By THE IRRAWADDY

Maung Wuntha, a veteran Burmese journalist who also served as deputy chairman of the country’s interim Press Council, succumbed to cancer on Sunday. He was 68 years old.

His son Naung Naung Soe confirmed Maung Wuntha’s death to The Irrawaddy, saying his father passed away after a battle with lung cancer at Rangoon’s Victoria Hospital, where he had undergone treatment for more than a month.

“We still haven’t confirmed the date for the funeral as we are waiting for one of our family members who is far from home,” Naung Naung Soe added.

Author: Saw Blacktown

Shan community based organizations claim that Burmese authorities are preparing to repatriate Shan refugees from Thailand, warning that the safety of refugees are at risk and repatriation is “premature.”

The community groups, include the Shan Human Rights Foundation and the Shan Women’s Action Network, said that Burmese authorities had visited Koung Jor camp of about 500 people last month.

The camp leader was contacted shortly afterwards by Burma’s military to say that new housing would be built for returning families on the Burma side of the border, about 15km from the camp.

by Khin Maung Soe

The banned Communist Party of Burma (CPB) claims it played a key role in the 1988 student-led, pro-democracy uprising in Myanmar, saying its ironic use of “multiparty democracy” as a slogan for ousting the country’s dictatorship drew popular support from the people and laid the foundation for the country’s ongoing reforms.

“I don’t see the 1988 uprising as a failure,” a key CPB leader, Hla Kyaw Zaw, told RFA’s Myanmar Service from Kunming, the capital of China’s southwestern Yunnan province, where she lives in exile.

DW

The military coup of 1988 brutally ended the opposition’s dream of democracy, it seemed. Today there is evidence of democratization in Myanmar. But experts continue to speculate over the reasons and motives behind this.

After the military took power in Myanmar on September 18, 1988, the opposition had to re-orientate itself. It had two choices: it could latch onto other newly created parties or it could go underground – either in the middle of the country or somewhere in the border areas.
 Aung San Suu Kyi, Tin Oo and Aung Gyi founded the National League for Democracy (NLD) on September 27. The party attracted a good portion of the opposition and was thus able to create the strongest political alternative to the then governing State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which had been created by the military.

By Zin Linn

On Thursday Burmese people around the country commemorated the 25th Anniversary of the 1988 People’s Democracy Revolution. In the past, no remembrances were allowed to mark the 8888 anniversary in Burma, and this year heavy police security was be seen in big cities, especially in Rangoon (Yangon) around Shwedagon Pagoda.

The uprising was violently suppressed on 8- 8-88 by the then-ruling military junta in which Thein Sein and several senior military officers in the existing quasi-civilian government were complicit.

by Nay Rain Kyaw

A Myanmar activist held for a week in Yangon’s Insein prison has staged a hunger strike to protest his arrest over his role in an anti-land grabbing campaign, fellow activists said Friday.

Htin Kyaw began his hunger strike four days ago after he was detained last Friday following a demonstration he staged with Yangon residents denouncing the government’s seizure of their homes located in an area that has been reallocated for a business venture, according to activists.

The former political prisoner and grassroots community protest leader has been charged with spreading statements that incite unrest and violating a controversial peaceful assembly law.