British to begin training Burmese military

David Mathieson, Burma researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the country's
armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, were still regularly committing
atrocities despite ceding control to a nominally civilian government.

He said the army had been accused of attacking refugee camps in Kachin state
within the past few weeks.

He said: "The Burmese Army has got a terrible reputation. It's got one of the
worst reputations in the world.

"It has an abusive modus operandi in its DNA."

"Our concerns are that the British and the US are going too far and too fast."

"Burmese commanders and soldiers on the ground just think nothing has changed
for them. They say they are dealing with insurgents and they know how to
handle them."

The Ministry of Defence in London said a joint civilian and military team from
the UK's Defence Academy will teach 30 members of the Tatmadaw and Burmese
government in the New Year.

The course called "Managing Defence in a Wider Security Context" will be run
in collaboration with Cranfield University.

Mark Francois, minister for the Armed Forces, said: "The Tatmadaw remain a key
political force in Burma, therefore we seek to encourage them to support
democratic reform through our influence and with education."

Military sources said the two week course was not battlefield military
training, but staff college type education including teaching in human
rights, humanitarian law and accountability.

One defence source said: "The Burmese military will be key to the process of
political reform. To ignore the military puts the entire process of
political reform at risk."

The training has been endorsed by Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's veteran
opposition leader, who visited Sandhurst earlier this year to see what the
British military could offer.

Western governments and businesses have scrambled for position in Burma since
the country's military leaders ended years of isolation by promising to
usher in democratic reforms. America has also offered legal training to the
Burmese military.

Burma has plentiful resources of hydro-carbons, minerals, gems and timber, and
a cheap labour force which thanks to years of sanctions is largely untapped
by foreign investors.

Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East, said recent attacks on Burma's
Muslim Rohingya minority had been carried out with the tacit support of the
military and showed the armed forces had not changed however.

She said: "We have opened up things to work in Burma without seeing a real
change occurring."

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/british-to-begin-training-burmese-military/