More milestones in Burma

Political prisoners like 88 Generation Students leader Min Ko Naing are now free

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Burma: Battle for Democracy

• EU ministers lift Burma visa bans
• Joy as freed prisoners head home
• In pictures: Prisoners freed
• Ceasefire with rebels signed

As the European Union suspends visa bans on leading politicians in Burma, South Asia specialist Marie Lall looks at recent dramatic changes in the country and what lies behind them.

Nowadays Burma is in the news almost daily and at the very least weekly.
There have been regular and significant milestones since 30 March 2011, the date on which military leaders formally handed power to the civilianised government led by President Thein Sein.
The eye-watering speed of change has surprised even the most optimistic country specialists and Western nations are now seriously discussing the lifting of sanctions.
The most recent and momentous event was the release of 651 prisoners on 13 January.
Those freed included almost all of the internationally known prisoners of conscience such as 88 Generation Students leaders Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi, as well as one of the leaders of the "saffron revolution" in 2007, monk Ashin Gambira.
The amnesty also included around 60 former military personnel who had been jailed in 2004 when Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, former prime minister and head of military intelligence, was convicted on charges of corruption.
The latter group were not necessarily viewed as political prisoners by western human rights organisations, however they were nevertheless jailed on political charges.
The prisoners were mostly freed unconditionally and the official statement read: "enabling them to participate in the political process [... and] nation building tasks".
There have been previous amnesties, one as recent as 4 January with 38,964 prisoners having their sentences reduced and 6,656 released.
However this time the government based itself on the National League for Democracy's (NLD) list of 604 prisoners and freed more than half of them.
Conflicts and by-elections
Another no less historic moment came with the signing of the ceasefire agreement between the government (represented by the Kayin State Level Peace-Making Group) and the Karen National Union (KNU) the day before on 12 January.

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REFORM IN BURMA

• 7 Nov 2010: First polls in 20 years
• 13 Nov: Aung San Suu Kyi freed from house arrest
• 30 Mar 2011: Transfer of power to new government complete
• 19 Aug: Aung San Suu Kyi meets Burmese President Thein Sein
• 12 Oct: More than 200 political prisoners freed
• 13 Oct: New labour laws allowing unions passed
• 17 Nov: Burma granted Asean chair in 2014
• 23 Dec: NLD registers as political party
• 12 Jan: Karen ceasefire signed
• 13 Jan: Highest-profile political prisoners freed

• Timeline: Reforms in Burma

This has hopefully brought one of Asia's longest-standing conflicts to an end after 60 years of armed resistance. This agreement follows ceasefires with other ethnic groups - the Shan State Army, the Wa and Mongla in Shan State and the Chin National Front in Chin State.

While there is a long way to go between a ceasefire and a comprehensive peace agreement, this is the necessary first step to bring peace to the region and to the ravaged Burma-Thai border.
Unfortunately the conflict in Kachin state continues although the president has ordered a halt to the fighting. It can only be hoped that the recent meetings in Ruili on the Chinese side of the border will also lead to the much-awaited ceasefire.
On 29 December the Election Commission announced that by-elections would be held on 1 April to fill parliamentary seats left vacant by the appointment of ministers.
Last week, Aung San Suu Kyi announced her candidacy for the Kawhmu constituency in Rangoon.
The NLD is expected to take seats in parliament, taking part in the political process they had to date rejected.
Interviewed by the press, Speaker of the House Shwe Mann stated "If she [Suu Kyi] wins in the April by-election, we'll have to a chance to discuss and talk. I'll be waiting for her."
These are indeed momentous times for a country that even a year ago was still considered a pariah nation.
The latest developments come on the heels of increased freedom of the press, new labour laws allowing unions, a process of national reconciliation between the NLD and the government, and Burma being elected ASEAN chair for 2014.
'Third force'
Activist lobbies located in the West or on the border have increasingly been claiming that it was their isolationist policies and the sanctions regime that have brought about these changes.
But in fact it is in-country civil society organisations, both ethnic and Bamar [Burmese], which have worked tirelessly over the last five years to bring about the changes.

Aung San Suu Kyi signs the condolence book for Dr Nay Win Maung

The New Year started with sad news as Dr Nay Win Maung, a leading civil society activist and secretary general of Myanmar Egress, died of a heart attack.
Myanmar Egress, a Rangoon-based civil society group, has been at the forefront of pushing for reforms.
Those, like him, of what has been called the "third force", realised that it would be negotiations, not confrontation or revolution, which in the end would solidify Burma's reform process and bring about the changes we are witnessing.
Over five years they and other similar organisations started to educate and create change agents amongst the younger generations.
The greatest success of some civil society groups has been to convince the new president and his men that this reform process is indeed in their interests, tapping into the acknowledgment by the military that their direct rule could not continue indefinitely.
The opposition to the former regime remains deeply divided, but over Dr Nay Win Maung's death many came together - even Aung San Suu Kyi came to pay her respects.
Top-down reform
Today the debate is about lifting sanctions.
The current Burmese government has indeed kept its side of the bargain by engendering a solid reform process and releasing the prisoners of conscience as had been demanded both inside and outside the country.
Thein Sein wants sanctions - indicative of a pariah nation status - removed as acknowledgement of what he is doing and to strengthen his position vis-a-vis the old guard, in case the reform process triggers a backlash.
And unlike the former regime his coffers are empty - he needs trade, investment and technical assistance if he and his government are to survive.
Measures to date taken by the West - sending high-level diplomats, upgrading diplomatic ties - have built confidence but this is not enough.
If this reformist government is to survive sanctions do need to be lifted - the most important thing, however, is an immediate start of technical assistance.
It is time for Western governments to support the efforts of local organisations working inside Burma and to encourage the top-down reform process which the government itself has initiated in its own interests.
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Whitney Houston.

Whitney Houston, the iconic American singer whose battles with drugs, alcohol and ex-husband Bobby Brown marred her star power, has died. She was 48.

Houston's publicist confirmed the singer's death to ABC News. The cause of death is not yet known.

Six police cars were spotted in front of the Beverly Hilton hotel today, where Houston was staying. TMZ reports that paramedics were called there this afternoon and found Houston unresponsive in her hotel room.

According to TMZ, paramedics' attempts at CPR failed and Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. PT. TMZ reports that there were no signs of foul play.

Houston was last seen publicly on Thursday, when she appeared disheveled and disoriented in front of a Hollywood nightclub. According to the Hollywood Reporter, she got into an altercation with "X Factor" finalist Stacy Francis on Thursday at an event where she was said to be acting "belligerent."

Houston returned to rehab in May of last year seeking treatment for drug and alcohol dependence. "Whitney voluntarily entered the program to support her long-standing recovery process," her publicist said at the time.

The six-time Grammy winner staged a comeback in 2009, but was dogged by rumors that she was using drugs again. That year, she told Oprah Winfrey that marijuana laced with cocaine was her substance of choice during her 1992 to 2006 marriage to R&B singer Bobby Brown. They have a daughter together, Houston's only child, Bobbi Kristina Houston Brown.

Houston's appearance on "Oprah" was her first major television interview since 2002, when she talked to ABC News' Diane Sawyer.

At the time, Sawyer asked Houston about ongoing drug rumors that had started in 2000, when airport security guards found marijuana in Houston and Brown's bags at a Hawaiian airport. The singer alluded to having used cocaine, pills and marijuana -- but drew the line at crack in what turned into an infamous rant.

"First of all, let's get one thing straight," she told Sawyer. "Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. OK? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is wack."

In August 2009, Houston released "I Look to You," her first studio album in seven years. It sold 304,000 copies in its first seven days on the market, sending Houston back to the top of the charts and giving her the best debut week of her career.

In 2010, Houston launched her "Nothing but Love" world tour. Though some said Houston's signature voice showed the stress of her ups and downs, she soldiered on, putting on shows in Asia, Australia and Europe even though fans and critics panned her performances.

At her peak in the 1990s, Houston was a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. She was one of the world's best-selling artists, selling out stadiums with powerful, poignant renditions of her greatest hits like "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," "How Will I Know," and "I Will Always Love You."

Houston won six Grammy awards, two Emmys, 30 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 American Music Awards, among others. Her album "Whitney" was the first album by a woman to ever debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Charts. She has sold more than 170 million albums world wide.

Her success launched her into the film industry, where she starred in hits like "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale." Her struggles with drugs, alcohol, rehab (she went at least three times) and Brown, against whom she filed a charge of domestic abuse in 1993, pushed her out the spotlight.

In 2009, talking to Winfrey about why she took a break from show business, Houston said, "It was too much. So much to try to live up to, to try to be, and I wanted out."

Why Would Isolated Indians Kill Their Point of Contact With the Outside World? 

Authorities are scrambling to establish security in a remote Amazonian frontier region following recent attacks by isolated tribesmen that have left one man dead and another wounded in the wilds of southeastern Peru. The attacks — in October and November of last year  – come amid an upturn in the number of sightings of nomadic Mashco-Piro Indians along major waterways in the dense forests bordering the Manu National Park, posing an increasingly volatile situation for communities, travelers, and the isolated tribespeople.
Witnesses say the victim of the November attack, a Matsigenka Indian named Nicolas “Shaco” Flores, was killed when struck in the heart with a bamboo-tipped arrow as he tended a garden on an island in the middle of the Madre de Dios River, just outside the community of Diamante on the edge of the Manu National Park.

Isolated Mashco-Piro Indians on the Madre de Dios River in the Peruvian Amazon. Photograph by: Diego Cortijo/Survival/uncontactedtribes.org

The rights group Survival International released dramatic photographs earlier today of the same group of Mashco-Piro that is believed to have launched the attack that killed Flores.
The photos were taken by Diego Cortijo, a member of the Spanish Geographical Society, while on an archeological expedition along the Madre de Dios River in search of ancient rock art. Cortijo and his colleagues had hired Shaco Flores to serve as a guide, said Cortijo in a phone call from his home in Madrid, and Flores later invited the Spaniards to spend a few days at his home, about a two-hour boat ride from the settlement of Diamante.
One morning a group of Indians appeared on the riverbank across from Flores’ house and called out to him by name. Cortijo said he made the photographs with a long lens and that he and Flores did not approach the tribe members. Six days later Flores was killed.

Who Was Shaco Flores?

Nicolas "Shaco" Flores, a Matsigenka Indian recently killed by isolated Mashco-Piro tribesmen on the Madre de Dios River, Peru. Photograph by Diego Cortijo

“It was a complete shock,” said Cortijo, recalling the moment when he heard the news of the death on two-way radio at a ranger’s control post downriver. “I couldn’t believe my ears.”
Sources familiar with the local dynamics and players involved in the area described Shaco Flores as a kind-hearted “go-between” who had long played the role of intermediary between the nomads and the outside world. Flores had facilitated access to trade goods for the tribe, such as machetes and cooking pots, and was tending crops he may have intended to share with the Indians at the time of his death.
Anthropologist Glenn Shepard, who experienced a hair-raising brush with the Mashco-Piro in the same region 1999, was puzzled by the attack. Flores was an old friend, he said, who had married a Piro woman and spoke enough of her language to make himself understood in occasional conversations shouted from a distance with the Mashco-Piro. He noted various theories that may account for the heightened volatility of the uncontacted Indians in the area, including a growing epidemic of illegal logging and an notable increase in low-flying air traffic linked to expanding oil and gas exploration. Additionally, he said, the Indians — who were decimated by illnesses introduced by outsiders — may have gotten spooked by Flores’s persistent efforts to make contact.
Natives of  Diamante told Shepard they believe that possible discord among the Mashco-Piro — between those who want more contact with the outside world and those who fear it — may have triggered the attack. The faction resistant to contact, Shepard says, “may have cut off the ‘point-man’ who was pulling them closer to decisive contact.”

Dangerous Business
But Cortijo suggested another possibility: that the Mashco-Piro may have reacted in anger to a recent decision by Flores to withhold further trade goods from the tribe.
“They want me to go over there and give them machetes,” Flores told Cortijo as they watched the Indians signaling from the far side of the river. “But I’m not going.” That was because, Flores told Cortijo, he had been advised in recent weeks by the regional indigenous federation to desist from making efforts to contact the Mashco-Piro, warning of the dangers of violence to him and his family on the one hand, and of unwittingly spreading disease to the tribe on the other.
Isolated tribes like the Mashco-Piro have little or no immunity to illnesses, such as influenza, measles, or even the common cold.  Contact with the outside world typically results in high rates of mortality among isolated indigenous groups, one of the reasons why some countries — most notably Brazil — have adopted policies to shield such groups from outside contact.

A Bloody Backstory
With a population estimated in the hundreds, the Mashco-Piro are among 14 or 15 isolated tribes still roaming the Peruvian Amazon. They have long been considered among the Amazon’s most implacable warriors, resisting contact and subjugation. Most of the tribe was slaughtered on the upper Manu River in 1894 by a private army in the employ of the notorious rubber kingpin Carlos Fermin Fitzcarrald, lionized in German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s classic movie, “Fitzcarraldo.” The survivors of those bloody engagements retreated into the most impenetrable reaches of the western Amazon’s upland forests. As outsiders pry their way deeper into these last redoubts in pursuit of timber and other riches, the descendants of those previous traumas are now coming under mounting pressure themselves.
“Their history of contact,” says Shepard, “has always been fraught with the fear of violence and exploitation.”
Recent sightings of the Mashco-Piro include an appearance along the Manu River videotaped by tourists and released to the public last October by Peru’s Ministry of the Environment (see “Peru Releases Dramatic Footage of Uncontacted Indians.”) A park guard suffered an arrow wound in the shoulder as he traveled along the Manu River last October, around the time the videotape was released. Authorities have since tried to limit access to outsiders and have embarked on a campaign to educate residents about the dangers of attempting to make contact with the isolated tribes.

The Need for Outsiders to Stay Away

The French news agency AFP reported on Tuesday that Peruvian officials urged outsiders to stay away from isolated Amazon basin rainforest natives after pictures of ”uncontacted” tribe members were published online.
Mariela Huacchillo with the Peru’s office for Natural Protected Areas (SERNANP) told AFP that even indirect contact with the indigenous people could spread deadly viruses that do not exist in the region. As has happened too often recently, the natives could also be hostile, she warned. Read the full AFP report.

Scott Wallace writes about the environment and indigenous affairs for National Geographic and other publications. He is the author of The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes (Crown, 2011). For more information about his work, please visit www.scottwallace.com.

National Geographic Live!: The Unconquered: Brazil’s People of the Arrow

In the video below, journey with author Scott Wallace deep into the Amazon rain forest in search of one of the last uncontacted tribes on Earth.

Trumpets of outrage in the outback

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Not a common sight in the forests of New South Wales - yet

An Australian biology professor is causing a rumble in the academic jungle by suggesting that his country should import elephants and other foreign species into its wild interior.

Rhinos and even giant Komodo dragon lizards could be imported, David Bowman suggests in an article in Nature.
He says Australia is just not managing its most pressing ecological problems, and something radical is needed.
But some fellow scientists say it is just a bad and dangerous idea.
Others, however, are supportive, seeing potential for helping beleaguered Aboriginal communities and reducing the risk of forest fires, as repairing some damaged ecology.
The problems Prof Bowman proposes solving with his radical zoological armoury stem from the huge changes wrought by the two waves of human arrival - the first by forebears of the Aborigines about 50,000 years ago, and the second by European settlers a few hundred years ago.
The first initiated the slow demise of the spectacular megafauna that once bestrode the giant continent.

The Dromornidae family encompassed possibly the biggest bird ever, at 3m high

They included the marsupial lion, a metre and a half long and a powerful predator; the diprotodon, a wombat bigger than a cow; giant birds such as the Dromornidae family that once boasted Stirton's Thunder Bird, three metres high; and crocodiles, lizards and turtles bigger than any still walking this Earth.
Take so many big species out of an ecosystem, and there are bound to be changes all the way down to its bottom.
If you throw in land clearance across enormous swathes of the continent and the subsequent introduction of rabbits, camels, cane toads, rats, pigs and everything else that came with the European settlers, you have an ecology in profound turmoil.
Attempts have been made to control rabbits, pigs, buffalo and lots of other alien species; but they haven't really worked.
"We have a very unbalanced ecology and it's all just spiralling into a trajectory," lamented Prof Bowman when I spoke to him earlier in the week.
"We're not managing actively, we're just managing bits of the problem - so it's a big mess."
So the root of his idea is that if you can't restore the animals themselves, bring in something that can fulfil a similar ecological role.
Grassed up
What's on his mind particularly is gamba grass, an African species growing up to 4m tall that's been introduced into Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The Queensland government lists it as a "pest plant", as it's out-competing native varieties and also raises the risk of fires - a hazard that causes huge damage routinely in many parts of Australia.

Camels have their uses in Australia, but could be targeted by Aboriginal hunters with state support

Machines and herbicides could be used to control it, and have been in some places - but not enough to stop its advance.
Growing so big, mature gamba grass is beyond the grazing capacity of any animal currently in Australia, whether native kangaroos or introduced cattle.
But it wouldn't be beyond a really big herbivore like an elephant.
"Imagine bringing in an elephant with a GPS collar on and sterile, so you know where it is all the time and it can't reproduce," he says.
"So I'm not saying 'let's randomly get animals and throw them into Australia', because strangely enough that's what Australians have done.
"I'm trying to say 'let's imagine that we're going to be more co-ordinated and more intelligent about it - where would you start on that process?'"
Deliberate introductions could even help preserve species that are set to go extinct in other more densely-populated parts of the world, he says.
Dingo dealing
Prof Bowman's vision isn't only about introducing novel species. He's also keen to restore those that still exist to something like their original ecological role.

“Start Quote

If we did go down the road of introducing elephants to Australia, we had better develop the technology to clone sabre-tooth tigers to eventually control the elephants”

End Quote Ricky Spencer University of Western Sydney

So the dingo culling programmes instigated by sheep farmers should be ended, he feels, and the animals encouraged back into areas where they've been wiped out.
Studies show this could benefit native small mammals.
The irony here, of course, is that the dingo isn't truly ancestral, having been brought over from Asia relatively recently - probably just a few thousand years ago.
The proposals contain a strongly social aspect too, in that Aboriginal communities could be empowered to hunt some of the large animals that could be introduced.
They could also be tasked with carrying out controlled burning of forests and grasslands in order to reduce the ever-present fire risk.
"The answer is hiring Aboriginal people who are disadvantaged, who want to spend time in the bush, and get them to do burning and hunting," he says.
"And ok it might cost a lot of money, but it's also a health intervention, because it's been discovered that Aboriginal people, who have shocking health status - their health improves fantastically when they do outdoor work.
"The health stats are a blot on our reputation internationally, there's so much disadvantage, and Australians do want to improve that, and this is one of those rare situations where everyone can get a win."
Even without elephants or Komodo dragons, he believes there's no reason why Aboriginal hunters shouldn't be encouraged and even funded right now to tackle camels.
On the table
So what's provoked the positive and negative comments that have come in on these ideas?
"His comments are careless given recent proposals for the establishment of game reserves in New South Wales and introduction of new potential feral animals into these reserves," says Dr Ricky Spencer from the Native and Pest Animal Unit at the University of Western Sydney.

The Komodo dragon may be a "step too far", says Prof Bowman

"If we did go down the road of introducing elephants to Australia, we had better develop the technology to clone sabre-tooth tigers to eventually control the elephants."
Given Australia's difficult hisory of disastrous species introductions, you'd think some academics would slam the idea simply on the basis that you shouldn't do any more of them - and this was a point picked up by Prof Patricia Werner from the Australian National University (ANU).
"Are we in Australia prepared to try yet another landscape-scale experiment as we did with foxes, rabbits, etc, and merely hope that the elephants don't find our native Australian trees tasty?" she asks.
"There are countless studies in Africa showing that when elephants are removed from an area, tree cover increases. Can we somehow command them to eat only introduced African grasses?"
However, her ANU colleague Dr Don Driscoll says it's right to acknowledge that Australian ecosystems are in a dire state.
"Because of this ongoing environmental catastrophe, we need to put all of the management options on the table to try to find ways of reducing the rate at which our biodiversity succumbs to the impacts of invasive alien species," he says.
"We should therefore consider introducing elephants and rhinoceros to Australia. We should also reconsider widely implemented practices such as culling dingos or burning forests to reduce fuels in southern Australia as an asset-protection measure."
Once these options are put on the table and properly evaluated, he says, some will be accepted and others rejected. He believes that elephants, for example, would not be approved - but the idea should be discussed.
And at the most fundamental level, this is what Prof Bowman is aiming for - to raise the severity of the ecological decline, and get people to think outside the accepted boxes.
"We're not talking about turning up with a barge and unleashing a whole lot of animals and watching the show - that's already happened," he says.
"If people can go through these options carefully and seriously and rule them out and tell me how we're going to manage gamba grass then I'll be very happy; but just to be laughed at and told 'that's a ridiculous idea' - well ok, tell me a good idea."