‘The army insists we give up our weapons, it’s a major obstacle’

Brigadier-General Tun Myat Naing, leader of Arakan Army rebel group operating in some parts of Rakhine State in western Myanmar. (Photo: Htet Khaung Linn/Myanmar Now)


By Htet Khaung Linn

LAIZA, Kachin State (Myanmar Now) - The Arakan Army (AA) was formed in 2009 in the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) stronghold of Laiza, on Myanmar’s northern border with China, where the Arakan ethnic rebels received training and arms.

They have fought alongside the KIA, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Kokang’s Myanmar National Democratic Alliance (MNDAA) in Kachin and Shan states.

In March 2015, AA forces first clashed with the Myanmar army in Rakhine, their western home state, where they have considerable popular support. Fighting has since spread throughout the townships of Kyauktaw, Ponnagyun, Rathedaung and Mrauk-U, where some 2,000 civilians have fled.

Myanmar’s powerful military demands the AA, TNLA and MNDAA disarm before they can participate in the nationwide ceasefire process, but all rebels say a ceasefire should be inclusive and begin without such conditions.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) government has been handed the difficult task of bringing all sides on board for a much-touted “21st Century Panlong Agreement” within the next few months. Its lead negotiators have reached out to various rebel groups.

AA leader Brigadier-General Tun Myat Naing spoke to Myanmar Now reporter Htet Khaung Linn in Laiza and discussed the Arakan fighting, the ceasefire process and the NLD government’s actions so far.

Question: Can you tell us about the current conflict situation in Rakhine State?

Answer: Clashes have stopped at the moment, despite some fighting earlier this month. We have ordered our troops to avoid further complicating the situation of the displaced people during the rainy season. But the army frequently launches offensives. So, we fought against each other… some injuries occurred on both sides.

Q: Is the AA invited to join the 21st Century Panlong conference?

A: Not yet, but it was informally proposed (by lead negotiators). The army insists we give up our weapons. This is a major obstacle for us to join the peace talk - it’s totally impossible. We need to address this problem first before we can go forward to the next phase.

Q: Rakhine people protested recently to call for a halt to fighting in the region. Who should respond to their demand, the military or AA?

A: Recently, there were between 70 and 80 armed clashes in Rakhine. We started the fighting in less than 10 cases. Most offensives were initiated by the military. We don’t want to say we are not responsible for these fights, but we retain a right to defend ourselves.

Q: The new NLD government has pledged to secure a nationwide ceasefire accord. How does the AA view this process?

A: Although the NLD promises peace, we have some opposing views between us. The government peace negotiators are asking us to abandon all our weapons before the peace talks start, but we demand that political dialogue should come first. There is also some confusion over (the content of) a ceasefire deal.

Q: Some ethnic leaders believe peace talks can be successful during the Aung San Suu Kyi-led NLD government. What is your opinion?

A: We are cautious about believing in a peace deal during her government, as the military’s influence continues to play a crucial role in the peace process.
Moreover, currently the central government is not managing the states in a federal manner. I am referring to the (NLD) government’s ways of controlling the peace and development initiatives in Rakhine State. (The NLD angered the Arakan National Party, which has most Rakhine parliament seats, by appointing its own state chief minister.)
We see such missing points with the NLD government. So, we are not fully confident that a peace deal could be signed during the term of this government.

Q: Why is the AA preparing for peace talks and fighting at the same time?

A: We still have some doubts about the peace talks. Although we had many (ceasefire) discussions (under the former administration), in the end some ethnic armed groups fell into the trap set by the previous government. After learning lessons from this process, we are very cautious about our steps during the ceasefire process. (Eight groups in the Southeast, including the Karen National Union, signed a joint ceasefire with the government last year.)

Q: Amending the Constitution to grant more powers to states and regions under a federal union could be difficult given the military’s veto powers in parliament. Do you think this will remain a problem?

A: That is right. … The previous government send a message through their state-owned media raising the possibility of amending the Constitution in parliament but they never followed up on their promise. So our doubts (about constitutional reform) became stronger from this experience.

Q:  What role can the military play in the future of Myanmar?

A: The military commander-in-chief must be under the authority of the Minister of Defence. The country’s president must have total authority over the military. The current Constitution should not in every discussion refer to the military as holding the highest authority and allowing it to serve its own interest. The Constitution is totally unfair and we do not accept it.

Q: Can ethnic groups and the military have successful discussions on key issues?

A: We cannot imagine this change of attitude (of the army). While they are asking for peace, they also insist on the total clearing of all ethnic forces. The NLD government should be aware of this. The military may want to fight every ethnic rebel that exists. So hopes for reaching a ceasefire for our people are not very high.

Q: What do you think of the achievements of the NLD so far?

A: We expected more from NLD by now, maybe we had too high expectations. They tried the best in their first 100 days in office. However, they need to make more politics changes to please the public. Reform processes inside government projects only cannot cure chronic problems. The 100 day period is too short to judge things… (but) they need to develop effective policies for the long term.

Q: What will be the most important task for the Rakhine State government?

A: The NLD government should try to understand the Bengali (Rohingya Muslims) issue better. The 1982 Citizenship Law is held up as the norm to solve this problem (of Rohingya’s citizenship status). It will not be easy to please all stakeholders. But they need to be open to proper ideas in seeking an appropriate solution. The government must take responsibility and accountability for this.

Exhausted by war, Kachin IDPs in rebel areas see aid dwindle

Za Hkawng, right, was forced to leave his village a few years ago amid the fighting between government forces and the Kachin rebels and has since been living in N-Hkawng Pa IDP camp in Kachin State. (Photo: Htet Hkaung Linn/Myanmar Now)


By Htet Khaung Linn

N-HKAWNG PA IDP CAMP, Kachin State (Myanmar Now) - Za Hkawng, a 70-year-old ethnic Kachin man, prepares some tea in his small bamboo hut situated on a windy mountain ridge and recalls how he used to live off the land as a farmer.

Though his farm in Mahn Taung Village is only a half day’s walk away from his shelter here in N-Hkawng Pa IDP camp, he hasn’t grown any crops in five years.

His village is now a frontline position of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which has fought a grinding war with the Myanmar military in the mountains of northern Myanmar’s Kachin State since June 2011, when a longstanding ceasefire collapsed.

Za Hkawng said he was tired of living in a hut and relying on food donations that are supplied to his camp in Waimaw Township. It is one of 29 sites under KIA control that provide refuge to some 40,000 internally displaced civilians.

“Every day, I’m not happy here,” he murmured, while looking out over the surrounding mountains, some of which were capped with snow and shrouded in dark clouds during a visit by this reporter in early June.

EXHAUSTED BY CAMP LIFE

KIA forces control small, mountainous areas on the Myanmar-China border and are headquartered in Laiza town. The IDPs have lived in these remote, rough areas for five years now, cut off from government services and reliant on the KIA’s civilian wing and several aid NGOs for food, shelter, education and healthcare.

N-Hkawng Pa IDP camp houses 1,708 people and is situated along a creek that demarcates the border with China. The site is isolated and the vicinity of the frontline adds a sense of danger to the helplessness felt by many camp residents.

“We don't even dare to go into forest around here to find firewood or vegetables - it’s very dangerous as the army might suspect we are KIA members,” Za Hkawng said, adding that civilians caught by soldiers are often tortured.

Only the elderly, women and young children stay at the camp. Most of the young people have crossed into nearby China to look for work and many have become farm labourers.

Za Hkawng stays here with a wife and members of his extended family who live in five other huts clustered on the mountainside. He and his wife had three children, but all passed away before the war.

Camp residents rely on increasingly infrequent food rations from the UN World Food Program (WFP) and other aid support from the Metta Foundation and Kachin NGO Wunpawng Ninghtoi.

“It's not really enough for us,” Za Hkawng said of his food ration, adding that his family rarely gets to eat meat.

Khon Ra, a Kachin Baptist preacher and medical worker from Lashio, Shan State, runs a small medical clinic in N-Hkawng Pa camp.

“I’m now working for my Kachin people. I can provide treatment only for minor cases, such as fever,” she said, adding that serious cases are sent to a KIA-run hospital in the larger Maija Yang City , or to the Myanmar border town of Muse in Shan State, which can be reached via China.

“About 50 persons have died here in the last five years, and many suffer from serious mental trauma caused by civil war,” she said.

Local aid workers have warned that a prolonged stay in the camps also causes social problems, such as domestic violence, divorce and substance abuse, while a lack of education and poverty affects children’s development.

REDUCED AID FOR KIA-RUN CAMPS

As the Kachin conflict enters its sixth year, clashes between the KIA and the army continue. Some 100,000 civilians have fled the fighting and about 80,000 are registered camp residents - about half of the displaced stay in KIA-controlled areas.

International attention for the conflict has been flagging, however. Meanwhile, other humanitarian crises in Myanmar - such as last year’s flood disaster and increased fighting in Rakhine and northern Shan states - have also required international aid support.

As a result, WFP has reduced aid in Kachin State. Since early 2016, it has changed support for some 28,000 Kachin IDPs in government areas from food baskets to monthly cash transfers of around 9,000-13,000 kyats per person (about US$7.5-11).

Another 9,000 ‘vulnerable’ IDPs continue to receive WFP food rations, but half of these households have seen their monthly food rations cut to 11.5 kg of rice, 1 kg of pulses, 450 ml of cooking oil and 150 g of salt.

The situation of IDPs in the remote KIA areas is even tougher. Their camps suffer from a lack of aid access and though WFP said it would not reduce food rations there, aid delivery is irregular and hindered by conflict.

In the month of May, WFP said it “delivered two-three month food rations for over 8,400 IDPs in five IDP locations” in KIA areas, while “delivery to Laiza has been postponed due to volatile security situation.”

Yanghee Lee, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar, noted in her end-of-mission statement last week that ongoing conflict had further reduced humanitarian access to KIA-controlled areas.

“Previously there was access, albeit subject to some limitations, to the more than 40,000 IDPs in non-government controlled areas. However, access has been blocked in recent months, with a proposal made to deliver assistance to neutral or government controlled areas – a 1.5 day walk for many of those affected,” she said.

Lee added that her planned visit to Laiza to look into this situation was refused due to security considerations.

A HOPE FOR PEACE

The National League for Democracy (NLD) government controlled by Aung San Suu Kyi has pledged to resume ceasefire negotiations and to hold a nationwide conference within months, dubbed the 21st Century Panglong Conference.

It hopes to broker an all-inclusive accord that brings on board half a dozen armed groups, including the KIA, that are still embroiled in clashes with the army in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine states.

It remains unclear, however, whether the NLD can bring the rebel groups and Myanmar’s powerful military together for an accord in such short term.

Za Hkawng knows of the change to a democratic government - though none of the IDPs in KIA areas were allowed to cast their vote last November - and he is aware of the plans to resume peace talks with the KIA.

He said he does not expect that peace will come soon, adding, “We hear a ceasefire deal remains elusive and meanwhile conflicts are happening almost every day.”

Yet, hopes he spent to his last years on his farm. “I don’t want to take shelter anymore. I have become old and want to spend my remaining life in my native village,” Za Hkawng said.

(Editing by Paul Vrieze)

Isolated and lacking labor rights, housemaids toil in silence

Photo caption: This photo of an eight-year-old housemaid in Yangon’s Bahan Township being tortured by her employers went viral on Facebook in 2015.)


By Ei Cherry Aung

YANGON (Myanmar Now) - Khin Htar Kyu was in her late teens when she left her village in Ayeyarwady Region’s Wakema Township with a younger sister to find work in Yangon in order to help her indebted family.

Upon arrival she took the first job she was offered and began work as a live-in housemaid with a family in Sanchaung Township. Four years have passed and the 23-year-old has rarely had a day off since. She usually works from 4 am to 10 pm to cook, clean and take care of the young children. With this gruelling work, she earns US$85 per month and free meals and lodging.

“Sometimes, I want to take one day off during the week but I can’t,” Khin Htar Kyu said, adding that she even cares for her employer’s baby in the middle of the night. “I was happier as a farmer, I had a lot of quiet and freedom. I need not care about anything except my crops,” she said wistfully.

Across Myanmar, there are tens of thousands of girls like Khin Htar Kyu who leave their poor families to become a domestic worker for wealthier households.

They usually receive little pay and lack labor rights protection, according to women and child rights activists, who said the maids are often are young - or underage - and vulnerable to various forms of abuse by their employer.

Naw Aye Aye Hlaing, programme manager with Yangon-based NGO Women Can Do It, said workers usually don't complain about their situation as they are isolated in their employers’ homes and lack support when they want to report abuses.

“Myanmar has no special support group to help housemaids as they are seen as unimportant workers,” she said, adding that more must be done to ensure proper treatment of workers.

“Housemaids should be set reasonable tasks… [and] employers should be responsible for creating a safe working environment,” said Naw Aye Aye Hlaing, whose organisation promotes women’s education and involvement in politics.

VULNERABLE AND UNPROTECTED

Aung Myo Min, executive director at NGO Equality Myanmar, said many maids are children from poor families who cannot care for them. They are placed with wealthier households and provide free labor in return for a roof over their heads.

“Some of these children have a lower status than domestic workers - they just get a meal and shelter, not money, for their work,” he said, adding that such issues also relate to Myanmar’s longstanding problems with ensuring child rights and preventing child labour.

Maung Maung Soe, a lawyer in Yangon, told Myanmar Now that maids are often poorly fed, lack proper sleeping quarters and are regularly beaten. Yet, court cases against abusive employers are very rare as maids lack legal avenues to complain.

“They have little legal protection as there are no (labor) laws to protect housemaids against employers. But if they are accused of stealing money from their employer they can easily be prosecuted,” said Maung Maung Soe, who has provided legal aid to abused workers.

Files at Yangon Regional Police Headquarters obtained by Myanmar Now show authorities recorded only eight cases of criminal abuse of maids by employers in the whole country between 2011 to 2015, four cases of which were in Yangon.

In only one case an employer was sentenced. Kyi Hla Myint, a man from Yangon’s Bahan Township, received three years in prison with hard labor in February 2014 for beating a 14-year-old girl, burning her hands with cooking oil, and locking her up in a room without food.

In 2013, a 14-year-old housemaid managed to file a complaint with police over beatings on her head, back, arms and chest by members of a family in North Dagon Township who employed her for four years. Three of them are now facing criminal prosecution at the township court.

The victim’s uncle, Myo Oo, said his niece will never work as a housemaid again. “She has trauma from that job,” he said, adding that he hoped the perpetrators will face serious criminal punishment.

LEGAL PROTECTION NEEDED

Rights activists said the cases are merely a tip of the iceberg as many abuses go unreported because victims lack strength or knowledge to stand up to their employers, or because issues are quietly settled by employers.

“Only if housemaids have major injuries on their bodies can they have enough proof for a police complaint. Otherwise, it is very difficult for them,” said Maung Maung Soe.

Aung Myo Min, of Equality Myanmar, said the government should draw up legal protections for domestic workers and inform them of their rights. “Housemaids need to know how and where they can file complaints against abuses by employers,” he said.

Nyunt Win, deputy director-general at Factories and General Labour Laws Inspection Department, told Myanmar Now that the Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Manpower has held discussions with civil society organisations over drafting a law that would set a minimum age for domestic workers and provide basic labor rights, such as working hours and holidays.

He acknowledged the workers’ situation was currently poorly regulated.

“There are many controversial issues regarding housemaids, including working hours and off-days,” Nyunt Win said, before adding that maids “should not refuse to prepare meals or wash clothes at the time when their employers come home.”

Myanmar Now contacted several National League for Democracy lawmakers, but none had knowledge of the draft law to protect domestic workers.

IMPROVING RECRUITMENT

Bringing poor girls from rural areas to work as housemaids in wealthier households in cities and
towns is a longstanding practice in impoverished Myanmar.

The process often involved relatives or neighbours of the girls who would connect them with wealthier families, but these days most maids are placed with an employer by recruitment agencies or unregistered brokers.

One informal broker in Yangon named Moe Moe said she had helped ten families find a housemaid in recent years, earning about $30 in commission per worker.

She said she ensures that both maid and employer are suitable and trustworthy. “I will have to face any follow-up problems, so I avoid strangers in this business,” Moe Moe said.

Khin Swe Win said her family in Yangon’s South Okkalapa Township had found a maid through her relatives. “Most housemaid brokers do not take responsibility for their work, so I relied on close family members,” she said.

The Yangon Kayin Baptist Women’s Association has created an organisation called Protection for Women in Household Services that tries to ensure that girls are employed by families who treat them well.

Naw Phaw Wah, the director of the organisation, said her staff have helped about 100 maids find safe jobs and carry out regular visits to check on their working situation.

“The employers are warned once if housemaids are found to be treated badly. If they neglect our suggestions the organisation withdraws its housemaid,” she said.

Khin Htar Kyu said she desperately wanted to quit work as a maid, but she needs to send cash to her family and help them save up to $1,000 to regain control of their farm in Wakema Township, which they pawned to a wealthy neighbour.

“I cannot foresee the day when our family can get back their land and I can go back to the village,” she said.

(Editing by Paul Vrieze)