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burma - potential uprising?

Very interesting article on The Irrawaddy about those coup rumours that were coming through during the protests. We could have been looking at a very different Burma had Maung Aye capitalised on what appear to have been real differences of opinion http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8939

Hope there'll be some hangover from this in the top brass. They could divide yet...
 
purves grundy said:
Very interesting article on The Irrawaddy about those coup rumours that were coming through during the protests. We could have been looking at a very different Burma had Maung Aye capitalised on what appear to have been real differences of opinion http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8939

Hope there'll be some hangover from this in the top brass. They could divide yet...
Divide and conquer, or divide and break apart in a mess of Orwellian contradiction?
 
purves grundy said:
Just some sort of change, any change, which could lead to... well, can hardly get any worse eh?
They did when Ne Win got deposed after 1988, didn't they? Not that I think it could plausibly get much worse, but the response then was even greater military repression and closing down the student campuses. I'm just afraid that if the NLD are too willing to make a partial compromise, that the monks will be prevented from organising again (by whatever means) and the whitewash will convince the world that all is well again. Is that plausible given the NLD and the now diverse opposition groups they work with?
 
ymu said:
They did when Ne Win got deposed after 1988, didn't they? Not that I think it could plausibly get much worse, but the response then was even greater military repression and closing down the student campuses. I'm just afraid that if the NLD are too willing to make a partial compromise, that the monks will be prevented from organising again (by whatever means) and the whitewash will convince the world that all is well again. Is that plausible given the NLD and the now diverse opposition groups they work with?
Yeah they did for a time, you're right. But the military are so firmly entrenched that any solution to the crisis will involve them to a degree that's very hard for us here to swallow. I think it's a reality we have to accept. The NLD should've recognised this back in the early 90s, but that's easy to say in retrospect, especially after they'd so clearly won a free and fair election. Maybe, in the current context a new face at the top would be prepared to take a fresh approach.

I'm also wondering how much compromise the NLD would be willing to make. Asking for dialogue and release of political prisoners is hardly terribly unreasonable. The uprising failed, but it's shattered the junta's claim to legitimacy, and the NLD have to get as much out of this as possible without losing their raison d'etre.

Not easy. :(
 
I think the talks are just a means of buying time when meanwhile the generals are cracking down on links to the outside world - Guardian.
Exiled dissident groups in neighbouring Thailand say up to 10 satellite telephones and countless computers earlier smuggled into Burma have been seized, the last lines of contact after the government shut down the internet and blocked mobile and fixed-line telephones.

Officials from Burma's foreign affairs ministry and home department security officers also visited a UN office in the Traders Hotel in downtown Rangoon late last week and demanded to see the organisation's permits for its satellite phones.
...
Among those taken were the owners of computers suspected of being used to transmit images and testimony to the outside world.

Yesterday the British and US embassies in Rangoon, reachable by phone until late last week, were impossible to get through to from outside the country.
Looks to me like they want to get back to 'business as usual'.
 
They're playing with fire if they've cut all the Embassies off though, surely? It won't just be the USuk ones affected. It seems like they might be over-reaching themselves in an effort to maintain control. Here's hoping they've shot themselves in the foot.
 
ymu said:
They're playing with fire if they've cut all the Embassies off though, surely?
They certainly are. This could constitute a violation of the relevant sections of the Vienna Convention, impeding the embassy from carrying out its duties. Potentially very bad.

This has got me fuming this morning. The gentle Than Lwin who heads Mandalay's NLD was viciously assaulted earlier this year and who goes to prison? Those who reported it. :mad: :mad:
 
gnoriac said:
If anyone complains they'll probably claim it was a temporary technical problem.
They're not Israel, whatever they kid themselves. They're a tinpot dictatorship with paymasters who are increasingly finding them an embarrassment. They can't cut off however many embassies there are in Rangoon and get away with it!

Or am I being a hopeless optimist again? :(
 
purves grundy said:
They certainly are. This could constitute a violation of the relevant sections of the Vienna Convention, impeding the embassy from carrying out its duties. Potentially very bad.

This has got me fuming this morning. The gentle Than Lwin who heads Mandalay's NLD was viciously assaulted earlier this year and who goes to prison? Those who reported it. :mad: :mad:

No way ... Fuck off!! :mad: :( :( (not you, Purves)
 
So that's that then. For now.

[sorry, went away to the mountains for a short break]

But not all is negative. Every event is part of a whole, everything is linked, nothing is isolated. We humans never stop evolving. Burmese people will get their freedom, not this time, but sooner than was expected two months ago.

But meanwhile i retain my judgement that people in general around the world are sound, but leaders around the world are selfish self-seeking non-caring wankers.

So much also for all that bollocks about bush's wife taking on burma as her pet issue.

The americans and british, and china and india have been left looking seriously complicit by their absence of action.
 
fela fan said:
So that's that then. For now.
Looks like it. Looking at what they were up against, an inward-looking group of brutal kleptokrats with hundreds of thousands of brainwashed soldiers at their disposal it would have been a miracle if the uprising had succeeded. But we had hope. That's what upset me so much about this - that the Burmese people dared to hope, for the first time in a generation, that soon they might have what so many citizens in so many countries in the region take for granted. Now the feeling is one of hopelessness and despair, kicking themselves that they could've been so presumptuous. It's all so desperately pathetic.

But I believe the uprising will have implications, consequences which will put the country on a new trajectory. The kleptocrats are now operating in a different international context, despite their sick myopia. The politics are wearying when there is such clear misery and destruction of life, but unless something miraculous happens that's going to be our focus for the next few years.

The americans and british, and china and india have been left looking seriously complicit by their absence of action.
Beyond that, the very idea that there exists anything like an 'international community' has been disproved.
 
Thanks frogster. And FFS the BBC are a bunch of wankers:

The junta suppressed the crowds with gunfire, killing at least 10 and subsequently detaining thousands for interrogation.

:mad:
 
ymu said:
Thanks frogster. And FFS the BBC are a bunch of wankers:
Dreadful how they keep trotting out that government line. Is it for 'balanced reporting'?

But the BBC are spot on when they say
He says many Burmese are sceptical of the military's sincerity, and believe the offer of talks is just a delaying tactic until the international pressure on Burma fades away.
although it hardly takes a genius to work that out.

What kind of consequences do you think it will have, purves? x
What used to disappoint me when I was there was how so many potentially influential people in the Buddhist community would appear to care very little about government actions, preferring to focus on being reborn into something better. Now after witnessing the junta's treatment of the monks, millions have become radicalised and are interested in the here and now.

Add to that, new interest from the rest of the world. It won't be maintained at this level, but the pressure has ratcheted up enough notches to rattle the regime. They weren't expecting this.

If the UN can get involved in these talked-about talks, that'd be great. I think the UNSC should focus on that, rather than sanctions which China and Russia will never agree to at this time. The talks could lock the the junta into something which could lead to real change (doubtful), or could lead to their legitimacy being completely lost in full view of the UN and thus make sanctions more likely.

Thinking very optimistically here...
 
I've read a lot of analyses along exactly those lines Purves - the feeling that there is no going back, that the false promises of 1988 won't work this time. The journalists who came out on 5th October said even after the crackdown people would take huge risks to talk to them, even one old guy on the bus getting their attention and cocking his finger like a gun saying "I hate military".

I prefer to think of it as inevitable rather than optimistic, but then I've been waiting for the global peoples' uprising for too bloody long goddammit. :mad: ;)


I'm trying to track down the article I mentioned, but here's another "not over yet" one for you. :)

http://bbwob.blogspot.com/2007/10/ongoing-battle-for-burmas-freedom.html
 
Not what I was looking for, but :)


http://ko-htike.blogspot.com/2007/10/pressure-on-beijing-will-bring-down.html
Two monasteries in Sittwe defy junta orders

The Burmese military junta has ordered all monasteries in Sittwe, capital of Arakan state, western Burma to send back student monks to their respective villages and not allow more than 10 monks to stay in any one monastery in Sittwe.

However, two monasteries in Sittwe have refused to follow the directives and have not told the monks to go.

The two monasteries are Myoma Kyung and Laraung Won Kyung, located in downtown Sittwe. Each monastery has about 100 monks in residence studying Buddhist scriptures, a town elder said.

On the contrary, abbots from the two monasteries have allowed monks from other monasteries to stay, should they be in need of accommodation in the city after being forced to leave for their home towns.

The abbot from Myoma monastery was summoned last week by the army authorities to the state SPDC office and was asked to follow the government's order, but the abbot continued to refuse, a monk source said.

Despite this act of defiance, the authorities are yet to arrest the abbot, who is the former chairman of the Rakhine State Monk Council.

Many monks in Sittwe left their monasteries to return to their native villages after the order was issued by the authorities, but some monks have chosen to stay at the two monasteries in defiance of the military's orders.


-----
Worth noting also, I think, that China has also instructed monasteries on the border not to offer sanctuary to escaping Burmese monks, which should increase the numbers of monks staying to fight. You saw that some of them were leaving to join the ethnic armies? And now the Junta are sending them back to the villages and China aren't encouraging them in.

It's good, I think. :)
 
purves grundy said:
Beyond that, the very idea that there exists anything like an 'international community' has been disproved.

I was about to agree, then changed my mind!

In the current make-up, you're right, no international community, and if one existed then the very events in burma are exactly what they would be called upon for.

But what if instead of russia, US, UK, france, and china being the (in)Security Council at the UN, we had new zealand, venezuela, norway, sweden, and brazil for example? Would they have acted?

But even better would be a UN without this stupid big five who can veto anything any time they like.

But we do now know that for sure we are not a global village in terms of humanity. We could not even help our brothers and sisters against the brutalities being visited upon them.

No, the model of life as perpetuated by the US, mimicked by the UK, being mimicked as fast as possible by the likes of china now, is anti-human, and pro-wealth. It sells its soul for the filthy lucre. Money is more important than people we don't personally know.

It's a sad indictment on the likes of US and UK and so on. Did they think they'd made progress in life?
 
ymu said:
I've read a lot of analyses along exactly those lines Purves - the feeling that there is no going back, that the false promises of 1988 won't work this time. The journalists who came out on 5th October said even after the crackdown people would take huge risks to talk to them, even one old guy on the bus getting their attention and cocking his finger like a gun saying "I hate military".

I prefer to think of it as inevitable rather than optimistic, but then I've been waiting for the global peoples' uprising for too bloody long goddammit. :mad: ;)


I'm trying to track down the article I mentioned, but here's another "not over yet" one for you. :)

http://bbwob.blogspot.com/2007/10/ongoing-battle-for-burmas-freedom.html

I would suggest that it will remain the same for many years yet. The only way it can get better is from outside help (which we now know won't come from politicians) or from a mutiny within the armed forces in burma. The latter appears to be the only hope, and before that could happen we need the current crop of thugs to die off of natural causes.

The only other hope for change in the near future is if enough of the world's peoples somehow force their governments to do something. That could only happen via europeans really. And i can't see it.

It's back to prison for the 50 million burmese, and it's a stain on most of humanity.
 
And news of what's happened/happening/might happen has all but vanished from major American media. The NY Times has a teeny, tiny little "brief" on China's position...and that's it for today.

:(
 
Lee Kuan Yew: Burma generals rather dumb

Singapore's senior statesman Lee Kuan Yew believes the ruling generals of Burma are "rather dumb" when it comes to managing the country's economy and will not be able to survive indefinitely, a published interview said Wednesday.

However, the Army must be part of the solution to the problems facing the country, he said. If the Army is dissolved, all of Burma's administrative instruments will go with it, and the country will have nothing with which to govern itself.

Lee, Singapore's founding prime minister and currently minister mentor, spoke with a columnist from the University of California's Los Angeles Media Centre and a new-media expert from the University of Southern California.

More: http://bbwob.blogspot.com/2007/10/lee-kuan-yew-burma-generals-rather-dumb.html
 
Chinese Blogger War Over Burma

New America Media, Commentary, Jun Wang, Posted: Oct 09, 2007

Editor’s Note: Chinese bloggers from the older pro-democracy generation and younger, nationalist commentators come to a head when discussing Burma’s democracy struggle on the Internet. NAM contributor Jun Wang recently graduated from the Graduate School of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley. She worked as a correspondent for the Xinhua News Agency in China and Egypt.

Chinese people weighing in on the Internet are split over the conflict in Burma, with democracy activists furious over the government crackdown and nationalists protesting that China has no role to play in quelling the conflict.

Democracy activists have dubbed the crackdown on Buddhist monks, and others, calling for more liberties: “Burma’s Tiananmen Square protest.”

“China owns the responsibility of Burma’s dictatorship, which has been learned from the Communist Party of China (CPC),” a blogger named Hpu1234 said, quoting Chinese democracy movement activist Fang Jue’s article on Wenxuecity.com, a popular Chinese forum among Chinese living in the United States.

Fang wrote, “China is the only government who can speak to the Burmese military government, but the Chinese government chose to hold back the United Nations Security Council’s action to Burma.”

Many nations, including the United States and Britain, have condemned the crackdown. The confrontation among Chinese people on the Internet is intense, but they are not quarrelling about Burma -- they are slandering each other concerning their own country.

More: http://tinyurl.com/2cchd9
 
Time to prepare for Burma transition: US

October 10, 2007 - 7:14AM

The US ambassador to the United Nations said on Tuesday it was time to prepare for a government transition in Burma but conceded that the ruling military would continue to play a role in the country's future.

Zalmay Khalilzad was speaking as officials of the 15 UN Security Council member states tried to thrash out an agreed statement that would for the first time focus pressure on the junta from all the world's major countries, including China.

"We believe it's very important ... that there be negotiations for a transition and that we need to start preparing ourselves with regard to a transition in Burma," Khalilzad told reporters.

"The military, as a national institution, has its role to play in the transition and post-transition but it's very important that a serious dialogue on transition begins and that the international community, regional players, play their roles."

Following pro-democracy demonstrations that were bloodily suppressed by authorities, the junta has named an official to act as go-between in possible talks with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Khalilzad called for her conditions to be improved so that she could prepare for negotiations and also urged that UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who ended a four-day visit to Burma last week, return as soon as possible to assist a dialogue.

More: http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Prepare-for-Burma-transition-US-envoy/2007/10/10/1191695943731.html

Sounds half-promising ...
 
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