Junta-backed USDP Campaigning through Nargis Projects
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Burma

Junta-backed USDP Campaigning through Nargis Projects


By WAI MOE Thursday, September 30, 2010


A young girl carries supplies in a bucket on her head near a cyclone shelter in the Irrawaddy delta. (Photo: Reuters)
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Junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) candidates are using Cyclone Nargis rehabilitation projects in the Irrawaddy delta and other state projects across the country to campaign for the election.

According to the state-run-newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar on Thursday, Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein who is also the USDP chairman attended the opening ceremony of a hospital and a youth training school in the cyclone-hit area of Laputta Township alongside other USDP key leaders who retired from their military posts in April including Thein Nyunt, the minister of Progress of Border Areas and National Races and Development Affairs, and Maung Maung Swe, the minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.

Ahead of the Nov.7 elections, the state-run-media are full of reports that USDP leaders who are also sitting ministers are traveling to state projects and attending openings of completed projects. Observers said the military junta allowed state media to highlight USDP activities but limited publicity to other political parties.

Although Thein Sein seemed to be focusing USDP campaign activities through the state projects in the Irrawaddy delta this week, his election campaign last week focused on the west bank of the Irrawaddy River in the Magway Region, the location of government arms factories as well as alleged work on military missiles and nuclear projects.

Thein Sein appeared in the state media where he was shown Sept. 20 opening the Minhla-Minbu section of the railway line from Kyangin in the Irrawaddy Region to Pakokku in the Magway Region. 

The New Light of Myanmar also reported on Sept. 25 that Thein Sein opened a hospital in Zabuthiri Township in Naypyidaw. According to the Naypyidaw candidate list, Thein Sein is running for the People’s Assembly (Lower House) seat in Zabuthiri Township.

Along with USDP top leaders and senior military officials, the state-run newspapers on Thursday highlighted one of richest tycoons in the country, Zaw Zaw, the head of the Max Group of Companies and the newly formed Ayeyawady Bank. Zaw Zaw appeared in a front page photo in The New Light of Myanmar along with USDP leaders and senior military officers including Maj-Gen Hla Min, the chief of the Bureau of Special Operations-3.

Zaw Zaw and other US-sanction list tycoons including Tay Za, Htay Myint, Khin Shwe and Dagon Win Aung were awarded construction projects in the Irrawaddy delta following Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

Khin Shwe of the Zay Gabar Company is a USDP candidate for the Nationalities Assembly (Upper House) in Twantay Township in the Rangoon region, which was hard hit by Cyclone Nargis.  He told The Monitor Journal recently that he had done campaign activities while also working on Nargis work projects.

“For me, I don’t need to do election campaigning in the area. Following Nargis, I had worked there for a year doing reconstruction on pagodas and feeding people food. So people tell me, ‘Please come here!’ I don’t need to do any extra campaigning like other candidates,” Khin Shwe was quoted as saying in the journal.

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Moe Aung Wrote:
05/10/2010
Myanmar Patriots

'getting rid of shoot-to-kill policies'.

It's cheaper clubbing them to death, isn't it?

So it was all Ne Win's fault. No, it was all Aung San's fault. No, it must be Thibaw. Or was it Supayalat? Ah, it's the British. So long as it's not our enlightened military dictator thanks to His Maj.

Perhaps the 'magnificent Shwebomin II' could use a Cromwell to lose his head if it's screwed on at all. Perhaps Than Shwe could do him that favor. But he prefers the club to the chopper. There'd be a velvet sack of course, fit for a king.

Only that's where the similarity stops for TS is certainly no true parliamentarian. It's all part of an elaborate, albeit pretty transparent and unsophisticated, psyops smoke and mirrors magic he's manufactured for all those gullible souls both inside the country and abroad.

Myanmar Patriots Wrote:
02/10/2010
Oliver Cromwell was totally ruthless. He beheaded King Charles I.English people did not expect that. Cromwell was a military dictator although he was a parliamentarian - against the absolutist Charles I. In a sense he ushered in democracy as we know it today in the UK.

To screw heads around the correct way, let us offer you our perspective.

1.Fargaung ShuMaung was most oppressive and bankrupted Burma; his lackeys in the NUP survive. He himself was put under house arrest (only our magnificent Shwebomin II perceived it -everyone else saying he was pulling the strings on SLORC/SPDC (the name was changed after Shwebomin's advice).
2. ShuMaung has made our people totally ignorant of the nature of politics and the world. So, they, led by those with a slave mentality, voted forthe NLD because of the traitor SuuKyi and hatred of the military, not because of understanding of the truth.

So under the tutelage of Shwebomin, Ashin Sen-Gen Than-Shwe became a reformist, getting rid of shoot-to-kill policies of ShuMaung and ushering in liberalization.

Moe Aung Wrote:
01/10/2010
To them it's a no holds barred contest (they wrote the rules that only apply to the opposition) and there are no no-go areas except where the defiant cease-fire groups hold sway. We all know what they really respect, don't we?

Those who rule by the sword will fall by the sword.

USDPLIARS Wrote:
01/10/2010
When FM Nyan Win lied in front of government leaders at the recent UN Summit, I cannot help but realize once again how we are ruled by liars, usurpers, dictators, ruthless thugs, cronies destroying environments for selfish gains and monk-killers.

Grants and aids from foreign countries, INGOS, and NGOs that were used to support and fund rehabilitation projects in Nargis affected regions cannot be used by ANYONE as a tool to promote ANY party. What a shameless group of ogres. The grants and funds come with stipulations that must be respected and adhered to.

I can never understand how ruthless devils who pretend to be turncoats for democracy continue to declare that there will be a free, just, and fair election.

I cannot help but nod when Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". This saying cannot be more amplified than how our generals have been behaving and ruling since 1988.

Crooked generals, justice may be slow but it is coming your way.

Natshinnaung Wrote:
30/09/2010
All of us remember what happen to the victims of Nargis. Than Shwe and his SPDC ignored the victims when the world offered to help them. The victims are still facing many many hardships today.

How dare Thein Sein claim that they did great job for Nargis victims and say today that he will do great things for them. Thein Sein could have done many things for the victims from day one. Why is Thein Sein playing politics on the lives of Nargis victims?

I am bitterly angry when the USDP claims that the generals did a great job to the victims of Nargis.

Myanmar Patriots Wrote:
30/09/2010
Nagis was a great national tragedy. Starting with the 1962 coup by Fargaung ShuMaung, our people and Tatmataw became estranged. The Military was abused and took Shwebomin II to command SPDC to get rid of the 45 kyat and 90kyat notes and the 'shoot-to-kill' policy of ShuMaung; his ignoble saying was 'Army shoots to kill'.

So soldiers, afraid of people, could not be seen at Nagis in sharp contrast to the earthquates in China and floods in Pakistan.

Only option for goodwill is for the MINISTERS TO to do the job military could not do.
However, our Shwebomin's message to USDP is this: 'Be sincere in your endeavors, be gracious in defeat if defeated, but aim for the sky - for orderly The evolution of democracy- and try to win peoples' hearts, not by intimidation but by intelligence and concrete proposals for their betterment.

We, Myanmar Patriots, advise you to continue obeying Schwebomin II, who we believe is touring Europe, trying to explain Burma to European politicians.

A.M.O Wrote:
30/09/2010
Oh! Boy! How come?

Things are getting worse; as Than Shwe & Co had crossed the line from using public money to charity money from international donors (Nargis) - funding for their election campaigns.

If so, you guys will vomit blood as a curse of those who died in Cyclone Nargis.

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