Global think tank honors Thein Sein, ignores Kachin state war crimes allegations

KNG

In recognition of President Thein Sein's “bold and visionary reform initiatives” the International Crisis Group (ICG), dubbed the world's largest think tank, will bestow the ex-general turned civilian politician with its annual Pursuit of Peace Award next April.
The ICG has chosen to celebrate General Than Shwe's hand-picked successor in spite of the fact that the army ostensibly under Thein Sein's control has committed what human rights groups describe as war crimes against civilians in Kachin state. The ICG however has opted to overlook this serious blemish on Thein Sein's record focusing instead on his much heralded peace initiative.

Thein Sein “has made vast strides in ending the decades-long conflict affecting Myanmar,” said the ICG in a brief bio which accompanied last month's press release announcing the award. Since Thein Sein came to office “all but one of the ethnic armed groups have signed preliminary ceasefires with the government, and it is hoped that an agreement will also soon be reached with the Kachin Independence Organization,” said the ICG press release.

Top UN official Valerie Amos in Burma Kachin plea

BBC 

 

Kachin state remains a conflict-riddled area with thousands of displaced people

Top UN humanitarian official Valerie Amos has called for urgent access to some 40,000 people in northern Burma who have been displaced by fighting between troops and Kachin rebels.

Ms Amos said it was clear that they were in desperate need of assistance.

The Burmese military has allowed only a handful of aid vehicles into the area in the last 18 months.
Fighting flared up between the two sides in June last year when a long-standing ceasefire broke down.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting between the Burmese army and the Kachin Independence Army over the last 20 years. There have been many reports of human rights abuses.
The conflict is being seen as one of the biggest tests facing Burma's new civilian government as it attempts to reform the country.

Convoy shooting spree leaves 1 dead, 3 injured in Kachin state

By NANG MYA NADI, DVB

A truck driver was killed and three other people were injured on 3 December when a Burmese Army convoy passing through Shadusoot village in Kachin state’s Hpakant township opened fire on the area after being ambushed by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

According to the chairman of a local charity Win Bo, the Burmese military convoy from Light Infantry Division 88 were transporting supplies from Kachin state’s capital Myitkyina when they were ambushed by the KIA.

The convoy later passed through Shadusoot village around noon on Monday and fired shots hitting and killing 48-year-old truck driver Kun Htet Naw in apparent retaliation for the earlier assault hatched by rebel forces.

AP Exclusive: Myanmar launches operation to verify citizenship of Muslims in strife-torn west

AP: SIN THET MAW, Myanmar — Guarded by rifle-toting police, immigration authorities in western Myanmar have launched a major operation aimed at settling an explosive question at the heart of the biggest crisis the government has faced since beginning its nascent transition to democracy last year.
It’s a question that has helped fuel two bloody spasms of sectarian unrest between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims since June, and it comes down to one simple thing: Who has the right to be a citizen of Myanmar, and who does not?

A team of Associated Press journalists that traveled recently to the remote island village of Sin Thet Maw, a maze of bamboo huts without electricity in Myanmar’s volatile west, found government immigration officials in the midst of a painstaking, census-like operation aimed at verifying the citizenship of Muslims living there, one family at a time.