects to die a "martyr" in Libya.
Mr. Gadhafi spoke on Libyan state television Tuesday in his first detailed address to the country since the bloody wave of demonstrations began. He urged his supporters to help defend Libya against people he called "gangs" and "terrorists." Clenching a green book that appeared to be a guide to his political philosophy, he threatened the death penalty for anyone who takes up arms against Libya or engages in espionage.
Also Tuesday, one of Mr. Gadhafi's closest associates, Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younis, announced his defection and support for the "February 17 revolution." Speaking to Al Jazeera television from the protester-held eastern city of Benghazi, Younis urged other armed forces to join the people and their "legitimate demands."
Numerous high-level Libyan officials, including ministers, diplomats and military officers, have abandoned the regime and announced their support for the rebellion.
Meanwhile, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pasco, said United Nations staff in Libya have seen aircraft and helicopters flying but could not confirm attacks against civilians. Lynn Pasco, speaking in New York, said the U.N. fears crimes against humanity have been committed in the North African nation and that the situation is deteriorating.
Libya's ambassador to the U.N. said the country's air force has not attacked civilians, but he acknowledged that most of Libya's eastern provinces are under the control of anti-regime forces. Abdurrahman Shalgham also said Libya's public prosecutor has begun an investigation into the deaths of protesters.
Witnesses in Tripoli say Libyan helicopter gunships and warplanes struck civilian areas Monday, while African mercenaries and pro-Gadhafi gunmen opened fire indiscriminately to terrorize the population. Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of at least 62 deaths in Tripoli since Sunday, on top of its previous toll of 233 dead, mostly in the country's eastern provinces.
The reports could not be independently confirmed because Libya has barred the entry of foreign journalists and cut some communication networks in the country.
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday offered its condolences to the victims. White House spokesman Jay Carney condemned Libyan authorities for practicing "appalling violence" against the population.
Libyan diplomats in several countries say they have severed relations with Mr. Gadhafi to protest attacks by his forces on protesters. Libya's ambassador to the United States, Ali Aujali, called on the Libyan leader to step down. The Libyan ambassadors to India and Indonesia and a senior diplomat in China have all resigned.
Libya's embassies in Malaysia and Australia said they no longer represent Mr. Gadhafi. His Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil resigned Monday in protest at the crackdown, while two Libyan fighter pilots flew their jets to Malta, saying they had defected after being ordered to attack demonstrators.
The protests represent the greatest challenge to Mr. Gadhafi's rule since he took power in 1969.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Libyas-Gadhafi-Vows-He-Will-Not-Leave--116697594.html
February 22, 2011/VOA News
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says anti-government protests will not force him out, and that he expects to die a "martyr" in Libya.
Mr. Gadhafi spoke on Libyan state television Tuesday in his first detailed address to the country since the bloody wave of demonstrations began. He urged his supporters to help defend Libya against people he called "gangs" and "terrorists." Clenching a green book that appeared to be a guide to his political philosophy, he threatened the death penalty for anyone who takes up arms against Libya or engages in espionage.
Also Tuesday, one of Mr. Gadhafi's closest associates, Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younis, announced his defection and support for the "February 17 revolution." Speaking to Al Jazeera television from the protester-held eastern city of Benghazi, Younis urged other armed forces to join the people and their "legitimate demands."
Numerous high-level Libyan officials, including ministers, diplomats and military officers, have abandoned the regime and announced their support for the rebellion.
Meanwhile, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pasco, said United Nations staff in Libya have seen aircraft and helicopters flying but could not confirm attacks against civilians. Lynn Pasco, speaking in New York, said the U.N. fears crimes against humanity have been committed in the North African nation and that the situation is deteriorating.
Libya's ambassador to the U.N. said the country's air force has not attacked civilians, but he acknowledged that most of Libya's eastern provinces are under the control of anti-regime forces. Abdurrahman Shalgham also said Libya's public prosecutor has begun an investigation into the deaths of protesters.
Witnesses in Tripoli say Libyan helicopter gunships and warplanes struck civilian areas Monday, while African mercenaries and pro-Gadhafi gunmen opened fire indiscriminately to terrorize the population. Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of at least 62 deaths in Tripoli since Sunday, on top of its previous toll of 233 dead, mostly in the country's eastern provinces.
The reports could not be independently confirmed because Libya has barred the entry of foreign journalists and cut some communication networks in the country.
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday offered its condolences to the victims. White House spokesman Jay Carney condemned Libyan authorities for practicing "appalling violence" against the population.
Libyan diplomats in several countries say they have severed relations with Mr. Gadhafi to protest attacks by his forces on protesters. Libya's ambassador to the United States, Ali Aujali, called on the Libyan leader to step down. The Libyan ambassadors to India and Indonesia and a senior diplomat in China have all resigned.
Libya's embassies in Malaysia and Australia said they no longer represent Mr. Gadhafi. His Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil resigned Monday in protest at the crackdown, while two Libyan fighter pilots flew their jets to Malta, saying they had defected after being ordered to attack demonstrators.
The protests represent the greatest challenge to Mr. Gadhafi's rule since he took power in 1969.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Ref:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Libyas-Gadhafi-Vows-He-Will-Not-Leave--116697594.html
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
U.S. Foreign Policy Goals and Objectives in Southeast Asia for 2011 ( Kurt M. Campbell Assistant Secretary )
U.S. Foreign Policy Goals and Objectives in Southeast Asia for 2011
Kurt M. Campbell
Assistant Secretary
Washington, DC
February 2, 2011
Video
2:30 P.M. EST
MODERATOR: Good afternoon and thank you all very much for being with us this afternoon. For the sake of time – I know you all have lots of questions – we’re going to get right into the briefing. Assistant Secretary Campbell will give brief remarks, and then we’ll open it up for question and answer. A caveat to the question-and-answer period, please be advised, again, that only members of the Foreign Press will be able to ask questions. Additionally, members of the Diplomatic Corps are not invited to participate in the question-and-answer period, so please keep that in mind.
Without further ado, Assistant Secretary Campbell.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Thank you very much, and it’s an honor to be back here at the Foreign Press Center. Good afternoon to everyone, nice to see so many friends here today.
I’ll just make a couple of opening comments about if that’s all right, and I’ll be happy to take any questions. I know there are a lot of journalists here from Northeast Asia and I know there’ll be some questions regarding developments in Northeast Asia. But I’ll talk a little bit about just the last couple of weeks in terms of my own activities.
First of all, I think as you all know, we had a successful – we think very highly successful visit of President Hu to Washington two weeks ago. I was deeply engaged in the work with my counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai on the joint statement and worked closely with my colleague and friend Jeff Bader on all elements of this visit. And I think we were very pleased. I think this was a visit in which we stated very clearly our desire to have a strong, deep, and comprehensive relationship with China, but we also were clear about areas of divergence where we have differences of view and differences of perspective. We didn’t try to hide from those. We were upfront and clear about them. And I think if you look carefully at the speeches given in advance of the visit by Secretaries Geithner, Clinton, and the Secretary of Commerce, you will see a very clear theme in which we articulate areas where we want to work together but also challenges that endure in every particular area.
I’m happy to talk about specifics associated with that trip, but I should just say last week I was in Hawaii and Southeast Asia. I think part of what we are trying to do is send a very clear message that, of course, U.S.-China relations are important, but they are embedded in a broader, wider region, and we are deeply committed not only to our security partners in Northeast Asia, a strong relationship with China, but taking steps to underscore our commitment to renew the engagement in Southeast Asia and also the Pacific.
Too often when we say the Asian Pacific region, the word that gets short shrift in that is the Pacific, and so one of the things that we did in Hawaii was meet a series of our ambassadors in other countries, Pacific nations, who are in many respects suffering from real challenges in terms of climate change, some issues associated with poverty and disease. The United States has taken efforts in the course of last year so to reengage in terms of USAID programs and a variety of steps to underscore an enduring American commitment to the security, to the health and the well-being of the people of the Pacific.
We also had a chance for trilateral coordination between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. I think as you all have seen that over the course of the last year, we have rebuilt our relationship with New Zealand after a period in which we had very little security interaction. And we are now working closely together on a range of issues. Those discussions between the three nations centered on not only developments in Northeast Asia but developments associated with Fiji and other island nations and developments in the South Pacific.
I also was in Singapore and the Philippines. In the Philippines, we had the first-ever Strategic Dialogue, which brought together my counterpart and good friend from the Defense Department, Derek Mitchell. He led a large delegation. I had a large group from the State Department and other parts of the U.S. Government in which we sat down with our counterparts in the Philippines. And again, this is the first time we’ve ever had such a dialogue to review areas of common purpose, to underscore our strong commitment to the security to the Philippines and to find areas that we can work together in the future.
I think of specific concern was a desire to step up our activities to support the Philippines in terms of maritime awareness, maritime engagement, and other issues associated with the very large area that the Philippines is responsible for in terms of their own territorial waters but also waters adjacent to the Philippines as well. And I think these talks were important. We also underscored that the United States was going to work closely with the Philippines as part of the new program in which enhanced partnership, in which we wanted to work carefully to identify areas of economic and political engagement, allow the Philippines to take the next step on its road to development.
And in Singapore, a close strategic friend in the region, we stopped off for deliberations. They were particularly interested to discuss next steps in the U.S.-China relations. I think what they were particularly interested to know is next steps in the mil-to-mil relationship between the United States and China. I think we were able to tell them that there were some very hopeful steps in terms of the visit of Secretary of Defense Gates to China in the immediate period before the summit, and clearly, there is a roadmap for increasing contacts and engagement. We are looking for a relationship with China’s military that is steady, that is stable, that allows for greater transparency, and also creating mechanisms and procedures whereby if there are accidents or inadvertent developments between the United States and China, we are quickly and reliably able to communicate with our counterparts to ensure that there are no disagreements that cause a disruption to peace and stability.
I would say that if you look into 2011, it is an incredibly consequential year for American policy in the Asian Pacific region across many fronts. We recognize that Asian friends are grateful for a reengagement at the strategic and political level. Obviously, they know of our enduring military commitments in the Asian Pacific region. What they are really looking for us to do is to step up our game economically, commercially, and in the trade realm.
I think one of the most important things that the United States can do in that respect is to recover. And clearly, I think you can see that President Obama is working very closely with new members of his Cabinet and in the White House to underscore his commitment to boost exports, particularly to the Asian Pacific region. There are plans underway now to cement the Korea Free Trade Agreement for full ratification. And obviously, our efforts associated with the transpacific partnership, which would be the most innovative trade agenda that the United States has ever done, has really taken off. There have been substantial and very important discussions with all of the potential partners, and we recognize how significant this will be for us as we move forward.
Later this year, President Obama will represent for the first time the United States at the East Asia summit. We think that’s very significant. We also hold a next round of our U.S.-ASEAN partnership meeting at the head-of-states level. And of course, 2011, the United States is holding and hosting the APEC meeting in Hawaii, in which we are looking to streamline the agenda and make clear the continuing relevance of APEC as an institution in the Asian Pacific region.
So incredibly busy sessions. Secretary Clinton will be hosting her counterparts, along with Secretary Geithner, for next round of the Strategic Economic Dialogue in May. And you will have seen, when President Hu visited, that the United States has announced that Vice President Biden will be going to Asia later this year to meet with the future leader of China as part of a counterpart visit. So we recognize that even with all the challenges and difficulties that we are confronting currently in the Middle East that it is extraordinarily important to underscore that the United States recognizes very clearly that the 21st century is going to be being played out in the Asian Pacific region.
Why don’t I stop at that and I’ll be happy to take questions. And if I could just ask you, just to identify – I know most of you, but just for the record, I’ve been asked to – for each of you to identify yourselves, if you would, please.
Yes, old friend.
QUESTION: Thank you, Secretary Campbell. John Zang with CTI-TV of Taiwan. AID Chair Erin Burkhart (ph) spoke in Taipei and he mentioned that China actually proposed a full communiqué in preparation for President Hu’s visit, but that proposal was rejected by the United States side. Could you share with us on what grounds and how the United States rejected that proposal? Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: First of all, thank you very much. I’m not going to elaborate on what Mr. Burkhart (ph) said in Taiwan. I would simply say that this – the document that was issued from the United States and China was a statement and we thought that the language on the Taiwan Straits was very clear and very positive, and we welcomed the positive developments across the Taiwan Straits. We also very clearly recognize our responsibilities. Before the visit of President Hu, Secretary Clinton reaffirmed our commitment not only to the three communiqués but the Taiwan Relations Act. And President Obama, in his public statements during the visit of President Hu, also underscored our unique responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act. Thank you.
I’ll go to – in the back next. Then I’ll come to you.
QUESTION: Thanks. Sean Hannan with AFP.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Hi, Sean.
QUESTION: I wanted to ask you a bit about the situation in Burma, what’s your reading of things there now In 2011, do you see a resumption of dialogue in any way? And where do things more broadly stand right now? There is the release of Aung San Suu Kyi but also the new parliament in the elections. Are there hopeful signs or is it too early to tell which way things are going?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Well, I think we’ve stated very clearly in the past that we were disappointed with the preparations in advance for the elections held last year, and we think that most of the efforts domestically revealed that the process was fatally flawed. As you know, today the new parliament sits inside the country. We did welcome the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. We have been in deep consultations with her, along with many other nations. And we have encouraged her role and we will be continuing to press the authorities in the country about allowing her political party to take on a legal status despite the ruling of the Supreme Court.
I think, generally speaking, the United States recognizes that there are many problems inside the country. There’s the lack of dialogue with the key ethnic minorities. The vast majority of political prisoners have not been released. There are enormous difficulties to conduct any aspect of civil society. And the country continues to engage in proliferation activities that are antithetical to the maintenance of peace and stability in the region and in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. So there are many problems and many challenges.
I think the United States nevertheless still believes that a form of engagement and testing the leadership in terms of its goals and ambitions is an appropriate next step. And so we will be watching carefully and closely for positive signs. But we also stand ready to take steps, should there be a continuing of – a continuation of negative trends or backtracking even further on the kinds of things that we’d like to see inside the country.
Overall, we remain concerned and disappointed. One of the reasons for this trip was to coordinate closely with our friends in Southeast Asia. You will have seen that several Southeast Asian nations have come out saying it’s time to lift sanctions. We have stated very clearly we think that that is obviously premature and that we are looking for much more concrete steps from the new government as they form a new government policy on a host of issues.
Yeah. The woman and then – sorry, thank you.
QUESTION: Thank you. It’s Jane Cowan from the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMBELL: Hi, Jane. How are you?
QUESTION: I wonder what consequences you’d say – what potential consequences for Asia and the Pacific from the situation in Egypt, first of all. And also, will the President be visiting Australia, finally, anytime soon?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Okay. First of all, can I just say I think I speak for everyone here and others that we are watching with concern and sadness, with terrible, horrible weather in Queensland and elsewhere. The United States has offered, and we will continue to stand by, to provide direct assistance where we can be helpful to Australia. And we’re in close consultations in a range of venues about how we can do that going forward.
I think there are a number of reactions in Asia to the developments in Egypt. One of them is obviously a concern for whether there will be spillover effects in other parts of the Middle East and what that might mean to regional stability as a whole. I think other countries that have centralized authoritarian leaders are always worried about what the consequences will be and whether there are follow-on effects. And I think there probably is a recognition that such an event really takes an enormous amount of focus from the United States Government, given our strong commitments to the region and also to the people of Egypt, and they are going to want to see that the United States can continue a strong engagement in Asia at the same time that there is deep challenges in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East.
And on issues associated with presidential travel, I will refer you to the White House. So obviously, we are deeply engaged in high-level visits all the time. And I know that we’re looking forward to having closer consultations at a senior level soon, but I really can’t talk much about the President’s travel schedule. Thanks.
MODERATOR: Assistant Secretary Campbell, we should probably shoot to New York.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Okay. Hi.
MODERATOR: New York, go ahead, please.
QUESTION: Hi. Good afternoon, Mr. Campbell. Shehabuddin Kisslu Probe News and BanglaNews24.com. I’d just like to request you to give your answer. Would you kindly just tell us what is the – as you have remarked that the air warnings*, American air warnings* and American engagement in that region – would you kindly tell the U.S. strategic position on the Bangladesh-India-American issue that is in the international forum right now?
And secondly, would you kindly be able to tell us what is the U.S. policy stand on the international tribunal’s trial on crime against humanity in Bangladesh, please?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Okay. Let me take part of that question and then I’m going to have to take for guidance the second part of your question. I know this is going to sound hopelessly bureaucratic, but Bangladesh is not in my area of operation. And so I’d love to be able to give you a knowledgeable answer but I can’t, and so I’m not going to pretend. I’ll have to take that for review and I’ll get back to you.
On the first part of your question, I will say that one of the primary goals of the U.S. Government going forward – and we’d like to expand on this in 2011 and 2012 – is to further seek opportunities and avenues of cooperation: strategic, military, political, with India in the Asian-Pacific region. We believe that Asia’s role, its policy to look east, is now really starting to bear fruit. And we want to work closely with Indian friends on a range of issues – strategy for how to work together in the East Asia summit now that the United States is a full member, working together in the ASEAN Regional Forum, and increasing dialogue and discussions on a range of mutual security issues in Southeast Asia and in Northeast Asia as well.
We have seen in recent months a substantial increase in Indian activities with a variety of states in Southeast Asia, but also most notably with Japan, and we would seek to support that going forward. We have also increased our deliberations with India about a variety of developments in Southeast Asia, and including the Pacific, and we think that this is a very important ingredient. We also, frankly, support an improvement in dialogue between India and China and we would seek to take steps to facilitate that as we move forward. Ultimately, we think that India’s role in the Asian Pacific region is – stands to be one of the most important new developments over the course of the next decade moving forward.
Hi, Nadia (ph).
QUESTION: Hi. Happy New Year.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Happy New Year to you, too. Today, right?
QUESTION: Yeah.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Are you celebrating?
QUESTION: I am.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Good, yeah.
QUESTION: After this briefing. (Laughter.)
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: You look like you’ve been out celebrating.
QUESTION: ( Nadia Tsao, Liberty Times,Taiwan) And I think in the joint statement, there’s a sentence mentioned that you would support and want to see more engagement between Taiwan and China other than economic. You also want to see the political issues advanced. I wonder that – do you have any idea or picture what kind of political engagement that should be? And also, Taiwan’s government mentioned on several occasions, if they want to talk about a political issue with China, they need U.S. support so they can go on with confidence. And – but we haven’t seen much, really, developments between U.S. and Taiwan so far regarding arms sales of F-15s the Taiwan Government’s request or high-level dialogue. But will be able to see some breakthrough this year? Thanks.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Thank you very much. Let me just say it is the position of the U.S. Government not to comment about the security situation in terms of arms sales vis-à-vis Taiwan, so I will not be finding new ground here. This is the longstanding American position. I stand by it.
The language in the joint communiqué is meant to be very careful –
QUESTION: Joint statement.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: In the joint statement, sorry. I didn’t mean the – sorry, stuck in my mind is – in the joint statement was very clear in terms of welcoming contacts across the Taiwan Strait. We believe that those contacts are the business of the people of China and Taiwan to discuss among themselves, to take the appropriate steps at the appropriate timing. The United States takes no particular view. We think it’s extraordinarily important that there be comfort on both sides. Primarily what the joint statement did was to welcome ECFA* and the burgeoning of economic ties between the two countries, between the two sides. And we think that’s an important step in improving confidence. And we know that there are ongoing dialogues across a range of issues, culturally and the like. I think I would just simply say that the United States supports these. And anything that will build trust and confidence to a greater degree, we think is in the best interest not only of the United States but all the peoples involved.
QUESTION: Well, does it mean a breakthrough between U.S. and China on arms levels?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Look, we think we have a strong unofficial relationship with Taiwan. We have a number of interactions with them and those will continue in 2011 and beyond.
Yeah.
QUESTION: Hi. My name is Sungwon Baik from Voice of America Cambodia. Thanks for your briefing. Wondering if North Korea has recently asked a food aid from the United States via their New York dialogue channel?
And related, the famed diplomatic source also mentioned that the United States is positive about resuming aid to North Korea. Could you state your position, please?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Yes, very clearly I can state that. I think it would be fair to say that the United States is and continues to monitor the humanitarian situation in North Korea but we have no plans for any contributions at this time.
Question: Ai Awaji, Jiji Press
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Pardon me?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Oh, please, yeah. I’m not – just so you know, I won’t have much more beyond that, but I can repeat the answer, so – (laughter) – go ahead. Go ahead, Ai, ask a question.
QUESTION: Hi. I understand that the United States has expressed its readiness to provide assistance if North Korea agrees some conditions in terms of monitoring, interpreters on food aid before. And I’m wondering if you still have the same position.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: No, I think – let me try this one again. See – I think I can do it with more gusto now. (Laughter.) The United States continues to monitor the humanitarian situation in North Korea but has no plans for any contributions at this time.
QUESTION: I mean, if North Korea had asked food aid.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: I think I’ll just stand with that statement, if that’s all right. Thank you.
Yeah.
QUESTION: Hi. Liming Yang from China Youth Daily. During your trip in the Philippines, both sides agree to increase the cooperation in the territorial defense and maritime security. Could you elaborate a little bit about the specific areas in which U.S. and the Philippines are cooperate with?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Thank you. I think I would simply say the United States and the Philippines have had a broad cooperation in the last decade or so that has centered primarily on terrorist issues in Mindanao and elsewhere, and I think that cooperation has been significant and very important, both for the United States and the Philippines. I think there’s a recognition that, in terms of next steps, the United States wants to support the Philippines as it builds capacity and capabilities to better able to monitor the – its territorial waters and elsewhere. And so that process will involve the potential provision of equipment through excess defense sales, training of elements of their coast guard and navy, and deeper consultations at a strategic, political, and military level. And I think we’re committed to do all of those things.
The Philippines remains a strong tree ally, we are committed to its security, and we believe that a carefully designed program which insists on clear progress and close coordination is in the best interests of both countries. Thanks.
MODERATOR: Okay. Just before we proceed, Assistant Secretary Campbell has an engagement after this, so we have time for maybe one or two questions.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: I’ll try to take two or three and then – and I’ll move quickly. I’m – it’s my fault. I’m out of practice answering too long.
I’ll take you. Thanks.
QUESTION: Kyoko Yamaguchi from Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. I have a question about North Korea. I would like to ask you how you plan to address the uranium enrichment program issue. Do you plan to bring this to the Security Council meeting? Or since there is talk of resuming Six-Party Talks, do you plan to bring this as an issue and to be discussed in Six-Party Talks?
And also, if I may, since there would be a meeting between North and South Korea, it’s appearing they are meeting for the military talks, what do you exactly expect to see to come out of this meeting? Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Let me take the first question first – the second question first. First of all, we welcome a resumption of dialogue. We are in close consultations with our South Korean allies and friends and we fully support them in this overall process. We stand with them in wanting to see from North Korea a sincere commitment to a variety of steps, including a renunciation of the provocative actions of the last half year, a commitment to take the appropriate steps that will allow the Six-Party Talks to resume, and other signals of a desire to work more closely with the South Koreans. We recognize and believe that the essential first step in any process of reengagement with North Korea requires a North-South – a true and significant North-South dialogue.
On the first part of your question, I think I would refer you to what Deputy Secretary Steinberg said when he was in both Japan and South Korea. And I think we believe that the international community and our key partners and allies have been very clear that any uranium enrichment program or any other kind of nuclear program, for that matter, that is being undertaken by the North Koreans is in violation of its commitments and obligations, including the 2005 joint communiqué, UN Security Council provisions, and other international acts. And I think we are working closely with our allies and friends in terms of the appropriate venue to press our case in this regard.
Yeah.
QUESTION: I am Ther N Oo, Voice of America Service. I have a question about the U.S. policy on Burma. Both sanctions and engagement doesn’t seem to be working. So you said that all political prisoners are still in prisons and new parliaments are totally controlled by the military. So do you have any plan to review the policy, on ongoing with this policy? Do you think you can see more hope, to any more hope for the changes in Burma?
ASSISSTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Look, I think one of the things that I will say, we have been disappointed. There’s no question about the overall engagement policy over the course for the last year that was enunciated by President Obama and laid out clearly by Secretary Clinton. We have tried to be very clear about potential steps that Burma could take and that we would respond to accordingly. We have been disappointed basically across the spectrum in this regard.
It is also the case, however, that we believe a degree of engagement serves the best interests of the United States and our regional policy. And we think that it is appropriate to at least create the opportunity to test this new government about whether they are prepared to take the necessary steps to rejoin the international community and also to work more closely with the United States and other partners.
What we have tried to do all along this – in this process is not oversell the results. We’ve never come back and said we’ve made this progress or this step. We’ve tried to be very clear form the outset what we would need to see, and we have never shied from underscoring our disappointment from what we’ve seen from the leadership.
Now it is true that over the course of the last year, there was a lot of uncertainty and maneuvering inside the country in anticipation of this flawed election. I think it’d be fair to say that we are still waiting to see what steps a new government might be prepared to take, although, frankly, we are quite concerned about steps that we’ve seen to date and are not encouraged by the level of dialogue that we’ve seen inside the country. And frankly, we stand with Aung San Suu Kyi in much of what she’s said in terms of giving the government a chance to declare its intentions on a range of issues.
I can take two last questions. Yes, sir.
QUESTION: Thanks. Bradney Norington from the Australian newspaper --
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Hi. Good to see you.
QUESTION: You, too. In light of President Hu’s visit to Washington, do you have confidence in China playing a more positive role in reining in some of the rogue behavior of North Korea and bringing North Korea to the table in meaningful negotiations?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPELL: Thank you. It’s a very good question. I think we had a very constructive set of discussions with China’s interlocutors before and during the visit of President Hu Jintao. And you will have seen in the joint statement and in other statements by both the U.S. and Chinese side, for the first time in many months China has stated very clearly its concern associated with an element of North Korea’s provocative behavior, namely the uranium enrichment program.
I would – I think it’s fair to say that consultations between the United States and China have intensified. We believe that China plays a critical role in a dialogue on the Korean Peninsula and we continue to make clear to our interlocutors in Beijing that it is essential for them to weigh in in Pyongyang about the need for North Korea to renounce its very provocative steps and take sincere efforts to reengage across a range of issue as part of a process towards the Six-Party Talks. And I think we were pleased by some of the interactions that we had with Chinese friends but it is still at the beginning stages, and we will continue to build on that. That’s one of the reasons that Deputy Secretary Steinberg went to Beijing last week.
Last question. Yeah.
QUESTION: Thank you. Patrick Braden from Global Future. In light of all the rumors of Japan’s acceding to The Hague Convention on Child Abductions, do you have any idea of how long it might take to actually return some of these American citizen children who have been abducted illegally from the United States?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: I would say just not soon enough, frankly. And I – this is an issue that’s very important to Secretary Clinton and to the White House. I just want to underscore that the situation in which a large number of American families have been separated, that children have been illegally taken from rightful custody situations and are kept away from parents, is a deeply worrisome situation. We are in close consultation with our Japanese friends. We have underscored to them how it is – how essential it is for them to join with the vast majority of the industrialized democracies in signing on to The Hague Convention and taking the necessary steps, not only going forward on these issues but also dealing responsibly and humanely with the existing cases.
I have found that as I – as we put a face on these issues, talk directly to Japanese friends, once they have a greater knowledge of these issues, they, too, want to see justice for these families and this really heartbreaking set of circumstances. So I thank you for the question. It’s going to be important that we see progress soon on this issue. There is a building degree of anxiety, and in some places anger, on Capitol Hill. I’ve been working closely with Japanese counterparts. I’m a very good friend of Japan, very strong supporter of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Let’s take the opportunity over the next several months to get this done and to move beyond this issue and focus on the critical issues between the United States and Japan in a new Asian set of circumstances.
Thank you all very much. I really appreciate being here today.
MODERATOR: Thank you.
Ref:
http://fpc.state.gov/155878.htm
Kurt M. Campbell
Assistant Secretary
Washington, DC
February 2, 2011
Video
2:30 P.M. EST
MODERATOR: Good afternoon and thank you all very much for being with us this afternoon. For the sake of time – I know you all have lots of questions – we’re going to get right into the briefing. Assistant Secretary Campbell will give brief remarks, and then we’ll open it up for question and answer. A caveat to the question-and-answer period, please be advised, again, that only members of the Foreign Press will be able to ask questions. Additionally, members of the Diplomatic Corps are not invited to participate in the question-and-answer period, so please keep that in mind.
Without further ado, Assistant Secretary Campbell.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Thank you very much, and it’s an honor to be back here at the Foreign Press Center. Good afternoon to everyone, nice to see so many friends here today.
I’ll just make a couple of opening comments about if that’s all right, and I’ll be happy to take any questions. I know there are a lot of journalists here from Northeast Asia and I know there’ll be some questions regarding developments in Northeast Asia. But I’ll talk a little bit about just the last couple of weeks in terms of my own activities.
First of all, I think as you all know, we had a successful – we think very highly successful visit of President Hu to Washington two weeks ago. I was deeply engaged in the work with my counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai on the joint statement and worked closely with my colleague and friend Jeff Bader on all elements of this visit. And I think we were very pleased. I think this was a visit in which we stated very clearly our desire to have a strong, deep, and comprehensive relationship with China, but we also were clear about areas of divergence where we have differences of view and differences of perspective. We didn’t try to hide from those. We were upfront and clear about them. And I think if you look carefully at the speeches given in advance of the visit by Secretaries Geithner, Clinton, and the Secretary of Commerce, you will see a very clear theme in which we articulate areas where we want to work together but also challenges that endure in every particular area.
I’m happy to talk about specifics associated with that trip, but I should just say last week I was in Hawaii and Southeast Asia. I think part of what we are trying to do is send a very clear message that, of course, U.S.-China relations are important, but they are embedded in a broader, wider region, and we are deeply committed not only to our security partners in Northeast Asia, a strong relationship with China, but taking steps to underscore our commitment to renew the engagement in Southeast Asia and also the Pacific.
Too often when we say the Asian Pacific region, the word that gets short shrift in that is the Pacific, and so one of the things that we did in Hawaii was meet a series of our ambassadors in other countries, Pacific nations, who are in many respects suffering from real challenges in terms of climate change, some issues associated with poverty and disease. The United States has taken efforts in the course of last year so to reengage in terms of USAID programs and a variety of steps to underscore an enduring American commitment to the security, to the health and the well-being of the people of the Pacific.
We also had a chance for trilateral coordination between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. I think as you all have seen that over the course of the last year, we have rebuilt our relationship with New Zealand after a period in which we had very little security interaction. And we are now working closely together on a range of issues. Those discussions between the three nations centered on not only developments in Northeast Asia but developments associated with Fiji and other island nations and developments in the South Pacific.
I also was in Singapore and the Philippines. In the Philippines, we had the first-ever Strategic Dialogue, which brought together my counterpart and good friend from the Defense Department, Derek Mitchell. He led a large delegation. I had a large group from the State Department and other parts of the U.S. Government in which we sat down with our counterparts in the Philippines. And again, this is the first time we’ve ever had such a dialogue to review areas of common purpose, to underscore our strong commitment to the security to the Philippines and to find areas that we can work together in the future.
I think of specific concern was a desire to step up our activities to support the Philippines in terms of maritime awareness, maritime engagement, and other issues associated with the very large area that the Philippines is responsible for in terms of their own territorial waters but also waters adjacent to the Philippines as well. And I think these talks were important. We also underscored that the United States was going to work closely with the Philippines as part of the new program in which enhanced partnership, in which we wanted to work carefully to identify areas of economic and political engagement, allow the Philippines to take the next step on its road to development.
And in Singapore, a close strategic friend in the region, we stopped off for deliberations. They were particularly interested to discuss next steps in the U.S.-China relations. I think what they were particularly interested to know is next steps in the mil-to-mil relationship between the United States and China. I think we were able to tell them that there were some very hopeful steps in terms of the visit of Secretary of Defense Gates to China in the immediate period before the summit, and clearly, there is a roadmap for increasing contacts and engagement. We are looking for a relationship with China’s military that is steady, that is stable, that allows for greater transparency, and also creating mechanisms and procedures whereby if there are accidents or inadvertent developments between the United States and China, we are quickly and reliably able to communicate with our counterparts to ensure that there are no disagreements that cause a disruption to peace and stability.
I would say that if you look into 2011, it is an incredibly consequential year for American policy in the Asian Pacific region across many fronts. We recognize that Asian friends are grateful for a reengagement at the strategic and political level. Obviously, they know of our enduring military commitments in the Asian Pacific region. What they are really looking for us to do is to step up our game economically, commercially, and in the trade realm.
I think one of the most important things that the United States can do in that respect is to recover. And clearly, I think you can see that President Obama is working very closely with new members of his Cabinet and in the White House to underscore his commitment to boost exports, particularly to the Asian Pacific region. There are plans underway now to cement the Korea Free Trade Agreement for full ratification. And obviously, our efforts associated with the transpacific partnership, which would be the most innovative trade agenda that the United States has ever done, has really taken off. There have been substantial and very important discussions with all of the potential partners, and we recognize how significant this will be for us as we move forward.
Later this year, President Obama will represent for the first time the United States at the East Asia summit. We think that’s very significant. We also hold a next round of our U.S.-ASEAN partnership meeting at the head-of-states level. And of course, 2011, the United States is holding and hosting the APEC meeting in Hawaii, in which we are looking to streamline the agenda and make clear the continuing relevance of APEC as an institution in the Asian Pacific region.
So incredibly busy sessions. Secretary Clinton will be hosting her counterparts, along with Secretary Geithner, for next round of the Strategic Economic Dialogue in May. And you will have seen, when President Hu visited, that the United States has announced that Vice President Biden will be going to Asia later this year to meet with the future leader of China as part of a counterpart visit. So we recognize that even with all the challenges and difficulties that we are confronting currently in the Middle East that it is extraordinarily important to underscore that the United States recognizes very clearly that the 21st century is going to be being played out in the Asian Pacific region.
Why don’t I stop at that and I’ll be happy to take questions. And if I could just ask you, just to identify – I know most of you, but just for the record, I’ve been asked to – for each of you to identify yourselves, if you would, please.
Yes, old friend.
QUESTION: Thank you, Secretary Campbell. John Zang with CTI-TV of Taiwan. AID Chair Erin Burkhart (ph) spoke in Taipei and he mentioned that China actually proposed a full communiqué in preparation for President Hu’s visit, but that proposal was rejected by the United States side. Could you share with us on what grounds and how the United States rejected that proposal? Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: First of all, thank you very much. I’m not going to elaborate on what Mr. Burkhart (ph) said in Taiwan. I would simply say that this – the document that was issued from the United States and China was a statement and we thought that the language on the Taiwan Straits was very clear and very positive, and we welcomed the positive developments across the Taiwan Straits. We also very clearly recognize our responsibilities. Before the visit of President Hu, Secretary Clinton reaffirmed our commitment not only to the three communiqués but the Taiwan Relations Act. And President Obama, in his public statements during the visit of President Hu, also underscored our unique responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act. Thank you.
I’ll go to – in the back next. Then I’ll come to you.
QUESTION: Thanks. Sean Hannan with AFP.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Hi, Sean.
QUESTION: I wanted to ask you a bit about the situation in Burma, what’s your reading of things there now In 2011, do you see a resumption of dialogue in any way? And where do things more broadly stand right now? There is the release of Aung San Suu Kyi but also the new parliament in the elections. Are there hopeful signs or is it too early to tell which way things are going?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Well, I think we’ve stated very clearly in the past that we were disappointed with the preparations in advance for the elections held last year, and we think that most of the efforts domestically revealed that the process was fatally flawed. As you know, today the new parliament sits inside the country. We did welcome the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. We have been in deep consultations with her, along with many other nations. And we have encouraged her role and we will be continuing to press the authorities in the country about allowing her political party to take on a legal status despite the ruling of the Supreme Court.
I think, generally speaking, the United States recognizes that there are many problems inside the country. There’s the lack of dialogue with the key ethnic minorities. The vast majority of political prisoners have not been released. There are enormous difficulties to conduct any aspect of civil society. And the country continues to engage in proliferation activities that are antithetical to the maintenance of peace and stability in the region and in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. So there are many problems and many challenges.
I think the United States nevertheless still believes that a form of engagement and testing the leadership in terms of its goals and ambitions is an appropriate next step. And so we will be watching carefully and closely for positive signs. But we also stand ready to take steps, should there be a continuing of – a continuation of negative trends or backtracking even further on the kinds of things that we’d like to see inside the country.
Overall, we remain concerned and disappointed. One of the reasons for this trip was to coordinate closely with our friends in Southeast Asia. You will have seen that several Southeast Asian nations have come out saying it’s time to lift sanctions. We have stated very clearly we think that that is obviously premature and that we are looking for much more concrete steps from the new government as they form a new government policy on a host of issues.
Yeah. The woman and then – sorry, thank you.
QUESTION: Thank you. It’s Jane Cowan from the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMBELL: Hi, Jane. How are you?
QUESTION: I wonder what consequences you’d say – what potential consequences for Asia and the Pacific from the situation in Egypt, first of all. And also, will the President be visiting Australia, finally, anytime soon?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Okay. First of all, can I just say I think I speak for everyone here and others that we are watching with concern and sadness, with terrible, horrible weather in Queensland and elsewhere. The United States has offered, and we will continue to stand by, to provide direct assistance where we can be helpful to Australia. And we’re in close consultations in a range of venues about how we can do that going forward.
I think there are a number of reactions in Asia to the developments in Egypt. One of them is obviously a concern for whether there will be spillover effects in other parts of the Middle East and what that might mean to regional stability as a whole. I think other countries that have centralized authoritarian leaders are always worried about what the consequences will be and whether there are follow-on effects. And I think there probably is a recognition that such an event really takes an enormous amount of focus from the United States Government, given our strong commitments to the region and also to the people of Egypt, and they are going to want to see that the United States can continue a strong engagement in Asia at the same time that there is deep challenges in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East.
And on issues associated with presidential travel, I will refer you to the White House. So obviously, we are deeply engaged in high-level visits all the time. And I know that we’re looking forward to having closer consultations at a senior level soon, but I really can’t talk much about the President’s travel schedule. Thanks.
MODERATOR: Assistant Secretary Campbell, we should probably shoot to New York.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Okay. Hi.
MODERATOR: New York, go ahead, please.
QUESTION: Hi. Good afternoon, Mr. Campbell. Shehabuddin Kisslu Probe News and BanglaNews24.com. I’d just like to request you to give your answer. Would you kindly just tell us what is the – as you have remarked that the air warnings*, American air warnings* and American engagement in that region – would you kindly tell the U.S. strategic position on the Bangladesh-India-American issue that is in the international forum right now?
And secondly, would you kindly be able to tell us what is the U.S. policy stand on the international tribunal’s trial on crime against humanity in Bangladesh, please?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Okay. Let me take part of that question and then I’m going to have to take for guidance the second part of your question. I know this is going to sound hopelessly bureaucratic, but Bangladesh is not in my area of operation. And so I’d love to be able to give you a knowledgeable answer but I can’t, and so I’m not going to pretend. I’ll have to take that for review and I’ll get back to you.
On the first part of your question, I will say that one of the primary goals of the U.S. Government going forward – and we’d like to expand on this in 2011 and 2012 – is to further seek opportunities and avenues of cooperation: strategic, military, political, with India in the Asian-Pacific region. We believe that Asia’s role, its policy to look east, is now really starting to bear fruit. And we want to work closely with Indian friends on a range of issues – strategy for how to work together in the East Asia summit now that the United States is a full member, working together in the ASEAN Regional Forum, and increasing dialogue and discussions on a range of mutual security issues in Southeast Asia and in Northeast Asia as well.
We have seen in recent months a substantial increase in Indian activities with a variety of states in Southeast Asia, but also most notably with Japan, and we would seek to support that going forward. We have also increased our deliberations with India about a variety of developments in Southeast Asia, and including the Pacific, and we think that this is a very important ingredient. We also, frankly, support an improvement in dialogue between India and China and we would seek to take steps to facilitate that as we move forward. Ultimately, we think that India’s role in the Asian Pacific region is – stands to be one of the most important new developments over the course of the next decade moving forward.
Hi, Nadia (ph).
QUESTION: Hi. Happy New Year.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Happy New Year to you, too. Today, right?
QUESTION: Yeah.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Are you celebrating?
QUESTION: I am.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Good, yeah.
QUESTION: After this briefing. (Laughter.)
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: You look like you’ve been out celebrating.
QUESTION: ( Nadia Tsao, Liberty Times,Taiwan) And I think in the joint statement, there’s a sentence mentioned that you would support and want to see more engagement between Taiwan and China other than economic. You also want to see the political issues advanced. I wonder that – do you have any idea or picture what kind of political engagement that should be? And also, Taiwan’s government mentioned on several occasions, if they want to talk about a political issue with China, they need U.S. support so they can go on with confidence. And – but we haven’t seen much, really, developments between U.S. and Taiwan so far regarding arms sales of F-15s the Taiwan Government’s request or high-level dialogue. But will be able to see some breakthrough this year? Thanks.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Thank you very much. Let me just say it is the position of the U.S. Government not to comment about the security situation in terms of arms sales vis-à-vis Taiwan, so I will not be finding new ground here. This is the longstanding American position. I stand by it.
The language in the joint communiqué is meant to be very careful –
QUESTION: Joint statement.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: In the joint statement, sorry. I didn’t mean the – sorry, stuck in my mind is – in the joint statement was very clear in terms of welcoming contacts across the Taiwan Strait. We believe that those contacts are the business of the people of China and Taiwan to discuss among themselves, to take the appropriate steps at the appropriate timing. The United States takes no particular view. We think it’s extraordinarily important that there be comfort on both sides. Primarily what the joint statement did was to welcome ECFA* and the burgeoning of economic ties between the two countries, between the two sides. And we think that’s an important step in improving confidence. And we know that there are ongoing dialogues across a range of issues, culturally and the like. I think I would just simply say that the United States supports these. And anything that will build trust and confidence to a greater degree, we think is in the best interest not only of the United States but all the peoples involved.
QUESTION: Well, does it mean a breakthrough between U.S. and China on arms levels?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Look, we think we have a strong unofficial relationship with Taiwan. We have a number of interactions with them and those will continue in 2011 and beyond.
Yeah.
QUESTION: Hi. My name is Sungwon Baik from Voice of America Cambodia. Thanks for your briefing. Wondering if North Korea has recently asked a food aid from the United States via their New York dialogue channel?
And related, the famed diplomatic source also mentioned that the United States is positive about resuming aid to North Korea. Could you state your position, please?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Yes, very clearly I can state that. I think it would be fair to say that the United States is and continues to monitor the humanitarian situation in North Korea but we have no plans for any contributions at this time.
Question: Ai Awaji, Jiji Press
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Pardon me?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Oh, please, yeah. I’m not – just so you know, I won’t have much more beyond that, but I can repeat the answer, so – (laughter) – go ahead. Go ahead, Ai, ask a question.
QUESTION: Hi. I understand that the United States has expressed its readiness to provide assistance if North Korea agrees some conditions in terms of monitoring, interpreters on food aid before. And I’m wondering if you still have the same position.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: No, I think – let me try this one again. See – I think I can do it with more gusto now. (Laughter.) The United States continues to monitor the humanitarian situation in North Korea but has no plans for any contributions at this time.
QUESTION: I mean, if North Korea had asked food aid.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: I think I’ll just stand with that statement, if that’s all right. Thank you.
Yeah.
QUESTION: Hi. Liming Yang from China Youth Daily. During your trip in the Philippines, both sides agree to increase the cooperation in the territorial defense and maritime security. Could you elaborate a little bit about the specific areas in which U.S. and the Philippines are cooperate with?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Thank you. I think I would simply say the United States and the Philippines have had a broad cooperation in the last decade or so that has centered primarily on terrorist issues in Mindanao and elsewhere, and I think that cooperation has been significant and very important, both for the United States and the Philippines. I think there’s a recognition that, in terms of next steps, the United States wants to support the Philippines as it builds capacity and capabilities to better able to monitor the – its territorial waters and elsewhere. And so that process will involve the potential provision of equipment through excess defense sales, training of elements of their coast guard and navy, and deeper consultations at a strategic, political, and military level. And I think we’re committed to do all of those things.
The Philippines remains a strong tree ally, we are committed to its security, and we believe that a carefully designed program which insists on clear progress and close coordination is in the best interests of both countries. Thanks.
MODERATOR: Okay. Just before we proceed, Assistant Secretary Campbell has an engagement after this, so we have time for maybe one or two questions.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: I’ll try to take two or three and then – and I’ll move quickly. I’m – it’s my fault. I’m out of practice answering too long.
I’ll take you. Thanks.
QUESTION: Kyoko Yamaguchi from Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. I have a question about North Korea. I would like to ask you how you plan to address the uranium enrichment program issue. Do you plan to bring this to the Security Council meeting? Or since there is talk of resuming Six-Party Talks, do you plan to bring this as an issue and to be discussed in Six-Party Talks?
And also, if I may, since there would be a meeting between North and South Korea, it’s appearing they are meeting for the military talks, what do you exactly expect to see to come out of this meeting? Thank you.
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Let me take the first question first – the second question first. First of all, we welcome a resumption of dialogue. We are in close consultations with our South Korean allies and friends and we fully support them in this overall process. We stand with them in wanting to see from North Korea a sincere commitment to a variety of steps, including a renunciation of the provocative actions of the last half year, a commitment to take the appropriate steps that will allow the Six-Party Talks to resume, and other signals of a desire to work more closely with the South Koreans. We recognize and believe that the essential first step in any process of reengagement with North Korea requires a North-South – a true and significant North-South dialogue.
On the first part of your question, I think I would refer you to what Deputy Secretary Steinberg said when he was in both Japan and South Korea. And I think we believe that the international community and our key partners and allies have been very clear that any uranium enrichment program or any other kind of nuclear program, for that matter, that is being undertaken by the North Koreans is in violation of its commitments and obligations, including the 2005 joint communiqué, UN Security Council provisions, and other international acts. And I think we are working closely with our allies and friends in terms of the appropriate venue to press our case in this regard.
Yeah.
QUESTION: I am Ther N Oo, Voice of America Service. I have a question about the U.S. policy on Burma. Both sanctions and engagement doesn’t seem to be working. So you said that all political prisoners are still in prisons and new parliaments are totally controlled by the military. So do you have any plan to review the policy, on ongoing with this policy? Do you think you can see more hope, to any more hope for the changes in Burma?
ASSISSTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Look, I think one of the things that I will say, we have been disappointed. There’s no question about the overall engagement policy over the course for the last year that was enunciated by President Obama and laid out clearly by Secretary Clinton. We have tried to be very clear about potential steps that Burma could take and that we would respond to accordingly. We have been disappointed basically across the spectrum in this regard.
It is also the case, however, that we believe a degree of engagement serves the best interests of the United States and our regional policy. And we think that it is appropriate to at least create the opportunity to test this new government about whether they are prepared to take the necessary steps to rejoin the international community and also to work more closely with the United States and other partners.
What we have tried to do all along this – in this process is not oversell the results. We’ve never come back and said we’ve made this progress or this step. We’ve tried to be very clear form the outset what we would need to see, and we have never shied from underscoring our disappointment from what we’ve seen from the leadership.
Now it is true that over the course of the last year, there was a lot of uncertainty and maneuvering inside the country in anticipation of this flawed election. I think it’d be fair to say that we are still waiting to see what steps a new government might be prepared to take, although, frankly, we are quite concerned about steps that we’ve seen to date and are not encouraged by the level of dialogue that we’ve seen inside the country. And frankly, we stand with Aung San Suu Kyi in much of what she’s said in terms of giving the government a chance to declare its intentions on a range of issues.
I can take two last questions. Yes, sir.
QUESTION: Thanks. Bradney Norington from the Australian newspaper --
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Hi. Good to see you.
QUESTION: You, too. In light of President Hu’s visit to Washington, do you have confidence in China playing a more positive role in reining in some of the rogue behavior of North Korea and bringing North Korea to the table in meaningful negotiations?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPELL: Thank you. It’s a very good question. I think we had a very constructive set of discussions with China’s interlocutors before and during the visit of President Hu Jintao. And you will have seen in the joint statement and in other statements by both the U.S. and Chinese side, for the first time in many months China has stated very clearly its concern associated with an element of North Korea’s provocative behavior, namely the uranium enrichment program.
I would – I think it’s fair to say that consultations between the United States and China have intensified. We believe that China plays a critical role in a dialogue on the Korean Peninsula and we continue to make clear to our interlocutors in Beijing that it is essential for them to weigh in in Pyongyang about the need for North Korea to renounce its very provocative steps and take sincere efforts to reengage across a range of issue as part of a process towards the Six-Party Talks. And I think we were pleased by some of the interactions that we had with Chinese friends but it is still at the beginning stages, and we will continue to build on that. That’s one of the reasons that Deputy Secretary Steinberg went to Beijing last week.
Last question. Yeah.
QUESTION: Thank you. Patrick Braden from Global Future. In light of all the rumors of Japan’s acceding to The Hague Convention on Child Abductions, do you have any idea of how long it might take to actually return some of these American citizen children who have been abducted illegally from the United States?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: I would say just not soon enough, frankly. And I – this is an issue that’s very important to Secretary Clinton and to the White House. I just want to underscore that the situation in which a large number of American families have been separated, that children have been illegally taken from rightful custody situations and are kept away from parents, is a deeply worrisome situation. We are in close consultation with our Japanese friends. We have underscored to them how it is – how essential it is for them to join with the vast majority of the industrialized democracies in signing on to The Hague Convention and taking the necessary steps, not only going forward on these issues but also dealing responsibly and humanely with the existing cases.
I have found that as I – as we put a face on these issues, talk directly to Japanese friends, once they have a greater knowledge of these issues, they, too, want to see justice for these families and this really heartbreaking set of circumstances. So I thank you for the question. It’s going to be important that we see progress soon on this issue. There is a building degree of anxiety, and in some places anger, on Capitol Hill. I’ve been working closely with Japanese counterparts. I’m a very good friend of Japan, very strong supporter of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Let’s take the opportunity over the next several months to get this done and to move beyond this issue and focus on the critical issues between the United States and Japan in a new Asian set of circumstances.
Thank you all very much. I really appreciate being here today.
MODERATOR: Thank you.
Ref:
http://fpc.state.gov/155878.htm
Asian History Lessons By PHILIP BOWRING (New York Times The Opinion Pages)
Asian History Lessons
By PHILIP BOWRING
Published: February 15, 2011
I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
HONG KONG — With Egypt both hopeful and uncertain in the aftermath of Hosni Mubarak’s departure, it is worth reflecting on lessons that may be learned from the fall of two of Asia’s U.S.-allied strongmen, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Indonesia’s Suharto in 1998.
All three had in common that they followed rigged elections, suggesting that phony democracy can be more dangerous for dictators than none at all (a thought that may give hope in Myanmar). In all three, the military was an important factor but not the driving force, which in each case was the populace in the streets.
The relatively orderly transitions in Indonesia and the Philippines give clues to how a similar result may be possible in Egypt.
Indonesia’s was perhaps the most remarkable and surprising transition, given that Suharto’s downfall coincided with — and was partly caused by — the collapse of the economy at the time of the Asian financial crisis. Much of the banking system had failed and unemployment had soared.
This diverse country also faced rebellions in Timor and Aceh and separatist tendencies elsewhere. Relatively homogeneous ethnically and suffering economic malaise rather than crisis, Egypt faces no such high hurdles.
So how did Indonesia come through? One reason was that it had a constitution, dating to 1945, to which Suharto had always nominally adhered. So when he resigned, the vice president, whose time in the regime had been short-lived, was seen as an acceptable transitional figure.
It helped, too, that political parties that reflected the major political and religious groups of society had operated legally for several years. The media had long been pushing the envelope of freedom.
In the Philippines, the opposition had a figure — the future president Corazon Aquino, widow of an assassinated Marcos opponent — as its standard-bearer. It operated in a country that had never been as tightly controlled as either Indonesia or Egypt. And the Philippines had a small elite used to swapping places in power; they were mostly more interested in money than killing each other.
Egypt now starts with a revoked constitution, temporary military rule and political parties that, with the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood, appear relatively undeveloped. It also, as yet, lacks a person or party to lead. Nor is it yet clear that the Egyptian masses will rally to the idea of liberal democracy as Indonesians and Filipinos have done rather than opt for a new, possibly Islam-based, authoritarianism.
Because of its diversity, Indonesia can only survive if pluralism is its basis. Egypt has no such constraint, but it has had 5,000 years of history to teach it the follies of ideology and extremism.
If Asia is an example, political change will probably not undo the liberal economic tendencies that Mubarak had showed in reversing the socialism inherited from the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Indeed, if Indonesia is any guide, the reaction against crony capitalism will open the economy up to competition.
There is the danger that a reaction against the corruption under Mubarak will lead not just to attempts to recover ill-gotten gains from Swiss banks, but to an attack on the credibility of all business that have prospered under the ousted regime. As in Asia, family wealth is now in legitimate businesses and held through third parties.
For the longer term, Egypt might just get a new set of cronies, or the gradual return of old ones, as has happened in Indonesia and the Philippines. But that is another issue.
In Indonesia and the Philippines, efforts to prosecute past misdeeds soon lost steam, which was a poor reflection on good governance but allowed for an atmosphere of forgiveness that contributed to political stability.
Some Egyptian distancing from the U.S. is inevitable, just as the post-Marcos legislature got rid of U.S. military bases. But nothing fundamentally changed in Washington’s relationship with either the Philippines or Indonesia. By that measure, the most important foreign aspect of the Tahrir revolution will be its impact on Arab politics.
Egypt’s centrality to the Arab world, and to all Middle East politics, give it an importance that surpasses its size. Nonetheless, the “people power” experiences of two larger but less central Asian nations give some encouragement as Egypt feels its way to the future.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on February 16, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune.
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/opinion/16iht-edbowring16.html?_r=1&ref=global
(OPINION)
By PHILIP BOWRING
Published: February 15, 2011
I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
HONG KONG — With Egypt both hopeful and uncertain in the aftermath of Hosni Mubarak’s departure, it is worth reflecting on lessons that may be learned from the fall of two of Asia’s U.S.-allied strongmen, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Indonesia’s Suharto in 1998.
All three had in common that they followed rigged elections, suggesting that phony democracy can be more dangerous for dictators than none at all (a thought that may give hope in Myanmar). In all three, the military was an important factor but not the driving force, which in each case was the populace in the streets.
The relatively orderly transitions in Indonesia and the Philippines give clues to how a similar result may be possible in Egypt.
Indonesia’s was perhaps the most remarkable and surprising transition, given that Suharto’s downfall coincided with — and was partly caused by — the collapse of the economy at the time of the Asian financial crisis. Much of the banking system had failed and unemployment had soared.
This diverse country also faced rebellions in Timor and Aceh and separatist tendencies elsewhere. Relatively homogeneous ethnically and suffering economic malaise rather than crisis, Egypt faces no such high hurdles.
So how did Indonesia come through? One reason was that it had a constitution, dating to 1945, to which Suharto had always nominally adhered. So when he resigned, the vice president, whose time in the regime had been short-lived, was seen as an acceptable transitional figure.
It helped, too, that political parties that reflected the major political and religious groups of society had operated legally for several years. The media had long been pushing the envelope of freedom.
In the Philippines, the opposition had a figure — the future president Corazon Aquino, widow of an assassinated Marcos opponent — as its standard-bearer. It operated in a country that had never been as tightly controlled as either Indonesia or Egypt. And the Philippines had a small elite used to swapping places in power; they were mostly more interested in money than killing each other.
Egypt now starts with a revoked constitution, temporary military rule and political parties that, with the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood, appear relatively undeveloped. It also, as yet, lacks a person or party to lead. Nor is it yet clear that the Egyptian masses will rally to the idea of liberal democracy as Indonesians and Filipinos have done rather than opt for a new, possibly Islam-based, authoritarianism.
Because of its diversity, Indonesia can only survive if pluralism is its basis. Egypt has no such constraint, but it has had 5,000 years of history to teach it the follies of ideology and extremism.
If Asia is an example, political change will probably not undo the liberal economic tendencies that Mubarak had showed in reversing the socialism inherited from the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Indeed, if Indonesia is any guide, the reaction against crony capitalism will open the economy up to competition.
There is the danger that a reaction against the corruption under Mubarak will lead not just to attempts to recover ill-gotten gains from Swiss banks, but to an attack on the credibility of all business that have prospered under the ousted regime. As in Asia, family wealth is now in legitimate businesses and held through third parties.
For the longer term, Egypt might just get a new set of cronies, or the gradual return of old ones, as has happened in Indonesia and the Philippines. But that is another issue.
In Indonesia and the Philippines, efforts to prosecute past misdeeds soon lost steam, which was a poor reflection on good governance but allowed for an atmosphere of forgiveness that contributed to political stability.
Some Egyptian distancing from the U.S. is inevitable, just as the post-Marcos legislature got rid of U.S. military bases. But nothing fundamentally changed in Washington’s relationship with either the Philippines or Indonesia. By that measure, the most important foreign aspect of the Tahrir revolution will be its impact on Arab politics.
Egypt’s centrality to the Arab world, and to all Middle East politics, give it an importance that surpasses its size. Nonetheless, the “people power” experiences of two larger but less central Asian nations give some encouragement as Egypt feels its way to the future.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on February 16, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune.
Ref:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/opinion/16iht-edbowring16.html?_r=1&ref=global
(OPINION)
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