'India's role in Burma was below expectations'
Sunday, December 23, 2007
QUOTE
HAVE WE HEARD THE LAST WORD ON DEMOCRACY OR ARE THERE MORE FORMS TO EVOLVE?
It's a vital question. The following are critical to democracy: regular, free and fair elections, adult franchise cutting across divides, participation of two or more political parties, an independent framework to supervise elections and free judiciary and press. Anything less than that or any experiment without them is a fraud. But democracy is also evolving fast trying to keep up with the technology race.
Prof Larry Diamond wants India to be politically more proactive and spread democracy far and wide
Larry Diamond is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University, and coordinates the Democracy Program of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Diamond was invited by Condoleezza Rice to be an advisor to Coalition Provisional Authority on Iraq to advice on ways to bring democracy in the distressed country. He spoke to Sayandeb Chowdhury about Iraq, India's neighbourhood and why India must play a much bigger role in exporting it's democratic ethic than it is doing now.
SOURCE: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1141003
Friday, 28 December 2007
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
The Congressional Gold Medal for Aung San Suu Kyi
US House of Reps. Votes to Give Aung San Suu Kyi Highest Honor
Congressional Gold Medal to Imprisoned Burmese Democracy Leader
(Washington, DC) The US House of Representatives voted (400-0) today to grant the body's highest honor - The Congressional Gold Medal -- to the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. The effort was led by Congressman Joe Crowley (D-NY) and Don Manzullo (R-IL). The legislation, which required co-sponsorship by 2/3 of the entire House, overwhelmingly passed the US House on Monday, December 17th. The bill will now be referred to the US Senate, which must also pass the measure.
"This award will generate major international attention for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and further increase global resolve for her necessary, immediate and unconditional release." says Aung Din, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma who worked closely with her during Burma's 1988 popular uprising that nearly toppled years of military rule. "It is time for the world to press for a meaningful and time-bound process of achieving democracy and national reconciliation in Burma."
Some of the world's most prominent leaders in governments, human rights, and the arts have won the Congressional Gold Medal, including Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, his Holiness the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Frost, and Elie Wiesel. The House resolution says Aung San Suu Kyi "remains committed to peaceful dialogue with her captors, Burmese military junta, despite an assassination attempt against her life, her prolonged illegal imprisonment, the constant public vilification of her character, and her inability to see her children
or to see her husband before his death."
Aung San Suu Kyi, often called "Burma 's Gandhi" or "Burma's Nelson Mandela" in the international media, is the leader of the struggle for human rights and democracy in the Southeast Asian country of Burma. Not just a human rights advocate, she is the legitimate leader of the Burmese people, leading
her political party the National League for Democracy to a victory in the country's last democratic election. She has been locked up under house arrest (and at times in prison) for 12 of the past 18 years by Burma's ruling military regime.
The regime is among the worlds most brutal, imprisoning up to 2,000 political prisoners, conscripting more child soldiers than any other country in the world, and using rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities. The regime has been condemned by the UN General Assembly and in October the UN Security Council issued its first ever statement calling for changes in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi has survived two assassination attempts orchestrated by the military regime while thousands of her colleagues have been imprisoned, tortured, or killed.
"In a world in which public heroes are few and far between, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the greatest people of our time," added Aung Din. "She richly deserves this award and the Burmese people are so proud that one of our own has been honored in this way."
Congressional Gold Medal to Imprisoned Burmese Democracy Leader
(Washington, DC) The US House of Representatives voted (400-0) today to grant the body's highest honor - The Congressional Gold Medal -- to the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. The effort was led by Congressman Joe Crowley (D-NY) and Don Manzullo (R-IL). The legislation, which required co-sponsorship by 2/3 of the entire House, overwhelmingly passed the US House on Monday, December 17th. The bill will now be referred to the US Senate, which must also pass the measure.
"This award will generate major international attention for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and further increase global resolve for her necessary, immediate and unconditional release." says Aung Din, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma who worked closely with her during Burma's 1988 popular uprising that nearly toppled years of military rule. "It is time for the world to press for a meaningful and time-bound process of achieving democracy and national reconciliation in Burma."
Some of the world's most prominent leaders in governments, human rights, and the arts have won the Congressional Gold Medal, including Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, his Holiness the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Frost, and Elie Wiesel. The House resolution says Aung San Suu Kyi "remains committed to peaceful dialogue with her captors, Burmese military junta, despite an assassination attempt against her life, her prolonged illegal imprisonment, the constant public vilification of her character, and her inability to see her children
or to see her husband before his death."
Aung San Suu Kyi, often called "Burma 's Gandhi" or "Burma's Nelson Mandela" in the international media, is the leader of the struggle for human rights and democracy in the Southeast Asian country of Burma. Not just a human rights advocate, she is the legitimate leader of the Burmese people, leading
her political party the National League for Democracy to a victory in the country's last democratic election. She has been locked up under house arrest (and at times in prison) for 12 of the past 18 years by Burma's ruling military regime.
The regime is among the worlds most brutal, imprisoning up to 2,000 political prisoners, conscripting more child soldiers than any other country in the world, and using rape as a weapon of war against ethnic minorities. The regime has been condemned by the UN General Assembly and in October the UN Security Council issued its first ever statement calling for changes in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi has survived two assassination attempts orchestrated by the military regime while thousands of her colleagues have been imprisoned, tortured, or killed.
"In a world in which public heroes are few and far between, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the greatest people of our time," added Aung Din. "She richly deserves this award and the Burmese people are so proud that one of our own has been honored in this way."
Saturday, 15 December 2007
The Saffron Revolution behind the scene
After the Saffron Revolution: Spies, Suspicion and Empty Monasteries
Ten weeks after Burma's junta crushed the monks' revolt, Chris McGreal sent this rare dispatch from a country gripped by fear The security policemen who snatched the young shop owner from his bed and hauled him off to the bare interrogation room of Mandalay's police station No 14 really had only one question - and just one answer - in mind.
But the interrogators had an array of techniques to extract the "confession" they wanted to hear from him and the thousands of others scattered in jails across Burma; an admission that the pro-democracy demonstrations led by thousands of monks that shook the country's paranoid military government in September were really a foreign-backed political plot to bring down the regime.
"I was sitting on the floor of the interrogation room," said the man, an art shop owner in his 20s. "There were five of them asking questions. The first day I was beaten very hard and they asked: who organized the monks? I told them we were following the monks, respecting the Buddha, they weren't following us."
"I was interrogated all night for three nights. They kicked and punched me on the side of my head with their fists. They asked me the same question over and over. I told them: you can ask anything, my answer will always be the same. I don't know who organized the monks. They didn't like that answer."
So the interrogators forced the young man to half-crouch as though he were sitting on a motorbike, made him put his arms out as if gripping the handlebars and demanded he imitate an engine, loudly.
The initial humiliation gave way to intense pains in his legs, arms and throat after several hours. When he fell over he was beaten again. He was held for a month and is still not sure why he was detained. He suspects the police identified him from photographs of civilians who marched with the monks. But he was not alone in the cells of police station No 14.
Thousands of civilians have emerged from weeks in prison following the protests with accounts of brutal torture aimed at extracting "confessions" and at terrorising a new generation of Burmese into acquiescing to military rule.
Crackdown
From Rangoon to Mandalay and down the Irrawaddy river to the small town of Pakokku, demonstrators and politicians were rounded up in the crackdown against the greatest challenge to the 400,000-strong army's hegemony in a generation. Scores were killed, including monks.
At the same time, hundreds of monasteries were purged of monks. Some were arrested and tortured but mostly they were driven back to their villages to prevent more protests which began over price rises but evolved into demands for an end to 45 years of military rule.
What remains is a climate of terror in an already fearful land where anyone who took part in the protests lives in dread of being identified. Even the monks are suspicious of each other, believing the regime has planted spies and agents provocateurs or coerced some into becoming informers.
But the military has not emerged unscathed from its confrontation with the monasteries. There are divisions over the brutal treatment of the monks, and accounts that soldiers are fearful of the spiritual price they might pay.
The monks of Pakokku are wary of unknown faces. Their monasteries were among the first to be purged after the small town and seat of Buddhist learning, about six hours downriver from Mandalay, became the crucible of the demonstrations that spread nationwide.
Behind closed doors inside the largest of Pakokku's monasteries, the Bawdimandine, two monks describe a confrontation with the army that on the face of it the monks have lost, but which the Buddhist clergy believe marks the beginning of the downfall of the regime - although none of them are predicting that it will happen any time soon.
"All the monks here are very much against the government," said one. "They're still against the government mentally but not physically because we can't do anything. If we do they will arrest us. We don't want to kill. We don't want to torture. The government takes advantage of this. The government suppressed the protests but there's not really quiet. There's a lot of defiance."
The protests began in August over fuel and food price rises but escalated in September after the army broke up a demonstration in Pakokku by shooting dead one monk and lashing others to electricity poles and beating them with rifle butts. Pakokku's monks demanded an apology from the junta and the reversal of price rises.
But they added two overtly political demands - for the release of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from house arrest and the start of a dialog to end military rule - that changed the character of the confrontation.
When the deadline passed, monasteries across Burma took up the cause and poured tens of thousands of monks on to the streets in days of marches that initially left the military paralyzed. But the crackdown soon came. In some cases it took no more than the threat of mass arrests to empty a monastery. Lorryloads of troops herded the clergy away from others.
Fear of arrest
Almost half of the 1,200 monks at the Bawdimandine monastery fled. Those who remain say they are afraid to venture on to the streets for fear of arrest.
"Things have changed for us," said one monk. "The soldiers used to drag the civilians off the buses to check their identity cards and leave the monks in their seats. Now it is the monks they line up in the road to check and they leave the civilians on the bus."
It is a similar story in monasteries from the former capital, Rangoon, to Mandalay where 20,000 monks and their supporters turned out on the streets of Burma's second city and religious heartland to challenge the military regime.
The purges continue despite the government's assurances to the United Nations. "The government has many spies among the monks," said one of the chief monks of the Old Ma Soe monastery in Mandalay.
"During the demonstrations they pulled the prisoners out of Mandalay jail and shaved their heads and put them among the monks to cause trouble. The bogus monks were chanting aggressively. They are still trying to send spies. When we have a new monk we do not know we test their knowledge of Buddhist literature. If they don't know we send them away."
In some monasteries, the monks were given time to pack up and get out. But in others, they fled without notice, leaving neatly made beds, books lining the shelves of their cubicles and the single key that each monk is permitted to possess. Cats and dogs wander the prayer halls.
Ask where the monks are and those that remain say they went back to their villages. What has happened to them there? Some were arrested but most have been left alone, provided they do not try to return to their monasteries, according to the leading clerics. "It was all about silencing them," said the monk at Old Ma Soe.
Fear is pervasive in Burma. There are not many soldiers on the streets but the regime has many ordinary people believing that their every move is being watched and that anyone might be an informer. .
The fear is underpinned by the sheer numbers of men who have been through the regime's jails at some time or another, even if only for a few weeks.
The 1988 generation of protesters remembers the slaughter of 3,000 of their number as the regime quashed the demonstrations and the mass arrests afterwards.The latest crackdown has introduced a new generation to the regime's use of terror against its own population.
"There were 85 others in my police cell, mostly young people," said the young shopkeeper held in police station No 14. "Some were only 15 or 16 years old. One boy told me he was arrested for wearing an American flag on his head. Some of the students had broken bones and head wounds.
"At the end of three days I still hadn't confessed so they gave up and put me back in the cell and left me alone. Some of the others confessed under the pressure but they weren't real confessions. I don't blame them. There were people in my cell who were interrogated non-stop for 15 days."
Among those detained were politicians from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) elected in the annulled 1990 parliamentary election.
Last week, the government called diplomats to the new capital, Naypyidaw, to lay out the results of all these interrogations. The military said it had uncovered a longstanding plot involving "bogus monks", a little-known exile group, the Forum for Democracy in Burma, and billionaire financier George Soros's Open Society organization to bring down the regime.
The junta outlined a complex conspiracy to infiltrate the monasteries, the labor force and universities in an 18-page document filled with scores of names of alleged plotters and their backers. Among others, it names U Gambira, the 27-year-old leader of the All Burma Monks Alliance, who is presently locked up in Mandalay prison. The government accuses him and opposition politicians of using ordinary monks as a front for political ends.
Foreign diplomats who have spoken to senior army officers since the protests say the regime is blind to the growing discontent at deepening economic hardship that underpinned the demonstrations.
The government maintains the illusion that Burma's economy is growing faster than China's even though the World Bank has rubbished statistics that claim to show double-digit growth. The reality can be seen in the contrasts with the booming economies of much of the rest of south-east Asia - Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia - particularly outside Rangoon. There's hardly a new vehicle to be seen besides scooters and Chinese-made motorbikes. The principal means of transport is old, underpowered buses and horse and trap. Ploughs are pulled by cattle.
There is such a shortage of cars that 25-year-old vehicles worth a few hundred pounds across the border cost £10,000 in Burma. A Sim card for the government-run mobile phone network, the only one there is, costs about £1,000.
Aside from a sprinkling of new hotels, there are few modern buildings to be seen beyond Rangoon and the surreal new capital, Naypyidaw. Life expectancy is well short of that in Burma's neighbors.
The chief United Nations representative, Charles Petrie, left Rangoon last week after being expelled for a speech in which he observed that Burma's per capita gross domestic product was less than half that of Cambodia or Bangladesh, and that the recent protests "clearly demonstrated the everyday struggle to meet basic needs. The average household is forced to spend almost three-quarters of its budget on food. One in three children under five are suffering malnutrition, and less than 50% of children are able to complete their primary education".
Military elite
That is not the world the generals live in. They are cocooned in the new capital or Pyin U Lwin, an army town 90 minutes' drive north of Mandalay. It is home to the military's main barracks and the defense Services Academy training base. The grand, red-tiled entrance proclaims in gold lettering that its officers are the Triumphant Elite of the Future.
Two new and vast mansions sit on distant hilltops, and a neighborhood of spacious, colonial-style homes is spreading in all directions, all apparently reserved for the military elite.
Few outsiders penetrate this closed world where career officers and their families live mostly cut off from the rest of Burma. Inside that world, the junta portrays itself as all that stands between order and disintegration into ethnic conflict. It says it is committed to a road map to a "disciplined flourishing democracy" that will lead to a "golden land in future".
But it has taken 14 years to complete the first two stages of the map which means that at the present rate of progress the end of the road will not be reached until well into the second half of the century.
The military's view that it is central to Burma's very survival is displayed on the front of all the heavily censored newspapers, where each day appear the 12 "political, economic and social objectives" of the military government. These include "uplift of the morale and morality of the entire nation" and "uplift of dynamism of patriotic spirit".
A senior monk who teaches at Pyin U Lwin's military academy said there was disquiet among some soldiers over the assault on the monks. "Soldiers are telling their relatives not to go into the army. Many soldiers are unhappy with what has happened. Some of them are my pupils. Even some of the colonels tell me they don't agree with what has happened," he said.
"We are educating the new generation about what is right and what is wrong. Evolution is better than revolution. We have no weapons. They have the weapons. All we have is loving kindness. Who wants to be killed? People are very peaceful, very passive. No one wants to die, no one wants to kill. They are not like the Muslims. You never heard of Myanmar people suicide bombing. But it will not be quick. Maybe another 10 years."
Many people in Burma are patient, but not that patient. The frustration and sense of helplessness is reflected in the self-delusion among some that the United Nations will invade and overthrow the regime.
Others draw strength from the widespread practice of interpreting what are seen as auspicious signs. Near Bagan a small pagoda has become the site of pilgrimage after a colony of bees settled on the face and chest of a Buddha. Bees are considered particularly auspicious and their choice of a Buddha has been widely interpreted as siding with monks.
Sitting atop a centuries-old pagoda nearby, a politician who has gone into hiding said many Burmese drew strength from the belief that the military leaders will pay for their crimes in the next life.
"They will have an amazing surprise in their afterlife. By killing monks they will come back as dogs who eat shit with many diseases, not the ones that eat good food and look nice; ugly dogs," he said. There are not many who would dare say such things openly but Thet Pyin is among them. The army first threw him into prison 45 years ago for his opposition to its rule.
"The problem the government has created for itself is that the conflict is no longer between the government and the people, it's between religion and the government. That's important because 80% of the population is Buddhist and the government is Buddhist. All the army is Buddhist. That will be its downfall," he said.
Occupation
"I'm 81 years old. I've never in all my life seen as bad a government as this, as unqualified as this. Even the Japanese occupation was not as bad as this. These military people don't have a clue what they are doing and their treatment of the monks is the latest evidence of that."
Pyin, a member of a small party that won three seats in the annulled 1990 election, said that the army duped people back then with promises of democracy but that it will not be able to get away with that again.
"This regime managed to pacify people after the 1988 demonstrations with promises of multi party elections and an open economy and that the military would return to the barracks. The army reneged on that but it was forced to make the promise. The regime is going to have to do something to pacify the people again but they will not believe its promises now," he said.
"There are divisions in the army. The core of the dictatorship is small, it is at odds with the military in its larger role. This government will fall."
Burma's most renowned female writer, Ludu Daw Ahmar, is also outspoken against the regime. Arrested in 1978 at the age of 63 on suspicion of links to the Communist party, which she denies, Ahmar spent a year in Mandalay jail. She has just celebrated her 92nd birthday and no longer fears what the regime might do to her. Frail and hard of hearing, she remains vigorously defiant.
"People are very much afraid of the government but this can't go on forever. There will be a day when the people break this," she said. "People will have to sacrifice their lives. There is no choice. We can't go on like this. We must get arms to resist them. I can't say how, but the people must find arms."
That is not the view of most Burmese, or the monks who have taken up a low-key but symbolically significant protest against the regime by refusing alms from the government. Some monks turn their bowls upside down when offered food by soldiers, interpreted as a form of excommunication.
At the Old Ma Soe monastery the monks refused to invite government representatives to celebrations to mark its 100th anniversary.
The clerics have also declared a boycott of government exams they are expected to take every year. But the monasteries hold their own exams in April, and some senior clerics are predicting that will mark the beginning of a new campaign of protest.
"The monasteries will be full again. They will not be silent. No one has changed their mind about this government," said a senior cleric in Mandalay. "But we know it will not change tomorrow. It might take five years, it might take 10, but it will be go. It has no solutions."
Atop the pagoda near Bagan, the political activist who is now in hiding said the military was wrong to believe it has cowed another generation.
"Nobody won in September because it's not finished," he said.
Resource-rich but with faltering economyBurma is a resource-rich country but its economy is crippled by overbearing government control and ineffective policies. It is the world's biggest exporter of teak, a principal source of precious stones, has fertile soil and significant offshore oil and gas deposits but the majority of its people live in abject poverty. Steps in the early 1990s to liberalize the economy after decades of failure under the program Burmese Way to Socialisation, a large-scale attempt at central economic planning, were largely unsuccessful. The US imposed fresh economic sanctions in August 2003 in response to the junta's attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy. A banking crisis in the same year saw hundreds of Burmese lining up outside banks to withdraw their savings after the government shut down several institutions. The average household spends three-quarters of its budget on food and one in three children under five are suffering malnutrition.Alexandra Topping
·Gallery: The Guardian's Sean Smith in Burma
By Guardian Unlimited © Copyright Guardian Newspapers 2006
Published: 12/14/2007
Ten weeks after Burma's junta crushed the monks' revolt, Chris McGreal sent this rare dispatch from a country gripped by fear The security policemen who snatched the young shop owner from his bed and hauled him off to the bare interrogation room of Mandalay's police station No 14 really had only one question - and just one answer - in mind.
But the interrogators had an array of techniques to extract the "confession" they wanted to hear from him and the thousands of others scattered in jails across Burma; an admission that the pro-democracy demonstrations led by thousands of monks that shook the country's paranoid military government in September were really a foreign-backed political plot to bring down the regime.
"I was sitting on the floor of the interrogation room," said the man, an art shop owner in his 20s. "There were five of them asking questions. The first day I was beaten very hard and they asked: who organized the monks? I told them we were following the monks, respecting the Buddha, they weren't following us."
"I was interrogated all night for three nights. They kicked and punched me on the side of my head with their fists. They asked me the same question over and over. I told them: you can ask anything, my answer will always be the same. I don't know who organized the monks. They didn't like that answer."
So the interrogators forced the young man to half-crouch as though he were sitting on a motorbike, made him put his arms out as if gripping the handlebars and demanded he imitate an engine, loudly.
The initial humiliation gave way to intense pains in his legs, arms and throat after several hours. When he fell over he was beaten again. He was held for a month and is still not sure why he was detained. He suspects the police identified him from photographs of civilians who marched with the monks. But he was not alone in the cells of police station No 14.
Thousands of civilians have emerged from weeks in prison following the protests with accounts of brutal torture aimed at extracting "confessions" and at terrorising a new generation of Burmese into acquiescing to military rule.
Crackdown
From Rangoon to Mandalay and down the Irrawaddy river to the small town of Pakokku, demonstrators and politicians were rounded up in the crackdown against the greatest challenge to the 400,000-strong army's hegemony in a generation. Scores were killed, including monks.
At the same time, hundreds of monasteries were purged of monks. Some were arrested and tortured but mostly they were driven back to their villages to prevent more protests which began over price rises but evolved into demands for an end to 45 years of military rule.
What remains is a climate of terror in an already fearful land where anyone who took part in the protests lives in dread of being identified. Even the monks are suspicious of each other, believing the regime has planted spies and agents provocateurs or coerced some into becoming informers.
But the military has not emerged unscathed from its confrontation with the monasteries. There are divisions over the brutal treatment of the monks, and accounts that soldiers are fearful of the spiritual price they might pay.
The monks of Pakokku are wary of unknown faces. Their monasteries were among the first to be purged after the small town and seat of Buddhist learning, about six hours downriver from Mandalay, became the crucible of the demonstrations that spread nationwide.
Behind closed doors inside the largest of Pakokku's monasteries, the Bawdimandine, two monks describe a confrontation with the army that on the face of it the monks have lost, but which the Buddhist clergy believe marks the beginning of the downfall of the regime - although none of them are predicting that it will happen any time soon.
"All the monks here are very much against the government," said one. "They're still against the government mentally but not physically because we can't do anything. If we do they will arrest us. We don't want to kill. We don't want to torture. The government takes advantage of this. The government suppressed the protests but there's not really quiet. There's a lot of defiance."
The protests began in August over fuel and food price rises but escalated in September after the army broke up a demonstration in Pakokku by shooting dead one monk and lashing others to electricity poles and beating them with rifle butts. Pakokku's monks demanded an apology from the junta and the reversal of price rises.
But they added two overtly political demands - for the release of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, from house arrest and the start of a dialog to end military rule - that changed the character of the confrontation.
When the deadline passed, monasteries across Burma took up the cause and poured tens of thousands of monks on to the streets in days of marches that initially left the military paralyzed. But the crackdown soon came. In some cases it took no more than the threat of mass arrests to empty a monastery. Lorryloads of troops herded the clergy away from others.
Fear of arrest
Almost half of the 1,200 monks at the Bawdimandine monastery fled. Those who remain say they are afraid to venture on to the streets for fear of arrest.
"Things have changed for us," said one monk. "The soldiers used to drag the civilians off the buses to check their identity cards and leave the monks in their seats. Now it is the monks they line up in the road to check and they leave the civilians on the bus."
It is a similar story in monasteries from the former capital, Rangoon, to Mandalay where 20,000 monks and their supporters turned out on the streets of Burma's second city and religious heartland to challenge the military regime.
The purges continue despite the government's assurances to the United Nations. "The government has many spies among the monks," said one of the chief monks of the Old Ma Soe monastery in Mandalay.
"During the demonstrations they pulled the prisoners out of Mandalay jail and shaved their heads and put them among the monks to cause trouble. The bogus monks were chanting aggressively. They are still trying to send spies. When we have a new monk we do not know we test their knowledge of Buddhist literature. If they don't know we send them away."
In some monasteries, the monks were given time to pack up and get out. But in others, they fled without notice, leaving neatly made beds, books lining the shelves of their cubicles and the single key that each monk is permitted to possess. Cats and dogs wander the prayer halls.
Ask where the monks are and those that remain say they went back to their villages. What has happened to them there? Some were arrested but most have been left alone, provided they do not try to return to their monasteries, according to the leading clerics. "It was all about silencing them," said the monk at Old Ma Soe.
Fear is pervasive in Burma. There are not many soldiers on the streets but the regime has many ordinary people believing that their every move is being watched and that anyone might be an informer. .
The fear is underpinned by the sheer numbers of men who have been through the regime's jails at some time or another, even if only for a few weeks.
The 1988 generation of protesters remembers the slaughter of 3,000 of their number as the regime quashed the demonstrations and the mass arrests afterwards.The latest crackdown has introduced a new generation to the regime's use of terror against its own population.
"There were 85 others in my police cell, mostly young people," said the young shopkeeper held in police station No 14. "Some were only 15 or 16 years old. One boy told me he was arrested for wearing an American flag on his head. Some of the students had broken bones and head wounds.
"At the end of three days I still hadn't confessed so they gave up and put me back in the cell and left me alone. Some of the others confessed under the pressure but they weren't real confessions. I don't blame them. There were people in my cell who were interrogated non-stop for 15 days."
Among those detained were politicians from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) elected in the annulled 1990 parliamentary election.
Last week, the government called diplomats to the new capital, Naypyidaw, to lay out the results of all these interrogations. The military said it had uncovered a longstanding plot involving "bogus monks", a little-known exile group, the Forum for Democracy in Burma, and billionaire financier George Soros's Open Society organization to bring down the regime.
The junta outlined a complex conspiracy to infiltrate the monasteries, the labor force and universities in an 18-page document filled with scores of names of alleged plotters and their backers. Among others, it names U Gambira, the 27-year-old leader of the All Burma Monks Alliance, who is presently locked up in Mandalay prison. The government accuses him and opposition politicians of using ordinary monks as a front for political ends.
Foreign diplomats who have spoken to senior army officers since the protests say the regime is blind to the growing discontent at deepening economic hardship that underpinned the demonstrations.
The government maintains the illusion that Burma's economy is growing faster than China's even though the World Bank has rubbished statistics that claim to show double-digit growth. The reality can be seen in the contrasts with the booming economies of much of the rest of south-east Asia - Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia - particularly outside Rangoon. There's hardly a new vehicle to be seen besides scooters and Chinese-made motorbikes. The principal means of transport is old, underpowered buses and horse and trap. Ploughs are pulled by cattle.
There is such a shortage of cars that 25-year-old vehicles worth a few hundred pounds across the border cost £10,000 in Burma. A Sim card for the government-run mobile phone network, the only one there is, costs about £1,000.
Aside from a sprinkling of new hotels, there are few modern buildings to be seen beyond Rangoon and the surreal new capital, Naypyidaw. Life expectancy is well short of that in Burma's neighbors.
The chief United Nations representative, Charles Petrie, left Rangoon last week after being expelled for a speech in which he observed that Burma's per capita gross domestic product was less than half that of Cambodia or Bangladesh, and that the recent protests "clearly demonstrated the everyday struggle to meet basic needs. The average household is forced to spend almost three-quarters of its budget on food. One in three children under five are suffering malnutrition, and less than 50% of children are able to complete their primary education".
Military elite
That is not the world the generals live in. They are cocooned in the new capital or Pyin U Lwin, an army town 90 minutes' drive north of Mandalay. It is home to the military's main barracks and the defense Services Academy training base. The grand, red-tiled entrance proclaims in gold lettering that its officers are the Triumphant Elite of the Future.
Two new and vast mansions sit on distant hilltops, and a neighborhood of spacious, colonial-style homes is spreading in all directions, all apparently reserved for the military elite.
Few outsiders penetrate this closed world where career officers and their families live mostly cut off from the rest of Burma. Inside that world, the junta portrays itself as all that stands between order and disintegration into ethnic conflict. It says it is committed to a road map to a "disciplined flourishing democracy" that will lead to a "golden land in future".
But it has taken 14 years to complete the first two stages of the map which means that at the present rate of progress the end of the road will not be reached until well into the second half of the century.
The military's view that it is central to Burma's very survival is displayed on the front of all the heavily censored newspapers, where each day appear the 12 "political, economic and social objectives" of the military government. These include "uplift of the morale and morality of the entire nation" and "uplift of dynamism of patriotic spirit".
A senior monk who teaches at Pyin U Lwin's military academy said there was disquiet among some soldiers over the assault on the monks. "Soldiers are telling their relatives not to go into the army. Many soldiers are unhappy with what has happened. Some of them are my pupils. Even some of the colonels tell me they don't agree with what has happened," he said.
"We are educating the new generation about what is right and what is wrong. Evolution is better than revolution. We have no weapons. They have the weapons. All we have is loving kindness. Who wants to be killed? People are very peaceful, very passive. No one wants to die, no one wants to kill. They are not like the Muslims. You never heard of Myanmar people suicide bombing. But it will not be quick. Maybe another 10 years."
Many people in Burma are patient, but not that patient. The frustration and sense of helplessness is reflected in the self-delusion among some that the United Nations will invade and overthrow the regime.
Others draw strength from the widespread practice of interpreting what are seen as auspicious signs. Near Bagan a small pagoda has become the site of pilgrimage after a colony of bees settled on the face and chest of a Buddha. Bees are considered particularly auspicious and their choice of a Buddha has been widely interpreted as siding with monks.
Sitting atop a centuries-old pagoda nearby, a politician who has gone into hiding said many Burmese drew strength from the belief that the military leaders will pay for their crimes in the next life.
"They will have an amazing surprise in their afterlife. By killing monks they will come back as dogs who eat shit with many diseases, not the ones that eat good food and look nice; ugly dogs," he said. There are not many who would dare say such things openly but Thet Pyin is among them. The army first threw him into prison 45 years ago for his opposition to its rule.
"The problem the government has created for itself is that the conflict is no longer between the government and the people, it's between religion and the government. That's important because 80% of the population is Buddhist and the government is Buddhist. All the army is Buddhist. That will be its downfall," he said.
Occupation
"I'm 81 years old. I've never in all my life seen as bad a government as this, as unqualified as this. Even the Japanese occupation was not as bad as this. These military people don't have a clue what they are doing and their treatment of the monks is the latest evidence of that."
Pyin, a member of a small party that won three seats in the annulled 1990 election, said that the army duped people back then with promises of democracy but that it will not be able to get away with that again.
"This regime managed to pacify people after the 1988 demonstrations with promises of multi party elections and an open economy and that the military would return to the barracks. The army reneged on that but it was forced to make the promise. The regime is going to have to do something to pacify the people again but they will not believe its promises now," he said.
"There are divisions in the army. The core of the dictatorship is small, it is at odds with the military in its larger role. This government will fall."
Burma's most renowned female writer, Ludu Daw Ahmar, is also outspoken against the regime. Arrested in 1978 at the age of 63 on suspicion of links to the Communist party, which she denies, Ahmar spent a year in Mandalay jail. She has just celebrated her 92nd birthday and no longer fears what the regime might do to her. Frail and hard of hearing, she remains vigorously defiant.
"People are very much afraid of the government but this can't go on forever. There will be a day when the people break this," she said. "People will have to sacrifice their lives. There is no choice. We can't go on like this. We must get arms to resist them. I can't say how, but the people must find arms."
That is not the view of most Burmese, or the monks who have taken up a low-key but symbolically significant protest against the regime by refusing alms from the government. Some monks turn their bowls upside down when offered food by soldiers, interpreted as a form of excommunication.
At the Old Ma Soe monastery the monks refused to invite government representatives to celebrations to mark its 100th anniversary.
The clerics have also declared a boycott of government exams they are expected to take every year. But the monasteries hold their own exams in April, and some senior clerics are predicting that will mark the beginning of a new campaign of protest.
"The monasteries will be full again. They will not be silent. No one has changed their mind about this government," said a senior cleric in Mandalay. "But we know it will not change tomorrow. It might take five years, it might take 10, but it will be go. It has no solutions."
Atop the pagoda near Bagan, the political activist who is now in hiding said the military was wrong to believe it has cowed another generation.
"Nobody won in September because it's not finished," he said.
Resource-rich but with faltering economyBurma is a resource-rich country but its economy is crippled by overbearing government control and ineffective policies. It is the world's biggest exporter of teak, a principal source of precious stones, has fertile soil and significant offshore oil and gas deposits but the majority of its people live in abject poverty. Steps in the early 1990s to liberalize the economy after decades of failure under the program Burmese Way to Socialisation, a large-scale attempt at central economic planning, were largely unsuccessful. The US imposed fresh economic sanctions in August 2003 in response to the junta's attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy. A banking crisis in the same year saw hundreds of Burmese lining up outside banks to withdraw their savings after the government shut down several institutions. The average household spends three-quarters of its budget on food and one in three children under five are suffering malnutrition.Alexandra Topping
·Gallery: The Guardian's Sean Smith in Burma
By Guardian Unlimited © Copyright Guardian Newspapers 2006
Published: 12/14/2007
Friday, 14 December 2007
The Saffron Revolution and the International Human Rights Front
www.fidh.org [english] > United Nations > Human Rights Council
12/12/2007
Human Rights Council 6th session part 2
Oral Statment- Human Rights situation in Burma
by International Federation for Human Rights
Mr President,
The FIDH and the International Trade Union Confederation conducted a joint mission along the Thai-Burma border mid-October. We met demonstrators and eyewitnesses to the crackdown, as well as representatives of the democracy movement and members of the diplomatic community.
Our conclusion is that the current situation in Burma is unprecedented. The peaceful protests and the violent crackdown have created new dynamics. Eyewitness strongly emphasize that the Saffron revolution is ‘not over’. The future is still unknown, yet the influence of the international community will be crucial.
Our joint report issued today highlights key leverage points to maximize the chances of the SPDC starting a genuine political process out of military rule.
Firstly, the Human Rights Council should build on the Resolution of its Special Session on Burma of October by continuing a thorough investigation of human rights abuses in Burma. The Council should adopt a resolution supporting Mr Pinheiro’s recommendations, including that the military regime grants immediate access by the ICRC to all places of detention, reveal whereabouts of the missing and bring perpetrators to justice. Moreover, the Council could request from the SPDC to accept permanent offices in Rangoon for Mr Gambari’s good offices mission and for the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Secondly, the Council should acknowledge that the success of the reconciliation process requires the setting of clear benchmarks for the Burmese regime, and agreeing on a timeline for an effective transition towards democracy and respect for human rights. The Council should express support for a national reconciliation and for the establishment of for a monitoring process.
Finally the Council should urgently call on the international community, including regional organisations and neighbouring countries, to adopt effective sanctions to cut the regime’s economic lifeline. Representatives of the democracy movement stress the links between foreign direct investments and repression. They are adamant: economic sanctions hurt the military regime and crony elites, not the people, who mainly live off agriculture and the informal economy. The adoption by the UN Security Council of a resolution imposing effective, multilateral sanctions is more urgent than ever, and would increase the chances of a genuine implementation of the recommendations of the Human Rights Council. These should target, in particular, the crucial oil and gas sectors, timber, gems, financial services, and an arms embargo.
Only the combination of these steps can provide reasonable chances of a transition out of military rule. The Human Rights Council can, and in our view should, contribute to this. We call upon the Council, in sum, to rise up to its historic responsibility in bringing human rights to Burma.
Thank you for your attention.
12/12/2007
Human Rights Council 6th session part 2
Oral Statment- Human Rights situation in Burma
by International Federation for Human Rights
Mr President,
The FIDH and the International Trade Union Confederation conducted a joint mission along the Thai-Burma border mid-October. We met demonstrators and eyewitnesses to the crackdown, as well as representatives of the democracy movement and members of the diplomatic community.
Our conclusion is that the current situation in Burma is unprecedented. The peaceful protests and the violent crackdown have created new dynamics. Eyewitness strongly emphasize that the Saffron revolution is ‘not over’. The future is still unknown, yet the influence of the international community will be crucial.
Our joint report issued today highlights key leverage points to maximize the chances of the SPDC starting a genuine political process out of military rule.
Firstly, the Human Rights Council should build on the Resolution of its Special Session on Burma of October by continuing a thorough investigation of human rights abuses in Burma. The Council should adopt a resolution supporting Mr Pinheiro’s recommendations, including that the military regime grants immediate access by the ICRC to all places of detention, reveal whereabouts of the missing and bring perpetrators to justice. Moreover, the Council could request from the SPDC to accept permanent offices in Rangoon for Mr Gambari’s good offices mission and for the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Secondly, the Council should acknowledge that the success of the reconciliation process requires the setting of clear benchmarks for the Burmese regime, and agreeing on a timeline for an effective transition towards democracy and respect for human rights. The Council should express support for a national reconciliation and for the establishment of for a monitoring process.
Finally the Council should urgently call on the international community, including regional organisations and neighbouring countries, to adopt effective sanctions to cut the regime’s economic lifeline. Representatives of the democracy movement stress the links between foreign direct investments and repression. They are adamant: economic sanctions hurt the military regime and crony elites, not the people, who mainly live off agriculture and the informal economy. The adoption by the UN Security Council of a resolution imposing effective, multilateral sanctions is more urgent than ever, and would increase the chances of a genuine implementation of the recommendations of the Human Rights Council. These should target, in particular, the crucial oil and gas sectors, timber, gems, financial services, and an arms embargo.
Only the combination of these steps can provide reasonable chances of a transition out of military rule. The Human Rights Council can, and in our view should, contribute to this. We call upon the Council, in sum, to rise up to its historic responsibility in bringing human rights to Burma.
Thank you for your attention.
The Saffron Revolution and The IT Revolution Intertwined
Support for Future Bloggers
December 12th, 2007 by Suzette Gardner
SOURCE: http://www.beaconfire.com/blog/2007/12/12/support-for-future-bloggers/
A lot has changed in the 20 years since the last potent protests in Myanmar (formerly Burma). For one, Internet access and digital cameras have placed media production in the hands of common citizens. So when blogs, images and streaming video capturing the recent protest in Myanmar began making their way around the world, authorities moved quickly to pull the plug on Internet access.
Myanmar bloggers already plagued with intermittent Internet access became more muffled as the government reportedly jammed satellite, SMS and mobile phones, and the country’s leading ISPs became “down for maintenance”. Internet cafes which serve a majority of this poor nation’s Web surfers were sabotaged by curfews which kept their patrons away. Alas, the saffron revolution was quieted and its coverage limited to AP reports.
So what could have helped Myanmar bloggers during this shutdown? Volume and access are two things that come to mind. Closing the International digital divide is not only good for business and technology; it’s also good for news reporting. So this holiday, I’ve added “Give 1, Get 1″ (XO laptop) to the list of charities and alternative giving opportunities I’m planning to support this year. It’s the least I can do to strengthen our international online community—and news service.
December 12th, 2007 by Suzette Gardner
SOURCE: http://www.beaconfire.com/blog/2007/12/12/support-for-future-bloggers/
A lot has changed in the 20 years since the last potent protests in Myanmar (formerly Burma). For one, Internet access and digital cameras have placed media production in the hands of common citizens. So when blogs, images and streaming video capturing the recent protest in Myanmar began making their way around the world, authorities moved quickly to pull the plug on Internet access.
Myanmar bloggers already plagued with intermittent Internet access became more muffled as the government reportedly jammed satellite, SMS and mobile phones, and the country’s leading ISPs became “down for maintenance”. Internet cafes which serve a majority of this poor nation’s Web surfers were sabotaged by curfews which kept their patrons away. Alas, the saffron revolution was quieted and its coverage limited to AP reports.
So what could have helped Myanmar bloggers during this shutdown? Volume and access are two things that come to mind. Closing the International digital divide is not only good for business and technology; it’s also good for news reporting. So this holiday, I’ve added “Give 1, Get 1″ (XO laptop) to the list of charities and alternative giving opportunities I’m planning to support this year. It’s the least I can do to strengthen our international online community—and news service.
Thursday, 13 December 2007
The Saffron Revolution to continue
More bloody confrontation unavoidable in Myanmar: exiled monk
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Myanmar's Buddhist monks are prepared to face another bloody confrontation with the ruling military junta if the international community fails to force the generals to accept democratic reforms, an exiled monk with links inside Myanmar said Monday.
US-based Ashin Nayaka, a key member of the International Burmese Monks Organization, said monks were a "symbol of hope" for reforms in Myanmar but were "forcibly disrobed, assaulted and killed" by the junta.
"If this continues unaddressed, further bloody confrontation is unavoidable," he told a hearing of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a non-partisan panel appointed by the US president and leaders of Congress.
"The very existence of monastic life is being destroyed by the evil military regime and it will face bloodshed again, if the international community, including the UN Security Council, cannot find a collective and effective way to stop this evil regime from killings and arrests," he said.
At least 15 people died and 3,000 were jailed when Myanmar's military and police broke up pro-democracy protests, which saw Buddhist monks lead 100,000 people in the streets of Yangon on successive days.
Nayaka, a visiting scholar at Columbia University, said he had been working closely with U Gambira, the leader of the Alliance of All Burma Buddhist Monks and key leader of the September protests arrested by the junta last month.
He expressed regret that pressure by the international community on the junta had eased even as serious questions remained over the number of monks forcible disrobed, imprisoned and killed following the protests.
"Where has the global outcry gone? This should be of grave concern for all governments worldwide. This is a moral crisis that Americans must stand for," he said.
The United States, which has long imposed a trade and investment ban on Myanmar, has twice tightened sanctions since the clampdown on protests.
It ordered an asset freeze on key junta figures and blacklisted seven companies and five individuals allegedly linked to those companies and the regime.
Aung Din, executive director of the US Campaign for Burma, urged Washington to appoint a full-time sanctions coordinator for Myanmar as it did in the late 1990's against Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's regime accused of genocide.
This would enable coordination of global sanctions against Myanmar's junta, he said.
Citing the Australian government which had targeted financial sanctions against 418 Myanmar citizens, including 40 businessmen, he asked the US government to impose restrictions on more Myanmar businessmen who provided money to the junta leaders and their families.
Jared Genser, president of human rights group Freedom Now, raised the prospect of Washington imposing sanctions, such as those used against a Macau bank accused of money laundering for nuclear-armed North Korea, on a Southeast Asian state-owned bank suspected of links to Myanmar's military rulers.
The move against Banco Delta Asia in Macau underscored US financial clout and reportedly compelled North Korea back to the negotiating table.
"Anecdotally in conversations with diplomats in ASEAN countries, I know there is a deep concern about the prospects of the United States doing to a state-owned bank what happened to Banco Delta Asia in Macau because of its laundering of North Korean funds," Genser told the hearing.
He did not name the bank.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Myanmar's Buddhist monks are prepared to face another bloody confrontation with the ruling military junta if the international community fails to force the generals to accept democratic reforms, an exiled monk with links inside Myanmar said Monday.
US-based Ashin Nayaka, a key member of the International Burmese Monks Organization, said monks were a "symbol of hope" for reforms in Myanmar but were "forcibly disrobed, assaulted and killed" by the junta.
"If this continues unaddressed, further bloody confrontation is unavoidable," he told a hearing of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a non-partisan panel appointed by the US president and leaders of Congress.
"The very existence of monastic life is being destroyed by the evil military regime and it will face bloodshed again, if the international community, including the UN Security Council, cannot find a collective and effective way to stop this evil regime from killings and arrests," he said.
At least 15 people died and 3,000 were jailed when Myanmar's military and police broke up pro-democracy protests, which saw Buddhist monks lead 100,000 people in the streets of Yangon on successive days.
Nayaka, a visiting scholar at Columbia University, said he had been working closely with U Gambira, the leader of the Alliance of All Burma Buddhist Monks and key leader of the September protests arrested by the junta last month.
He expressed regret that pressure by the international community on the junta had eased even as serious questions remained over the number of monks forcible disrobed, imprisoned and killed following the protests.
"Where has the global outcry gone? This should be of grave concern for all governments worldwide. This is a moral crisis that Americans must stand for," he said.
The United States, which has long imposed a trade and investment ban on Myanmar, has twice tightened sanctions since the clampdown on protests.
It ordered an asset freeze on key junta figures and blacklisted seven companies and five individuals allegedly linked to those companies and the regime.
Aung Din, executive director of the US Campaign for Burma, urged Washington to appoint a full-time sanctions coordinator for Myanmar as it did in the late 1990's against Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's regime accused of genocide.
This would enable coordination of global sanctions against Myanmar's junta, he said.
Citing the Australian government which had targeted financial sanctions against 418 Myanmar citizens, including 40 businessmen, he asked the US government to impose restrictions on more Myanmar businessmen who provided money to the junta leaders and their families.
Jared Genser, president of human rights group Freedom Now, raised the prospect of Washington imposing sanctions, such as those used against a Macau bank accused of money laundering for nuclear-armed North Korea, on a Southeast Asian state-owned bank suspected of links to Myanmar's military rulers.
The move against Banco Delta Asia in Macau underscored US financial clout and reportedly compelled North Korea back to the negotiating table.
"Anecdotally in conversations with diplomats in ASEAN countries, I know there is a deep concern about the prospects of the United States doing to a state-owned bank what happened to Banco Delta Asia in Macau because of its laundering of North Korean funds," Genser told the hearing.
He did not name the bank.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam
Religion and Politics
Analysis: Burmese monks, religion and liberation
Wednesday, 12th December 2007. 11:03am
SOURCE: http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=1315
By: Paul Richardson.
All the indications are that the Buddhist monks of Burma intend to continue their campaign against the military regime. Only a few have sought sanctuary in neighbouring Thailand. Instead of fleeing the country, the monks are lying low and looking for new ways to undermine the government. At the end of October over 100 of them walked around Pakokhu, a centre of Buddhist learning with over 80 monasteries, in an act of defiance directed against the on-looking soldiers.
Burma is home to between 300,000 and 500,000 monks. Some young men are monks for only a few years but an estimated 15 per cent remain monks all their lives. They are held in great respect by the Burmese people. When students began the protest against the regime they were easily squashed. It has been much more difficult for the government to silence the monks. Informed observers estimate that 200 people have lost their lives in the current disturbances and 3,000 have been imprisoned. These figures include many monks.
U Gambira, a pseudonym of a leader of the All-Burma Monks’ alliance, has claimed in an op-ed in the Washington Post that what is being called the ‘saffron revolution’ is only just beginning. He praised the US for imposing travel and financial restrictions on the Burmese regime and called on Europe to do the same.
In modern times Buddhist monks in Tibet and other Asian nations have been ready to join in political campaigns. In India, monks are demonstrating against their government’s failure to challenge the Burmese military. Viewed in historical perspective this development might seem surprising. In past centuries monks were understood as people who withdrew from the world to seek freedom from suffering caused by anxiety, rage, shame, jealousy or resentment. Their spiritual path was very much in inner journey.
But even in past centuries, the spiritual struggles of the monks were seen as benefiting those they left behind in the world. On reason why they are so respected is because it is believed that their good karma can help their relatives. When they are engaged in meditation, Buddhist monks are thought to radiate goodwill on people everywhere. As in other religious traditions, Buddhist monks have always tried to help the poor.
As a result, the seeds of political action were always present in the monastic vocation. What has brought them to flower has been a new understanding of what is sometimes termed ‘structural evil’. Developments in political and social thought, some of them flowing from Marxism, have made the followers of all religions more aware of the role of political systems in oppressing people and fostering injustice. In Christianity this understanding led to the growth of Liberation Theology and encouraged church leaders in North America to become prominent in the campaign for Civil Rights.
Religions can still be hijacked by secular creeds based on narrow and intolerant nationalism. We saw this in Northern Ireland. Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka have not always been ready to recognise the rights of the Tamil community while in the US there is now some heart-searching among evangelicals about the way in which their movement has allowed itself to be used by the Republican Party.
But in many parts of the world religion has become a force for liberation and change. In some ways this is threatening to people in the West, many of whom are only too aware of the role religion can also play in promoting terrorism to contemplate its resurgence as a political force with equanimity. Moreover, as Mark Lilla has recently reminded us in his book, The Stillborn God, we are heirs in Britain and America to a tradition going back to Hobbes that has sought to take appeals to religious revelation out of politics.
Lilla is stimulating writer and at the end of his book he issues an important warning. Anglo-Saxons may have chosen to limit politics to protecting individuals, securing fundamental liberties, and providing for basic welfare, while leaving religious belief to personal choice, but we cannot expect every part of the world to make the same decision.
One reason we cannot expect this to happen is because many nations still need the encouragement and strength to struggle for justice and liberation that only religious hope can provide. In a fascinating section of his book, Lilla comes close to blaming the rise of Hitler on Barth, claiming that he helped to unleash forces of Messianic Utopianism that led people to look for a saviour figure.
But at the heart of Barth’s message was the affirmation that only God can bring in the kingdom. He took a lead in opposing the Nazis precisely because he rejected Hitler’s quasi-religious pretensions. This provides another reason why religions are called upon to undertake a political role. As in Burma today it is very often only religious organisations that have both the popular base and the ideological independence to lead the struggle against tyranny and oppression.
It is precisely because religious belief is so powerful that it can be force for evil or good. As Lilla warns, it can unleash Messianic hopes that become fixed on human saviours. But it can also rally people against earthly tyrants.
Wednesday, 12th December 2007. 11:03am
SOURCE: http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=1315
By: Paul Richardson.
All the indications are that the Buddhist monks of Burma intend to continue their campaign against the military regime. Only a few have sought sanctuary in neighbouring Thailand. Instead of fleeing the country, the monks are lying low and looking for new ways to undermine the government. At the end of October over 100 of them walked around Pakokhu, a centre of Buddhist learning with over 80 monasteries, in an act of defiance directed against the on-looking soldiers.
Burma is home to between 300,000 and 500,000 monks. Some young men are monks for only a few years but an estimated 15 per cent remain monks all their lives. They are held in great respect by the Burmese people. When students began the protest against the regime they were easily squashed. It has been much more difficult for the government to silence the monks. Informed observers estimate that 200 people have lost their lives in the current disturbances and 3,000 have been imprisoned. These figures include many monks.
U Gambira, a pseudonym of a leader of the All-Burma Monks’ alliance, has claimed in an op-ed in the Washington Post that what is being called the ‘saffron revolution’ is only just beginning. He praised the US for imposing travel and financial restrictions on the Burmese regime and called on Europe to do the same.
In modern times Buddhist monks in Tibet and other Asian nations have been ready to join in political campaigns. In India, monks are demonstrating against their government’s failure to challenge the Burmese military. Viewed in historical perspective this development might seem surprising. In past centuries monks were understood as people who withdrew from the world to seek freedom from suffering caused by anxiety, rage, shame, jealousy or resentment. Their spiritual path was very much in inner journey.
But even in past centuries, the spiritual struggles of the monks were seen as benefiting those they left behind in the world. On reason why they are so respected is because it is believed that their good karma can help their relatives. When they are engaged in meditation, Buddhist monks are thought to radiate goodwill on people everywhere. As in other religious traditions, Buddhist monks have always tried to help the poor.
As a result, the seeds of political action were always present in the monastic vocation. What has brought them to flower has been a new understanding of what is sometimes termed ‘structural evil’. Developments in political and social thought, some of them flowing from Marxism, have made the followers of all religions more aware of the role of political systems in oppressing people and fostering injustice. In Christianity this understanding led to the growth of Liberation Theology and encouraged church leaders in North America to become prominent in the campaign for Civil Rights.
Religions can still be hijacked by secular creeds based on narrow and intolerant nationalism. We saw this in Northern Ireland. Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka have not always been ready to recognise the rights of the Tamil community while in the US there is now some heart-searching among evangelicals about the way in which their movement has allowed itself to be used by the Republican Party.
But in many parts of the world religion has become a force for liberation and change. In some ways this is threatening to people in the West, many of whom are only too aware of the role religion can also play in promoting terrorism to contemplate its resurgence as a political force with equanimity. Moreover, as Mark Lilla has recently reminded us in his book, The Stillborn God, we are heirs in Britain and America to a tradition going back to Hobbes that has sought to take appeals to religious revelation out of politics.
Lilla is stimulating writer and at the end of his book he issues an important warning. Anglo-Saxons may have chosen to limit politics to protecting individuals, securing fundamental liberties, and providing for basic welfare, while leaving religious belief to personal choice, but we cannot expect every part of the world to make the same decision.
One reason we cannot expect this to happen is because many nations still need the encouragement and strength to struggle for justice and liberation that only religious hope can provide. In a fascinating section of his book, Lilla comes close to blaming the rise of Hitler on Barth, claiming that he helped to unleash forces of Messianic Utopianism that led people to look for a saviour figure.
But at the heart of Barth’s message was the affirmation that only God can bring in the kingdom. He took a lead in opposing the Nazis precisely because he rejected Hitler’s quasi-religious pretensions. This provides another reason why religions are called upon to undertake a political role. As in Burma today it is very often only religious organisations that have both the popular base and the ideological independence to lead the struggle against tyranny and oppression.
It is precisely because religious belief is so powerful that it can be force for evil or good. As Lilla warns, it can unleash Messianic hopes that become fixed on human saviours. But it can also rally people against earthly tyrants.
The exile Governement and the Saffron Revolution
Sein Win Meets The Irrawaddy
By Lalit K Jha / Washington DC
December 13, 2007
SOURCE:www.irrawaddy.org
The Burmese prime minister in exile, Dr Sein Win, says that the release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is the first necessary step to start any "meaningful dialogue" with the military junta toward the restoration of democracy in Burma.
In an exclusive interview with The Irrawaddy on his return from Europe, where he had gone to seek support for the pro-democracy movement in Burma, Dr Sein Win alleged that the present regime did not appear to be serious about moving ahead toward a national reconciliation process and was simply killing time.
A first cousin of Aung San Suu Kyi, Dr Sein Win has been the elected but exiled prime minister of Burma in his capacity as the chairman of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma since 1990 when elected delegates of the People's Assembly formed a government in exile.
Though he says he would rather live in India, Sein Win is based in Washington DC from where he runs a global campaign against the Burmese military regime, which he says "has to go" sooner or later.
"When it comes to dialogue (with the military regime), we are not at all satisfied; the military is dragging its feet," said Sein Win, who will turn 63 on December 16. He noted that, on the one hand, the junta leaders say they are interested in talking, but on the other hand, they are going ahead with their own program---the "road map" to democracy.
"What is the use?" he asked rhetorically. "The first step is that we want the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi. They have to release political prisoners. Then they have to start---what we call---a meaningful dialogue," he said.
Sein Win confirmed that his government in exile supports the continuation of the initiative and mediation of the UN special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari.
"Gambari has proposed several good things to the military. There has not been any response to those. Instead they have announced that they will go ahead with their own 'road map for democracy'---their seven-point program. In such a scenario, there is no basis of dialogue," he said.
Dialogue, the exiled premier explained, means "meeting together, understanding the views and perspectives of each other; talking and trying to arrive at a solution, a compromise. This is nature of dialogue." Nothing of this sort is visible under the present circumstances, he observed.
On the current situation inside Burma, Sein Win said, "The repression in Burma is still going on. There is no improvement in the other situations either. The reasons for the crisis are still there.
"People (in Burma) are very angry," he added. "It won't go away so easily, although you might not see large demonstrations in the street."
Referring to the recent statement of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Bangkok earlier this week, Sein Win concurred that the patience of the international community and the people of Burma---both inside and outside the country---is running out. The military regime has got a chance to quit and exit, he said.
"After the 'Saffron Revolution,' in September, response from the Western world---especially the US, Canada and the European countries---was very good. Everybody now knows what the nature of the military regime is," he said.
Asked why the government in exile was not very active in leading the pro-democracy movement from the front, Sein Win said that his government had been working in its own way to reach its goal---to mobilize people inside Burma and galvanize the support of the international community toward exerting pressure on the military junta.
The developments in September and October, he observed, were the results of more than a decade's work of his government both inside and outside the country.*
With regard to his government's relations with other countries, including India and China, he said: "You know... sometimes countries have difficulties in dealing with us, because they recognize the military."
While the United States and several European countries have official relationships with the regime, at the same time they entertain the pro-democracy leaders too. "In the thinking of our neighbors, maybe that is not the point---they have an 'either/or' situation," he explains.
The exiled premier went on to say that, for him, India had been the biggest disappointment. "India, which proclaims itself as the world's largest democracy, has failed very badly. We were elected by the people of Burma in the 1990 elections. We are advocating a peaceful transition. We are advocating dialogue. We are advocating human rights. Why [the Indian government] can't let us visit India to meet our people, I can't imagine this thing from India, a democratic country."
Expressing disappointment that a visa to visit India has not been granted to him, despite several applications, he said, "You have to ask the Indian government why they do not give visas to us; after all, we are the democratically elected people of Burma. We are the true representatives of the people of Burma, but still we are not given visas.
"It is not easy to meet the Indian leaders," Sein Win added. "I would like to meet the Indian leaders to present our point of view. But no one in the Indian government is willing to give us a patient hearing. The last time I met an Indian leader was in 1992; then I said the same thing---if India is willing to accept us, we will come to India and we will not stay in the US," he said.
China is much the same case, according to Sein Win. "Like India, it is very difficult for us to meet with higher Chinese officials," he said. "Actually, they do not want to anger the (Burmese) military. That is my opinion."
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9592
*emphasis - ours
By Lalit K Jha / Washington DC
December 13, 2007
SOURCE:www.irrawaddy.org
The Burmese prime minister in exile, Dr Sein Win, says that the release of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is the first necessary step to start any "meaningful dialogue" with the military junta toward the restoration of democracy in Burma.
In an exclusive interview with The Irrawaddy on his return from Europe, where he had gone to seek support for the pro-democracy movement in Burma, Dr Sein Win alleged that the present regime did not appear to be serious about moving ahead toward a national reconciliation process and was simply killing time.
A first cousin of Aung San Suu Kyi, Dr Sein Win has been the elected but exiled prime minister of Burma in his capacity as the chairman of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma since 1990 when elected delegates of the People's Assembly formed a government in exile.
Though he says he would rather live in India, Sein Win is based in Washington DC from where he runs a global campaign against the Burmese military regime, which he says "has to go" sooner or later.
"When it comes to dialogue (with the military regime), we are not at all satisfied; the military is dragging its feet," said Sein Win, who will turn 63 on December 16. He noted that, on the one hand, the junta leaders say they are interested in talking, but on the other hand, they are going ahead with their own program---the "road map" to democracy.
"What is the use?" he asked rhetorically. "The first step is that we want the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi. They have to release political prisoners. Then they have to start---what we call---a meaningful dialogue," he said.
Sein Win confirmed that his government in exile supports the continuation of the initiative and mediation of the UN special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari.
"Gambari has proposed several good things to the military. There has not been any response to those. Instead they have announced that they will go ahead with their own 'road map for democracy'---their seven-point program. In such a scenario, there is no basis of dialogue," he said.
Dialogue, the exiled premier explained, means "meeting together, understanding the views and perspectives of each other; talking and trying to arrive at a solution, a compromise. This is nature of dialogue." Nothing of this sort is visible under the present circumstances, he observed.
On the current situation inside Burma, Sein Win said, "The repression in Burma is still going on. There is no improvement in the other situations either. The reasons for the crisis are still there.
"People (in Burma) are very angry," he added. "It won't go away so easily, although you might not see large demonstrations in the street."
Referring to the recent statement of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Bangkok earlier this week, Sein Win concurred that the patience of the international community and the people of Burma---both inside and outside the country---is running out. The military regime has got a chance to quit and exit, he said.
"After the 'Saffron Revolution,' in September, response from the Western world---especially the US, Canada and the European countries---was very good. Everybody now knows what the nature of the military regime is," he said.
Asked why the government in exile was not very active in leading the pro-democracy movement from the front, Sein Win said that his government had been working in its own way to reach its goal---to mobilize people inside Burma and galvanize the support of the international community toward exerting pressure on the military junta.
The developments in September and October, he observed, were the results of more than a decade's work of his government both inside and outside the country.*
With regard to his government's relations with other countries, including India and China, he said: "You know... sometimes countries have difficulties in dealing with us, because they recognize the military."
While the United States and several European countries have official relationships with the regime, at the same time they entertain the pro-democracy leaders too. "In the thinking of our neighbors, maybe that is not the point---they have an 'either/or' situation," he explains.
The exiled premier went on to say that, for him, India had been the biggest disappointment. "India, which proclaims itself as the world's largest democracy, has failed very badly. We were elected by the people of Burma in the 1990 elections. We are advocating a peaceful transition. We are advocating dialogue. We are advocating human rights. Why [the Indian government] can't let us visit India to meet our people, I can't imagine this thing from India, a democratic country."
Expressing disappointment that a visa to visit India has not been granted to him, despite several applications, he said, "You have to ask the Indian government why they do not give visas to us; after all, we are the democratically elected people of Burma. We are the true representatives of the people of Burma, but still we are not given visas.
"It is not easy to meet the Indian leaders," Sein Win added. "I would like to meet the Indian leaders to present our point of view. But no one in the Indian government is willing to give us a patient hearing. The last time I met an Indian leader was in 1992; then I said the same thing---if India is willing to accept us, we will come to India and we will not stay in the US," he said.
China is much the same case, according to Sein Win. "Like India, it is very difficult for us to meet with higher Chinese officials," he said. "Actually, they do not want to anger the (Burmese) military. That is my opinion."
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9592
*emphasis - ours
History is made by the people
Activists Leaders Say Maung Maung Not 'Mastermind' of Uprising
By Wai Moe
December 13, 2007
SOURCE:www.irrawaddy.org
Leading Burmese activists this week disputed claims by exiled politician and labor activist Maung Maung that he trained people to participate in the September uprising.
Maung Maung, a controversial politician in exile, was quoted in The Washington Post, on December 4, "We had about 200 people inside the country trained to take pictures with digital and video cameras. We also trained them to transmit using satellite phones and Internet cafes. They were on the front lines when the demonstrations started."
"We want money for Sat phones, for digital cameras, for typewriters for the monks, for bicycles. We need it now," he told the Post.
However, many pro-democracy opposition groups inside and outside Burma strongly disputed Maung Maung's claims and are critical of his unsubstantiated comments.
U Sila Nanda, a leading monk during the September uprising who arrived on the Thai-Burmese border recently, said independent monks led the mass protests and no exiled politicians were behind the uprising.
On December 3 in press conference in Naypyidaw, the Burmese junta's Police Director Brig-Gen Khin Yi alleged that exiled Burmese opposition groups and politicians were the masterminds behind the planning and organizing of the pro-democracy uprising.
U Sila Nanda said the junta's claim in the press conference that Maung Maung, also known as Pyi Thit Nyunt Wai, played a leadership role in the uprising was false.
Maung Maung is also secretary of The Federation of Trade Unions---Burma (FTUB). On Thursday, he was in Washington, DC, with a Burmese delegation lobbying for funds to aid opposition groups.
"The exiled politician [Maung Maung] was not related to the monks in Burma during the uprising," said U Sila Nanda.
"The monks in Burma are clearly free from any exiled organization. If any politicians tried to control the monks, we [monks] would not accept it.
"If they want credit for the monk-led demonstrations, then they should cooperate with the monks," he said.
Tun Myint Aung, a leader of the 88 Generation Students group who is in hiding, told The Irrawaddy this week that exiled politicians and activists should speak carefully about the causes behind the demonstrations.
"This kind of talk can split the pro-democracy movement," he said. "It can also make more risky situations for activists inside Burma. It is counterproductive.
"Nobody, including the 88 group, systematically prepare for the movement. It happened naturally through the people's momentum.
"On August 19, we marched in Rangoon. But we did not prepare for that march. We immediately decided to march because of the Burmese people's poor situation after the fuel price hike by the junta."
Bo Kyi, the joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), said all anti-junta protests were originated by people inside Burma who suffer under the military rules.
"Exiled politicians should not say that it was their work," he said.
All the junta's accusations were false, he said.
"No one gave money to people to join the protests. Hundreds of thousands of people decided to join the protests for democracy and their future," he said.
Naing Aung, the secretary-general of the Forum for Democracy in Burma, said most protesters were independent monks, young people and students who were not connected to exiled groups such as the FDB or FTUB.
He was critical of exiled leaders who claim ties to groups inside Burma, also saying it could make trouble for pro-democracy activists.
Both Bo Kyi and Naing Aung were named by Brig-Gen Khin Yi as masterminds behind the scene of the September uprising.
A former political prisoner in Mae Sot also disputed statements made by Maung Maung, who, during a meeting on the border during the uprising, said members of his trade union organization would join the uprising.
"But none of his men joined the September movement," the activist said.
In the press conference in Naypyidaw, Police Director Brig-Gen Khin Yi alleged that systematic planning designed to topple the junta was done months before the uprising.
He claimed the main group behind the opposition was the FDB, which is based on the Thai-Burmese border.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9591
By Wai Moe
December 13, 2007
SOURCE:www.irrawaddy.org
Leading Burmese activists this week disputed claims by exiled politician and labor activist Maung Maung that he trained people to participate in the September uprising.
Maung Maung, a controversial politician in exile, was quoted in The Washington Post, on December 4, "We had about 200 people inside the country trained to take pictures with digital and video cameras. We also trained them to transmit using satellite phones and Internet cafes. They were on the front lines when the demonstrations started."
"We want money for Sat phones, for digital cameras, for typewriters for the monks, for bicycles. We need it now," he told the Post.
However, many pro-democracy opposition groups inside and outside Burma strongly disputed Maung Maung's claims and are critical of his unsubstantiated comments.
U Sila Nanda, a leading monk during the September uprising who arrived on the Thai-Burmese border recently, said independent monks led the mass protests and no exiled politicians were behind the uprising.
On December 3 in press conference in Naypyidaw, the Burmese junta's Police Director Brig-Gen Khin Yi alleged that exiled Burmese opposition groups and politicians were the masterminds behind the planning and organizing of the pro-democracy uprising.
U Sila Nanda said the junta's claim in the press conference that Maung Maung, also known as Pyi Thit Nyunt Wai, played a leadership role in the uprising was false.
Maung Maung is also secretary of The Federation of Trade Unions---Burma (FTUB). On Thursday, he was in Washington, DC, with a Burmese delegation lobbying for funds to aid opposition groups.
"The exiled politician [Maung Maung] was not related to the monks in Burma during the uprising," said U Sila Nanda.
"The monks in Burma are clearly free from any exiled organization. If any politicians tried to control the monks, we [monks] would not accept it.
"If they want credit for the monk-led demonstrations, then they should cooperate with the monks," he said.
Tun Myint Aung, a leader of the 88 Generation Students group who is in hiding, told The Irrawaddy this week that exiled politicians and activists should speak carefully about the causes behind the demonstrations.
"This kind of talk can split the pro-democracy movement," he said. "It can also make more risky situations for activists inside Burma. It is counterproductive.
"Nobody, including the 88 group, systematically prepare for the movement. It happened naturally through the people's momentum.
"On August 19, we marched in Rangoon. But we did not prepare for that march. We immediately decided to march because of the Burmese people's poor situation after the fuel price hike by the junta."
Bo Kyi, the joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), said all anti-junta protests were originated by people inside Burma who suffer under the military rules.
"Exiled politicians should not say that it was their work," he said.
All the junta's accusations were false, he said.
"No one gave money to people to join the protests. Hundreds of thousands of people decided to join the protests for democracy and their future," he said.
Naing Aung, the secretary-general of the Forum for Democracy in Burma, said most protesters were independent monks, young people and students who were not connected to exiled groups such as the FDB or FTUB.
He was critical of exiled leaders who claim ties to groups inside Burma, also saying it could make trouble for pro-democracy activists.
Both Bo Kyi and Naing Aung were named by Brig-Gen Khin Yi as masterminds behind the scene of the September uprising.
A former political prisoner in Mae Sot also disputed statements made by Maung Maung, who, during a meeting on the border during the uprising, said members of his trade union organization would join the uprising.
"But none of his men joined the September movement," the activist said.
In the press conference in Naypyidaw, Police Director Brig-Gen Khin Yi alleged that systematic planning designed to topple the junta was done months before the uprising.
He claimed the main group behind the opposition was the FDB, which is based on the Thai-Burmese border.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9591
Burma at the UN Human Rights Council
The 6th session of Human Rights Council
Palai Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
December 10-14, 2007
International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs
(The presentation of Dr. Sui Khar's (Team Leader of ENC-FAC) at the 6th session of Human Rights Council)
Agenda item 4: Human Rights Situations that require the Human Rights Council’s attention
Mr. President,
I’m making this statement on behalf of IWGIA and I like to take this opportunity to introduce Ethnic Nationalities Council- ENC (Union of Burma) which I represent. The ENC is state-based Council representing the seven Ethnic States of the Union of Burma: Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan and it main objective is to establish a genuine Democratic Federal Union of Burma. The ENC members include all groups within each state. Therefore, it is the legitimate and credible body to speak on behalf of all the Ethnic States of Burma.
Mr. President,
The world was shocked to see how cruelty and brutality of Burmese military regime against her own people in the crackdown on recent peaceful demonstrations in which non-law enforcement official militias such as Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and Swan Ah Shin (SAS) had involved and there is no reason to deny their activity is as terrorism under existing international standards and norms.
We fully endorse report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma/Myanmar to this session as it is well grounded and reflected the reality including the recommendations while response from the regime is totally unacceptable. For instance, the regime declined to invite an international commission of inquiry citing that they have already formed their own team chaired by minister of home affair. What credibility will such an internal inquiry have if the culprit is to lead it.
Mr- President,
The arrest on human rights defenders and opposition leaders are still going in Burma. Furthermore, pressurize against cease-fire groups those who declined to denounce Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s statement has intensified. Military operation including burned down villages, destroyed the people’s orchards, plantations, harvests and rice barns, arrest, torture and execution of innocent civilians, looted properties, extortion, planting land mines in villages and forced labour in ethnic states including Karen, Chin, Karenni and Shan state, has increased leading more than (20) thousand civilians to become refugees or internally displaced persons in this year in Karen state alone.
Mr. President,
Yesterday, the ambassador of the military regime said “people all over the country have been holding peaceful mass rallies within the bounds of the law to welcome the successful conclusion of the National Convention as well as establishment of the commission for Drafting of the State Constitution and to demonstrate their aversion of the recent provocative events”. In fact, these people were forcibly dragged by order to join the rallies otherwise imposed a huge fine which is more than their one-month income. Furthermore, the drafting of the constitution, it current is the third step of the road-map is with hand-picked 54 members. In this regard, everyone shall respect integrity and credibility of the Council as well as ourselves.
Therefore, the Human Rights Council must;
(1) Establish an International Commission of Inquiry led by the Special Rapporteur to investigate in a more comprehensive manner on situation of human rights in Burma;
(2) Urge the regime to stop military operation in ethnic territories as well as so-call process of road-map, and instead to hold tripartite dialogue between the regime, 1990 election winning parties and leaders of ethnic nationalities;
(3) Call for the release of all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Khun Htoon Oo;
(4) Urge the military regime to ban militia group like Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and Swan Ah Shin (SAS) as illegal groups. For instance, the UN Security Council lists the two groups as terrorist organizations.
Thanks you!
http://www.encburma.org/enc/enc_news.htm
Palai Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
December 10-14, 2007
International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs
(The presentation of Dr. Sui Khar's (Team Leader of ENC-FAC) at the 6th session of Human Rights Council)
Agenda item 4: Human Rights Situations that require the Human Rights Council’s attention
Mr. President,
I’m making this statement on behalf of IWGIA and I like to take this opportunity to introduce Ethnic Nationalities Council- ENC (Union of Burma) which I represent. The ENC is state-based Council representing the seven Ethnic States of the Union of Burma: Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan and it main objective is to establish a genuine Democratic Federal Union of Burma. The ENC members include all groups within each state. Therefore, it is the legitimate and credible body to speak on behalf of all the Ethnic States of Burma.
Mr. President,
The world was shocked to see how cruelty and brutality of Burmese military regime against her own people in the crackdown on recent peaceful demonstrations in which non-law enforcement official militias such as Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and Swan Ah Shin (SAS) had involved and there is no reason to deny their activity is as terrorism under existing international standards and norms.
We fully endorse report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma/Myanmar to this session as it is well grounded and reflected the reality including the recommendations while response from the regime is totally unacceptable. For instance, the regime declined to invite an international commission of inquiry citing that they have already formed their own team chaired by minister of home affair. What credibility will such an internal inquiry have if the culprit is to lead it.
Mr- President,
The arrest on human rights defenders and opposition leaders are still going in Burma. Furthermore, pressurize against cease-fire groups those who declined to denounce Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s statement has intensified. Military operation including burned down villages, destroyed the people’s orchards, plantations, harvests and rice barns, arrest, torture and execution of innocent civilians, looted properties, extortion, planting land mines in villages and forced labour in ethnic states including Karen, Chin, Karenni and Shan state, has increased leading more than (20) thousand civilians to become refugees or internally displaced persons in this year in Karen state alone.
Mr. President,
Yesterday, the ambassador of the military regime said “people all over the country have been holding peaceful mass rallies within the bounds of the law to welcome the successful conclusion of the National Convention as well as establishment of the commission for Drafting of the State Constitution and to demonstrate their aversion of the recent provocative events”. In fact, these people were forcibly dragged by order to join the rallies otherwise imposed a huge fine which is more than their one-month income. Furthermore, the drafting of the constitution, it current is the third step of the road-map is with hand-picked 54 members. In this regard, everyone shall respect integrity and credibility of the Council as well as ourselves.
Therefore, the Human Rights Council must;
(1) Establish an International Commission of Inquiry led by the Special Rapporteur to investigate in a more comprehensive manner on situation of human rights in Burma;
(2) Urge the regime to stop military operation in ethnic territories as well as so-call process of road-map, and instead to hold tripartite dialogue between the regime, 1990 election winning parties and leaders of ethnic nationalities;
(3) Call for the release of all political prisoners including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Khun Htoon Oo;
(4) Urge the military regime to ban militia group like Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and Swan Ah Shin (SAS) as illegal groups. For instance, the UN Security Council lists the two groups as terrorist organizations.
Thanks you!
http://www.encburma.org/enc/enc_news.htm
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Exposing The True Pictures of the Burmese Dictators
Double vision over Myanmar crackdown
By Brian McCartan
CHIANG MAI - A consensus is gathering that Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council's (SPDC) official version of events of its violent crackdown on street demonstrations in late September, continued detention without trial of protesters and ongoing harassment and arrests of activists doesn't square with the actual facts.
The ruling junta said that 10 protesters were killed when its troops opened fire and that of the 2,927 people it detained, all but 80 have since been released. Two human-rights reports released in the past week, one by US-based rights group Human Rights Watch, the other by the United Nations Human Rights Council, highlight the ruling junta's excessive use of force and contradict the junta's official figures.
The SPDC in its characteristic fashion has downplayed the incidents, while trying to present a benevolent image by releasing prisoners it held in makeshift detention centers. It has also aimed to deflect criticism by assigning a liaison officer to meet with pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while at the same time proceeding with its "Seven Step Road Map" to democracy which excludes her political party from any participation in the process.
The Human Rights Watch report, entitled "Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma", was based on the testimony of over 100 witnesses to recent events inside the country, to which the junta has sharply restricted foreign journalists' access. The UN report was the product of a November 11 to 15 fact-finding trip to the country by its special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Both reports found the regime's official figure of 10 killed to be much too low. Human Rights Watch estimates at least 20 civilians were killed as a result of the military's violent suppression of the protests; Pinheiro says at least 31 were killed. And both monitoring organizations indicated that the actual toll is probably still much higher.
The UN report also claims that at least 4,000 people have been arrested, of which 1,000 are still being held in detention, while Human Rights Watch says that hundreds of protestors remain unaccounted for. Such estimates are echoed by other groups, including the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based monitoring group composed of former Myanmar political prisoners.
The group has been able to document the location of 250 of those prisoners, but the whereabouts of at least 300 others remains unknown. They join the 1,200 political prisoners which were already languishing in Myanmar's overcrowded prisons and labor camps. Many more activists have been arrested since the demonstrations were violently put down in late September, with security personnel continuing to sweep the country in pursuit of those involved in the countrywide protests.
The SPDC, meanwhile, has downplayed the scale and severity of its crackdown and continues to justify its violent actions as a proportionate and necessary response to uphold national security. In response to the UN report, Wunna Maung Lwin, the SPDC's ambassador to Geneva, said, "Exercising its sovereign right to handle a violent situation should not be construed as a human rights violation." According to the Myanmar ambassador, "Almost all those in detention in connection with the September events have been released."
The December 4 edition of the state mouthpiece The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, meanwhile, stated that 8,585 prisoners had been granted amnesty between November 16 and December 3 "to mark the successful holding of the National Convention in September 2007, the commencement of the functions of the Commission for Drafting the State Constitution, the third stage of the seven-step Road Map, forging the national solidarity in the country and cooperation with international communities including the UN".
This figure, too, is highly debatable. While the number of released may include some of those detained in the wake of the September crackdown, most of those freed were petty criminals with no connections to politics - including 33 Thai nationals. According to the Association for Political Prisoners-Burma, not one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Student Group that initially organized the protests has been released, nor have any of the leading monks involved.
According to Bo Gyi, the AAPP's chairman, "Only seven of the released prisoners were political, but they were arrested in 2000 and 2001." The tactic of releasing prisoners and tying the event to political statements has frequently been used in the past by the regime as a way of trying to appease the international community and deflect criticism. Bo Gyi said, "It is a tactic. When there is international pressure they show the world that they can release large numbers of prisoners."
Well-worn tactic
The SPDC has repeatedly been commended by the international community for its past release of political prisoners. Prior political prisoner releases have often acted to ease international pressure, under the misguided impression that the junta is loosening its restrictions on the opposition. The releases, often of low-ranking opposition figures, have to date never led towards genuine dialogue or a move towards national reconciliation.
Rights groups note that the release of non-political prisoners is a well-worn government tactic. In 1993-94, for instance, the military regime rounded up hundreds of people at a time, who were then released a few days later. Even pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi commented at the time that if the regime wished to arrest five of her National League for Democracy (NLD) members, they would arrest 105 people including the NLD members, then release the other 100 for which the international community congratulated it.
The releases now have the added benefit of focusing attention on the old capital Yangon and away from other peripheral abuses, such as the junta's continued use of forced labor, growing internal displacement, food scarcity and human rights violations associated with the military's ongoing counterinsurgency campaign along its borders. Recent reports from Karen State indicate that the army is flooding the area with military units as part of yet another dry season military offensive against ethnic insurgents.
Meanwhile, liaison officer ex-Brigadier General Aung Kyi's three meetings with NLD leader Suu Kyi have so far come to nothing. The only way real political dialogue can be achieved is through meeting with the SPDC's senior leadership, especially with the junta's chairman Senior General Than Shwe - which the appointment of such a low-ranking liaison officer was apparently designed to avoid. Aung Kyi's appointment does, however, allow the junta the benefit of telling the international community that at least some discussion with the opposition is underway.
The duplicity of this was shown in the Myanmar National Day speeches of Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan and Aung Kyi. While Aung Kyi claimed to have made progress in his discussions with Suu Kyi, Kyaw Hsan's speech made it clear that opposition groups would not be included in the constitution drafting process. This presumably includes Suu Kyi and her NLD.
Than Shwe in his National Day Speech reaffirmed support for the Seven Step Road Map and on December 3 the Constitution Drafting Commission began work on writing a new constitution, the third designation step in the process. Although details are unclear, what is certain is that any constitution that results will include provisions for a strong role for the military in any future "democratic" Myanmar.
The international community, at long last, appears to be waking to the junta's tactics. In a December 10 statement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during a visit to Thailand, he said that "patience is running out" with Myanmar. Whether that means the UN might consider imposing its own set of economic or financial sanctions against the regime, as the US and European Union have imposed, seems doubtful so long as China and Russia use their veto powers to protect the junta from UN Security Council censure, as they did earlier this year.
In the past when the international community's patience has run dry, the UN and others have often turned a blind eye and moved on to making pronouncements about the next global hot spot. And the junta has proven in the past it has the patience to wait out international condemnation until international attention shifts elsewhere. Once the spotlight is off, the regime can revert back to form and continue the repression that has been a part of life in Myanmar since the military first seized power in 1962.
Brian McCartan is a Thailand-based freelance journalist. He may be contacted through brianpm@comcast.net.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IL13Ae01.html
By Brian McCartan
CHIANG MAI - A consensus is gathering that Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council's (SPDC) official version of events of its violent crackdown on street demonstrations in late September, continued detention without trial of protesters and ongoing harassment and arrests of activists doesn't square with the actual facts.
The ruling junta said that 10 protesters were killed when its troops opened fire and that of the 2,927 people it detained, all but 80 have since been released. Two human-rights reports released in the past week, one by US-based rights group Human Rights Watch, the other by the United Nations Human Rights Council, highlight the ruling junta's excessive use of force and contradict the junta's official figures.
The SPDC in its characteristic fashion has downplayed the incidents, while trying to present a benevolent image by releasing prisoners it held in makeshift detention centers. It has also aimed to deflect criticism by assigning a liaison officer to meet with pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while at the same time proceeding with its "Seven Step Road Map" to democracy which excludes her political party from any participation in the process.
The Human Rights Watch report, entitled "Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma", was based on the testimony of over 100 witnesses to recent events inside the country, to which the junta has sharply restricted foreign journalists' access. The UN report was the product of a November 11 to 15 fact-finding trip to the country by its special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Both reports found the regime's official figure of 10 killed to be much too low. Human Rights Watch estimates at least 20 civilians were killed as a result of the military's violent suppression of the protests; Pinheiro says at least 31 were killed. And both monitoring organizations indicated that the actual toll is probably still much higher.
The UN report also claims that at least 4,000 people have been arrested, of which 1,000 are still being held in detention, while Human Rights Watch says that hundreds of protestors remain unaccounted for. Such estimates are echoed by other groups, including the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based monitoring group composed of former Myanmar political prisoners.
The group has been able to document the location of 250 of those prisoners, but the whereabouts of at least 300 others remains unknown. They join the 1,200 political prisoners which were already languishing in Myanmar's overcrowded prisons and labor camps. Many more activists have been arrested since the demonstrations were violently put down in late September, with security personnel continuing to sweep the country in pursuit of those involved in the countrywide protests.
The SPDC, meanwhile, has downplayed the scale and severity of its crackdown and continues to justify its violent actions as a proportionate and necessary response to uphold national security. In response to the UN report, Wunna Maung Lwin, the SPDC's ambassador to Geneva, said, "Exercising its sovereign right to handle a violent situation should not be construed as a human rights violation." According to the Myanmar ambassador, "Almost all those in detention in connection with the September events have been released."
The December 4 edition of the state mouthpiece The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, meanwhile, stated that 8,585 prisoners had been granted amnesty between November 16 and December 3 "to mark the successful holding of the National Convention in September 2007, the commencement of the functions of the Commission for Drafting the State Constitution, the third stage of the seven-step Road Map, forging the national solidarity in the country and cooperation with international communities including the UN".
This figure, too, is highly debatable. While the number of released may include some of those detained in the wake of the September crackdown, most of those freed were petty criminals with no connections to politics - including 33 Thai nationals. According to the Association for Political Prisoners-Burma, not one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Student Group that initially organized the protests has been released, nor have any of the leading monks involved.
According to Bo Gyi, the AAPP's chairman, "Only seven of the released prisoners were political, but they were arrested in 2000 and 2001." The tactic of releasing prisoners and tying the event to political statements has frequently been used in the past by the regime as a way of trying to appease the international community and deflect criticism. Bo Gyi said, "It is a tactic. When there is international pressure they show the world that they can release large numbers of prisoners."
Well-worn tactic
The SPDC has repeatedly been commended by the international community for its past release of political prisoners. Prior political prisoner releases have often acted to ease international pressure, under the misguided impression that the junta is loosening its restrictions on the opposition. The releases, often of low-ranking opposition figures, have to date never led towards genuine dialogue or a move towards national reconciliation.
Rights groups note that the release of non-political prisoners is a well-worn government tactic. In 1993-94, for instance, the military regime rounded up hundreds of people at a time, who were then released a few days later. Even pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi commented at the time that if the regime wished to arrest five of her National League for Democracy (NLD) members, they would arrest 105 people including the NLD members, then release the other 100 for which the international community congratulated it.
The releases now have the added benefit of focusing attention on the old capital Yangon and away from other peripheral abuses, such as the junta's continued use of forced labor, growing internal displacement, food scarcity and human rights violations associated with the military's ongoing counterinsurgency campaign along its borders. Recent reports from Karen State indicate that the army is flooding the area with military units as part of yet another dry season military offensive against ethnic insurgents.
Meanwhile, liaison officer ex-Brigadier General Aung Kyi's three meetings with NLD leader Suu Kyi have so far come to nothing. The only way real political dialogue can be achieved is through meeting with the SPDC's senior leadership, especially with the junta's chairman Senior General Than Shwe - which the appointment of such a low-ranking liaison officer was apparently designed to avoid. Aung Kyi's appointment does, however, allow the junta the benefit of telling the international community that at least some discussion with the opposition is underway.
The duplicity of this was shown in the Myanmar National Day speeches of Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan and Aung Kyi. While Aung Kyi claimed to have made progress in his discussions with Suu Kyi, Kyaw Hsan's speech made it clear that opposition groups would not be included in the constitution drafting process. This presumably includes Suu Kyi and her NLD.
Than Shwe in his National Day Speech reaffirmed support for the Seven Step Road Map and on December 3 the Constitution Drafting Commission began work on writing a new constitution, the third designation step in the process. Although details are unclear, what is certain is that any constitution that results will include provisions for a strong role for the military in any future "democratic" Myanmar.
The international community, at long last, appears to be waking to the junta's tactics. In a December 10 statement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during a visit to Thailand, he said that "patience is running out" with Myanmar. Whether that means the UN might consider imposing its own set of economic or financial sanctions against the regime, as the US and European Union have imposed, seems doubtful so long as China and Russia use their veto powers to protect the junta from UN Security Council censure, as they did earlier this year.
In the past when the international community's patience has run dry, the UN and others have often turned a blind eye and moved on to making pronouncements about the next global hot spot. And the junta has proven in the past it has the patience to wait out international condemnation until international attention shifts elsewhere. Once the spotlight is off, the regime can revert back to form and continue the repression that has been a part of life in Myanmar since the military first seized power in 1962.
Brian McCartan is a Thailand-based freelance journalist. He may be contacted through brianpm@comcast.net.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IL13Ae01.html
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