Burma - explanation please!

[ymu]

One thing worth mentioning may be one of the reasons the generals don't rein in the narco-armies acting within their boundaries is they get into the odd scrap with the racial minority armies that cause the Burmese army such a headache. Still this has further implications, the heroin addiction / AIDS epidemics in South China. Not a safe bet for China's rulers.


'Kin 'ell, who writes that stuff, 14 year old Stalinist?

I've invited the drugs/CIA/US/IMF ideologues to start a debate on indymedia UK based around the Schnews article, or else offered to start it up with a critique when more time is available to focus on it. I'll update this thread if/when it happens.

 

[frogwoman]

you might need to do another crituqie hun ...

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1561062007



wrong on sooo many levels

 

[ymu]

you might need to do another crituqie hun ...

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1561062007



wrong on sooo many levels

Dunno, the critique of the West's role and cynicism over current motives seems pretty fair if ambiguous on the target (ie govts). It seems a bit off base on the ethnic groups as they have all united behind the Burmese protests and are included in the government in exile, but we have no idea what Burmese attitudes are likely to be post-independence, especially if the Karenni, Shan, Chin and Arakan people play a key role in overthrowing the Junta. The conclusion is pants, obv - but possibly just badly/ambiguously written pants.

 

[ymu]

No apologies for cut'n'paste odyssey or xposting on this one.

Burma Petition to China President Hu Jintao and UN
Monday, 1 October 2007, 3:37 pm
Press Release: Miles Thompson

Petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council

Sign the Petition: Stand with the Burmese Protesters

Burma's generals have brought their brutal iron hand down on peaceful monks and protesters -- but in response, a massive global outcry is gathering pace. The roar of global public opinion is being heard in hundreds of protests outside Chinese and Burmese embassies, people round the world wearing the monks' color red, and on the internet -- where our petition has exploded to over 200,000 signers in just 72 hours.

People power can win this. Burma's powerful sponsor China can halt the crackdown, if it believes that its international reputation and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing depend on it. To convince the Chinese government and other key countries, Avaaz is launching a major global and Asian ad campaign on Wednesday, including full page ads in the Financial Times and other newspapers, that will deliver our message and the number of signers.

We need 1 million voices to be the global roar that will get China's attention. If every one of us forwards this email to just 20 friends, we'll reach our target in the next 72 hours. Please sign the petition at the link below -if you haven't already- and forward this email to everyone you care about:

I just signed a petition calling on Burma's powerful ally China and the UN security council to step in and pressure Burma's rulers to stop the killing. The petition has exploded to over 200,000 signatures in a few days and is being advertised in newspapers around the world, delivered to the UN secretary general, and broadcast to the Burmese people by radio. We're trying to get to 1 million signatures this week, please sign the petition and tell everyone!

The pressure is working - already, there are signs of splits in the Burmese Army, as some soldiers refuse to attack their own people. The brutal top General, Than Shwe, has reportedly moved his family out of the country – he must fear his rule may crumble.

The Burmese people are showing incredible courage in the face of horror. We're broadcasting updates on our effort over the radio into Burma itself – telling the people that growing numbers of us stand with them. Let's do everything we can to help them – we have hours, not days, to do it.

Sign the Petition: Stand with the Burmese Protesters

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0710/S00010.htm

 

[ymu]

Useful article from DVB on divisive nonsenses in the opposition movement.

Are we fashioning our resistance movement on the teachings of Chairman Mao? Should we send people who don’t agree with us to re-education camps? Obviously not. Our movement is about democracy.

The leader of our movement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has called for sanctions and boycotts on tourism but I doubt very much that the Nobel Prize winner would accuse anyone who doesn’t agree with everything she says of being a traitor.

It was Daw Suu who said, “I tell our followers that when we achieve democracy, we will look back with nostalgia on the struggle and how pure we were.”

What did she mean by ‘pure’? I suspect—and feel free to write in to the Democratic Voice of Burma if you disagree—that Daw Suu was referring to the fact that it is important for the movement to remain faithful to the ideals it promotes.

...

And if you are inclined to complain that the political situation in Burma isn’t what it should be because someone in the democracy movement isn’t completely ‘on board’, let me offer a different explanation.

The situation in Burma is the way it is because of the Burmese military. If you want something to unite around surely everyone can agree on that.

 

[Eva Luna]

I read these two debates from start to finish the other night. Most of the links as well.

I can't believe that in this day and age, a few people are still creaming off the top of the people of their countries.

Then I got home from work and turned on the telly, to find the Tory leader esposing about how it's business that is the most important thing in the UK - not the people that live here - no - business - and I thought, well if we still think like that, then no wonder stuff like what's happening in Burma is happening.

 

[Streathamite]

Then I got home from work and turned on the telly, to find the Tory leader esposing about how it's business that is the most important thing in the UK - not the people that live here - no - business - and I thought, well if we still think like that, then no wonder stuff like what's happening in Burma is happening.

to be optimistic, this is the lot that have been light years from power for the past decade

 

[imposs1904]

Sadly it's totally fucking irrelevant and grossly patronising. The writer clearly has no inkling of the horrors which the ordinary person in Burma has to face, preferring to educate ignorant Burmese about the oh-so greater danger of US imperialism, the driving force behind the opposition movement.

There's a job waiting for you on The New Light of Myanmar.

Pathetic.

Sorry Purves,

didn't read it as a simplistic 'beware of American imperialism' rant. You're casting your spin on it.

Thanks for the tip about The New Light of Myanmar. Last I heard they weren't hiring.

 

[ymu]

Burmese Bloggers Without Borders have put the 1996 Pilger film up:
http://bbwob.blogspot.com/2007/10/burma-land-of-fear-by-john-pilger.html

 

[ymu]

Excellent article here analysing the global hypocrisy on Burma and the degree of influence different states have - someone added it to the indymedia feature article. Very detailed analysis of India - the so-called democracy and its role in propping up the Junta.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=13934

Burma’s military rulers have already milked the dubious ASEAN policy of ‘constructive engagement’ for what it was worth to shore up both their regime at home and claw their way back to recognition abroad. In the early nineties when the Burmese generals were really down and out it was ASEAN who offered them succour and friendship while chastising those who called for democracy in Burma as being ignorant of ‘Asian values’.

All this leaves China and India, two of Burma’s giant neighbours, who for long have showered the Burmese junta with investments, aid and sale of armaments and whom the world now expects to use their ‘influence’ over the generals.

China’s active support for the Burmese regime is not surprising at all for a country with its own sordid record of suppressing democratic movements at home and shooting civilian dissenters. I don’t however think the Chinese are really worried about Burmese democracy triggering off another Tiananmen-like event in their own country- not immediately at least and not as long as Chinas’ consumerist boom keeps its population hypnotised.

In fact the Chinese, pragmatic as they are and conscious of protecting their many investments in Burma, may also be among the first to actively topple the Burmese junta if they feel that the tide of protests for democracy is about to win. Their future position on Burma will surely seesaw like a yo-yo depending which cat, black or white, is catching the mice.

Of all the countries around the world the most shameful position is held by India, once the land of the likes of Mahatma Gandhi but now run by politicians with morals that would make a snake-oil salesman squirm. India likes to claim at every opportunity that it is ‘the world’s largest democracy’ but what it tells no one, but everyone can see, is that its understanding of democracy is also of the ‘lowest quality’.

Why the fuck do we put up with this shower of cunts? How have 6 billion people been persuaded to allow them to get away with it?



*wanders off muttering summat about global uprisings and never giving in

 

[damnhippie]

according a Swiss media source they've started arresting people again following the departure of the UN envoy.

 

[frogwoman]

wankers

seriously i dont often say stuff like this but i hope some snipers find their way up to nawpidaw ...