Burma Day Criticized

By WAI MOE

The Burma Day conference in Brussels, co-hosted by the European Commission (EC), was criticized on Wednesday by a pro-democracy campaign group, which claimed that the event favoured speakers from the anti-democracy movement in Burma.

The London-based Burma Campaign UK said on Wednesday in a press release that the commission had chosen people who largely opposed the policies of Burma’s democracy movement as speakers at the day-long conference, even though the agenda focused on humanitarian and political issues in Burma.

“EU Burma Day is always heavily biased in this way,” the Burma Campaign UK said.

There were a small number of genuine representatives, the campaign group said. Charm Tong, for example, a Shan woman activist was speaking on a panel. However, another prominent Burmese woman activist in exile attending the conference, Khin Ohmar, was not invited to speak.

Representatives of the Burma Campaign UK and a dissident group, the Ethnic Nationalities Council, attended the conference yesterday. However, according to a source at the event, the Burma Campaign UK was not allowed to join in discussions at the conference.

A press release by the European Union said that Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European commissioner for external relations and European neighborhood policy, invited NGOs, advocacy groups, international organizations and think tanks from Burma and Europe to the conference, titled “Burma/Myanmar- Prospects for the Future,” to discuss the present situation in the country and its future outlook.

The conference outlined the role of Burma’s civil society in the political process and the response to Cyclone Nargis. The Burma Day event was co-hosted by the EC, the Interchurch Organization for Development Co-operation, the Burma Center Netherlands, the Transitional Institute and the Euro-Burma Office.

The Euro-Burma Office also organized a Burma conference in Beijing earlier this month. Several representatives from Chinese civil society were at the conference and they reportedly spoke out of their concerns about the crisis in Burma.

On Thursday, a closed meeting was scheduled to be held in Brussels. Burmese from inside the country and in exile were expected to join in discussions.

A Burmese researcher in Rangoon who focuses on civil society said that Khin Zaw Win, who works with the Rangoon-based International Development Enterprise, and Nay Win Maung, the CEO of the Voice Weekly, Living Color magazine, and a Burmese NGO called Myanmar E-gress, had organized participants from Burma.

Khin Zaw Win and Nay Win Maung are controversial in Burma. They are said to be receiving benefits from the Burmese authorities and international organizations for their roles in criticizing democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the pro-democracy movement in the country.

According to diplomat sources, Zaw Oo, the head of the Vahu Development Institute, based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, participated with the “inside” Burma group at the Burma Day conference, even though he is a Burmese scholar in exile.

He has been a leading activist in exile since 1988. In recent years, he split from a leading dissident group, the Burma Fund, and was granted a visa to Burma by the authorities in July and September.

He has since toned down his political rhetoric, observers have said. He told The Irrawaddy in early September that his trip to Burma made him realize that many exiles do not have a complete picture of the situation inside Burma.