Marwaan Macan-Markar

Stories written by Marwaan Macan-Markar
Marwaan Macan-Markar is a Sri Lankan journalist who covered the South Asian nation's ethnic conflict for local newspapers before joining IPS in 1999. He was first posted as a correspondent at the agency's world desk in Mexico City and has since been based in Bangkok, covering Southeast Asia. He has reported from over 15 countries, writing from the frontlines of insurgencies, political upheavals, human rights violations, peace talks, natural disasters, climate change, economic development, new diseases such as bird flu and emerging trends in Islam, among other current issues.

ASIA-PACIFIC: MDGs Progress Unknown for Lack of Data

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

In a moment of rare candour, officials from a regional United Nations body and the Asia Development Bank (AsDB) admitted that studies to gauge progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are hampered by out-of-date information.

BURMA: Fear Over the Country

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Nights are no more the same for the 45-year-old Buddhist monk who lives in a monastery in the Myay Ni Gone area, close to the heart of this dilapidated city. Nor is sleep.

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari with Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon Credit: UNIC

BURMA: UN Getting Nowhere With the Generals

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Few foreigners are as qualified to talk about the mind and the manner of Burma’s dictatorship as Razali Ismail, a Malaysian diplomat who served five years as special United Nations envoy charged with facilitating political reform in that military-ruled country.

Despite the junta&#39s brutal crackdown civilian protests continued on the weekend Credit: Myint Oo/Mizzima News

RIGHTS-BURMA: Whiteshirts – Junta&#39s Storm Troopers

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

In much the same way that Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Germany’s Adolf Hitler unleashed their respective ‘blackshirts’ and ‘brownshirts’ to terrorise dissenters, Burma’s military regime has deployed its ‘whiteshirts’ against protesting Buddhist monks and civilians.

A monk surveys mayhem in a monastery following an army raid Credit: US Campaign for Burma

RIGHTS-BURMA: Soldiers Fire Into Crowds, Regain Rangoon Streets

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

After turning its guns on the country’s protesting Buddhist monks and at least three monasteries in this city, Burma’s heavily armed soldiers had no hesitation firing at a group of civilian protesters chanting angry slogans near a high school in the Tamwe Township.

Nuns join the ongoing mass protests against Burma&#39s repressive military junta. Credit: MYM/IPS

RIGHTS-BURMA: Protesting Monks Set Upon by Riot Police

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

In a desperate bid to cling on to power, Burma’s military junta stomped on the country’s rich Buddhist traditions on, of all days, a religious holiday, when people usually spend their time in prayer at the hundreds of pagodas that dot this country.

Buddhist monks leading mass protests against the junta in Rangoon Credit: MYM/IPS

BURMA: Monks Lead Protests, Challenge Junta

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Like they did for over a week, the monks who gathered at Burma’s most sacred site - the Shwedagon pagoda - performed a ritual on Tuesday under a blistering mid-day sun. They sat on the hallowed grounds of the majestic temple in Rangoon to pray for the people’s ‘victory'.

POLITICS-BURMA: Buddhist Clergy on Collision Course With Junta

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Burma’s Buddhist monks are threatening to turn an on-going protest against steep hikes in fuel prices into a religious and moral showdown with the country’s oppressive military regime.

CAMBODIA: Pol Pot’s Lieutenant Nabbed

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Finally, the law caught up with the most senior surviving leader of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. Nuon Chea, who was the second-in-command to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, was arrested by the Cambodian police on Wednesday.

SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Thai Air Disaster May Hit Budget Carriers

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

As investigations began to unearth the cause behind Sunday’s crash of a budget airliner in the Thai resort of Phuket, enthusiasm among South-east Asian budget tourists and travellers for low-cost carriers appears to have dampened.

Poppy Field in Shan State Credit: www.shanland.org

BURMA: Poppy Farming Cuts – &#39UN Praise Misplaced&#39

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Praise from the United Nations for continued drop in poppy cultivation in military-ruled Burma paints a false picture of success, say members of the Shan ethnic community and human rights activists. What cannot be ignored, they add, is how profitable the narcotics trade remains for the local commanders of the junta.

POLITICS: Thailand Not Invited to Democracy Bash

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Thailand’s fall from grace as a promising democracy is expected to be confirmed at an international meeting in November in Bamako, the capital of Mali. Bangkok has not been invited to attend a gathering of the world’s democracies in the African nation, according to Freedom House, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog.

RIGHTS-CAMBODIA: Will Sihanouk Appear at Khmer Rouge Trials?

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Cambodia’s colourful former king Norodom Sihanouk has emerged as the central figure in the latest controversy to plague the special tribunal established to prosecute the surviving members of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

POLITICS-BURMA: Buddhist Monks Take on Military Regime

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Political tension in military-ruled Burma has taken an ominous turn with soldiers clashing, this week, with sections of the country’s respected Buddhist clergy. The confrontation was the latest in an unfolding drama that has featured rare public protests at massive hikes in fuel prices in August.