Burma

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All over the world there are peoples kept hostages of organized gangsters who call themestelves "the State", sometimes the "the Popular Democratic Republic" of this and that (Congo, Zimbawe, North Corea and what not). So Burma is only one of the people kept hostages by some self defining "State". One in many, but nevertheless the Burmese people deserve all our solidarity and committment, for whatever it may count, to their fight.

I heard about the monks protesting there.

Tim

actually it has been Myanmar for about twenty years now.

If you would like a great movie that tells how this all got started, may I suggest John Boorman's "Beyond Rangoon" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112495/
all these new monk folks are the children of those who started with AUNG SANG SU CHI twenty years ago. Nearly every man in Myanmar becomes a monk for a time, even those who later become soldiers or were soldiers before they were monks.

They say the army has caused the current soldiers to shave their heads and don the burgandy and saffron robes to infiltrate the monks ranks and cause dissention and property damage so the army is justified to use force. In the movie above, many soldiers hid in the ranks of monks, being country boys conscripted into the army from abject poverty in the countryside.

Myanmar is the name the ruthless military gov't insisted it be caled. I still call it Burma. Free Aung San Suu Kyi!

well, alright.

does that go for Rangoon, too, now they call it Yagon. Is that part of it or is that like Peking-Bejing or Bombay-Mumbai?


Merle

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Who amongst the Burmese pays the price of Western boycott and international isolation?
Evil Generals? Noble Dissidents? Or ordinary people and their children??! !

Reflect before You Act!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7013638.stm

Beating up monks. Unbelievable. It said on the news that the monks prayed while they were being beaten.
Nonviolent resistance does work, it worked for Gandhi against the British. But it worries me that a lot of ordinary people will have to suffer a lot before they get democracy there. The leaders aren’t going to give up their power easily.

It only works in some situations. It requires that the ruling elite or population has a sense of morality which says wholesale execution and imprisonment of vast numbers of people with no regard for their physical or mental wellbeing is unacceptable. There's no reason to believe Burma's rulers believe that.

I agree to a certain extent with what you say. But money talks too and the powerful democracies of the world can put huge ecomonic pressure on Burma. Plus what used to go on in secret within 'closed' countries is now able to be seen by the rest of the world thanks to new technology; the web, cell phones, satellites. Even powerful regimes can be overthrown if enough people have had enough and are willing to take a stand. It looks like the people of Burma/Myanmar have decided that this is the time.

Well, they decided enough was enough in the late '80s too, but government troops massacring civilians in the streets put a stop to that. It would be nice to think that the democracies could put pressure on Burma, but most already have significant economic sanctions in place against the regime. China is the big source of investment, and it remains to be seen how they react. There's little the western powers can do except issue statements of protestation.

Being rather old and overcoming my detachment, due to a general pessimist outlook about human affairs, I am experiencing the same emotions that gripped me:
for the Hungarian uprising of 56
for the suppression of the Congolese leadership in 1961
For the overthrow of the Allende Goverment
For the Tienanmen repression

The stance of western goverments that it is China that should handle the situation, China that supports the Sudanese Goverment, should be only ridiculed.

What are the odds on there not being a massacre? There's nothing to stop the Burmese junta, really.

There is no way there would be no human rights tribunal given the chance. So the genrals have no interest in giving way to the protestors. They may flee to China like Idi Amin fled to Saudi Arabia.

hum. . .5 have died - how many deaths does it take till they think that too many people have died?

in other words, how many deaths constitute a 'massacre'?

[French, from Old French macecle, macecre, butchery, shambles.]

I heard an interesting little sound bite today. Said something to the effect.. The first time they attempted to over rule the military Junta they mistook outside interest in a way that they were going to get some real action. Troops from other nations perhaps, or maybe serious pressure on the Junta. Wondering if the same thing isn't happening again. But even if they are some what disillusioned from outside interest, it has to start some place. That someplace is often the streets. The poor mans vote.

It is certainly a reminder of the Hungarian revolt. Even though I was just 6 when it happened, it stuck when I first heard of it in school, some years later.

I was so moved by the Buddhist monks I was thinking of posting the Vietnam era self burning in the streets of Saigon. I didn't, but is sure reminded me of it.

Killing 3,000 demonstrating people would constitute a massacre to me. That's what happened in '89.
A soldier killed that Japanese reporter, Kenji Nagai, at point-blank range after shoving him to the ground. Then the gov't lied about it, despite photos and footage of the incident. Japan is now officially pissed off.

if a young monk can offer his life for the good of all, what can the least of us do?

is my life so comfortable I can stand to live under oppression? I see my USA has become somewhere I don't recognize, with suspension of habeas corpus . . .

and if they thought that people out side would come to their defense. . with Darfur and the world melting and our army broken.

sometimes I get all NT about it. . and somedays, I know I don't belong to this world, I am just passing through