Mexican fury grows at kidnappings http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7553633.stm

By Duncan Kennedy BBC News, Mexico City The kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old boy has caused national outrage in Mexico. Federal officers take part in a practice rescue mission Fernando Marti was abducted in June. His decomposed body was found in the boot of a car in Mexico City this month, even though his family had reportedly paid a ransom. The murder of the teenager, who belonged to a wealthy family that co-owns Mexico’s largest chain of sports stores, was shocking enough in itself. But the impact of his death was compounded by the news that a number of police officers, including a police commander, have been arrested in connection with the case. Television, radio, newspapers and the internet have been filled with people’s reactions to Fernando’s killing. The emotions expressed recall four years ago when Mexico saw huge marches amid a similar sense of insecurity provoked by rising crime. A new demonstration is already planned for later this month, with tens of thousands expected to attend. ‘Repugnant excuses’ Jose Antonio Ortega, president of the Ya Basta (Enough is Enough) organisation, spoke for many when he said: “Yet again, [we see] police officers implicated in abductions and other atrocious crimes, repugnant excuses and lies from ministry officials and prosecutors, and the fake consternation and empty promises of governors and politicians.” His comments have resonance because they enforce two widely-held views here. First, that crime is endemic. And second, that the country’s various police forces are deeply corrupt. Fernando Marti’s death is not just a personal tragedy for his family. It has become a political issue as well. Either I could risk a few scratches by jumping out of the car, or I would go with them. I chose to jump ‘Adriana’ Kidnap victim Mexican President Felipe Calderon has been forced to get involved, having come to office two years ago with a promise of putting law and order at the top of his policy agenda. He and the Mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard (himself a possible contender for the presidency next time round) have both denied that failings in the various police forces and a lack of co-ordination between them were to blame for the outcome of Fernando Marti’s kidnapping. But that does not impress many people here, especially so soon after another police debacle in June, when 12 people were crushed to death in a botched police raid on a Mexico City night club. The two men have come to verbal blows over which forces of law and order are better organised and more effective against the kidnappers. In truth, neither can boast much success. According to Mexico’s National Public Security office, there have been at least 8,416 kidnappings between 1994 and March of this year. Many go unreported, the families involved hiring their own negotiators to deal with the gangs in private. President Calderon has proposed tougher sentences for kidnappers Some reports suggest as many as 435 people were abducted last year, a 35% increase on 2006, although official figures suggest the number is closer to 134. More chilling, 59 people, including Fernando Marti, have been murdered by kidnappers in the two years since President Calderon came to power. Most of those abducted are aged between 16 and 30 and the average ransom demand has been for $1.4m (£730,000). ‘Express kidnappings’ Kidnapping has become as organised as the country’s other insidious crime activity, drug smuggling. And now many people believe the two are linked. As President Calderon has increased pressure on the drug cartels by deploying thousands of troops against them, it appears some of those gangs are turning to kidnapping to supplement their illicit incomes.   MEXICO’S WAR ON DRUGS Tijuana: In the cartels’ shadow Police battle lethal drug gangs As Miguel Angel Granados Chapa, a commentator for the Mexican daily Reforma, put it: “The growth of the number of kidnappings comes from the success of the government’s battle against drug dealers. It’s because of this that they are forced to diversify their illegal activities.” Whereas the 2,000 or so drug-related murders this year do not generally raise much concern among the public, kidnappings do. And not just high-profile ones either. Many people here can relate their own experiences of something that has been called “express” kidnappings. These are the opportunistic random abductions from the street, where people are driven or frogmarched to cash machines and forced to empty their accounts. It is impossible to know exact numbers. One victim who is too frightened to use her real name – let’s call her Adriana – arrived home one night and was putting her house key in the lock when the barrel of a gun appeared over her shoulder. Her abductor forced her back into her own car and drove off. “I was petrified. There was nothing I could do but climb in,” says Adriana. She was driven around for a while, time enough for Adriana to come to a decision. “Either I could risk a few scratches by jumping out of the car, or I would go with them. I chose to jump.” So Adriana opened the door and leapt out, suffering cuts but getting to safety. “I still cannot believe the experience,” she says. “It was simply a nightmare.” Her abductor crashed the car in the confusion and was arrested by police. Punishment With the rise in kidnappings have come calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty for offenders. Others say people should have the right to carry guns. Mr Calderon last week proposed life sentences for police or former officers convicted of kidnapping, for those who abduct children or when the victim is tortured or killed. The public prosecutor has ruled out reinstating capital punishment, not least because Mexico has often resisted extraditing criminals to the US on the grounds that they might face the death penalty. Politically, that makes it hard for the government to back-track on that for home-grown criminals. But such demands help convey the sense of anger and frustration among the people of Mexico, especially those in the bigger cities, about this subject. One full-page newspaper advert appeared in the wake of the Fernando Marti case and captured the mood here. It was paid for by the former head of Mexico’s biggest bank Banamex, Alfredo Harp Helu, who was himself kidnapped for six months. “A change is needed urgently,” it read. “Impotence is invading civil society. Let’s unite to ask our authorities to fight crime, and for personal security.” He spoke for many who feel at risk and who believe the authorities are failing in their primary duty of protecting their citizens.

Russian troops advance in Georgia

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7554507.stm

Georgia says Russia has deployed an additional 4,000 troops in Abkhazia Russian forces have entered Georgia from the breakaway region of Abkhazia in an apparent broadening of the conflict over South Ossetia. Moscow said troops had raided the town of Senaki to destroy a military base before leaving again. Georgian forces have also been retreating towards Tbilisi after a day of skirmishing in South Ossetia. The US president strongly criticised Russia, saying it might be planning to depose the Georgian government. Correspondents say it was some of the strongest US language about Russia in years. Click to view a map of the region “Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people,” George W Bush said in Washington. “Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st Century.” The Russian government must reverse the course it appears to be on US President George W Bush Diplomatic mood darkens Russia actions confound allies Send us your comments But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused Western states of turning a blind eye to alleged atrocities by Georgia’s forces during their surprise offensive last week. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who described Russia as a “barbaric aggressor” in a speech on Georgian TV, has accused Russia of “expelling” ethnic Georgians from both breakaway regions. Speaking later to the BBC in Tbilisi, after a brief visit to the town of Gori near South Ossetia as it was being evacuated, he said Russia had been preparing to attack Georgia for months. He said his country had been split in two. Mikhail Saakashvili on the escalating conflict with Russia Fighting erupted last Thursday night when Georgia sent its army to regain control of South Ossetia which, like Abkhazia, has had de facto independence since the early 1990s, with Russian backing. Russia poured armour and troops into the region, ejecting the Georgians, and now appears to control many key bridges and roads across the country. The UN Security Council in New York discussed a draft resolution on an immediate ceasefire but it failed to gain agreement. French President Nicolas Sarkozy will continue the diplomatic moves on Tuesday when he holds talks in both Moscow and Georgia. ‘Dramatic and brutal’ Speaking moments after he arrived back in the US from the Beijing Olympics, President Bush said he was deeply concerned about reports of Russian intentions. US President George W Bush statement on Georgia He said he had seen reports that Russia might soon attack the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, which would, he said, represent a “dramatic and brutal escalation” of the conflict. “Russia’s government must respect Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he said. “The Russian government must reverse the course it appears to be on.” Russia’s actions, Mr Bush added, were “jeopardising” its relations with the US and EU. He urged Moscow to accept an EU-brokered peace agreement that Mr Saakashvili has already signed. This was the strongest statement yet from President Bush and appeared to be aimed at drawing a line in the sand, preventing Russia from overthrowing the Georgian government, the BBC’s Justin Webb reports from Washington. Speaking in Moscow, Mr Putin questioned the moral support “some” states were extending to Georgia’s leaders, saying they were trying to “portray victims of aggression as aggressors”. The late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, he said, had been hanged for “destroying several Shia villages”. But Georgia’s current leaders, he alleged, had “razed 10 Ossetian villages at once”, killing civilians indiscriminately. Russian raid Russia’s announcement of its raid on Senaki was the first confirmation that it had advanced beyond the borders of Abkhazia. Our visits to these hospitals confirm that local medical facilities are dealing with a large number of wounded and dead Dominik Stillhart Red Cross Lessons from South Ossetia Georgian exodus as fighting rages The Russian air force reportedly destroyed two Georgian helicopters at the town’s air base and Georgia later confirmed that a local military base had been destroyed. In the town of Zugdidi, closer to Abkhazia, Russian troops were seen taking control of police buildings. Moscow has stressed it does not seek to occupy any Georgian territory. South Ossetia saw fire-fights between Georgian and Russian or South Ossetian rebel forces on Monday. Russian troops reported shooting down a Georgian Su-25 jet after it opened fire on positions near the regional capital Tskhinvali. Georgia reported dozens of Russian planes entering its airspace during the day and among targets hit were a radar base outside Tbilisi. It says it has downed 18 Russian planes since Friday but Moscow has only confirmed the loss of four. Initial Georgian reports that Russian forces had taken over Gori, a town close to South Ossetia which Georgia evacuated on Sunday, were later discounted by Georgia itself. Russia’s control over many key bridges and roads across Georgia has left Tbilisi isolated from much of the country, causing visible panic, the BBC’s Natalia Antelava reports from the capital. Residents have been queuing at petrol stations and in supermarkets as troops and military hardware stream towards Tbilisi. ‘Many dead’ The Red Cross has said it is “still too early” to say how many people have been killed or injured by the fighting. ABKHAZIA Broke away from Georgia in 1992-1993 war De-facto independence not recognised internationally 2,000 Russian troops there sent as peacekeepers Georgia seized strategic Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia in 2006 Abkhazia rejected Georgian offer of autonomy within federal state Q&A: Violence in South Ossetia In pictures: Georgia in crisis Profile: Abkhazia Voices on the conflict But Dominik Stillhart, the organisation’s deputy director of operations, did say that visits to several hospitals in Georgia and on Russian territory had confirmed that “we are dealing with a large number of wounded and dead”. In other developments: • Georgia’s foreign minister is due to meet Nato officials on Tuesday. Russia has also requested an emergency meeting with Nato, saying the organisation should hear Moscow’s side before making any decisions • The US and several European nations have begun to evacuate hundreds of their citizens from Georgia • Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland issue a joint statement saying that as “once-captive nations of Eastern Europe” they share a “deep concern” about Russia’s actions towards Georgia • The G7 group of developed countries issues a strongly-worded statement calling on Russia to accept the EU-brokered ceasefire agreement

Will America ever wake up to the Burmese Clarion Call?

Policy Paper

Will America ever wake up to the Burmese Clarion Call?

Kanbawza Win

US President George W Bush, who has never been to Burma, has at least learnt to pronounce the name of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi correctly for which the Burmese activist dumped him, as well informed has delivered a major policy speech in Thailand and liaise with Burmese dissidents, while the first lady Laura Bush had visited Mae La, the biggest Burmese refugee camps (60,000 souls unofficial figure) to see things for herself. To an average Burmese dissident this is heartening, but if President Bush means business we are wondering of why the USS Essex and other US naval ships withdrew from their positions near Burmese waters, when both Britain and French warships were ready to join the US in the Nagris Cyclone relief operations and end the Burmese dictatorship once and for all? The entire Burmese people had pinned their hopes on Bush that he would invoke the UN’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and together with the Western nations would order his naval force into the delta, where every Burmese would welcome them as saviour and give them every necessary help. This raises the most serious question about Bush’s administrations support for Burmese pro-democracy movement: Is there any real political will on the part of the US to effect substantive change in Burma, or is Washington simply offering moral support to the victims of a heinous regime to burnish its image as a defender of freedom is in the minds of every Burmese?

The 21 hour stop in Bangkok or Mae Lah camp seems Bush’s stance on Burma is merely a distraction from the troubling consequences of other facets of his foreign policy, others suggest that ultimately, the US is seeking to use Burma to “contain” China, which has become the Burmese regime’s most important ally. Now going to Beijing, where the word Burma and Tibet are taboo. President Bush’s Olympic odyssey started with a game of political one-upmanship, as his blunt critique of the host country prompted Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, saying “

We firmly oppose any words or acts that interfere in other countries internal affairs, using human rights and religion and other issues.” The rhetorical barbs were likely to recede quickly as the games began and Burma together with Dafur and Tibet will be forgotten and will be forced to witness the extravaganza of Chinese Communist’s progress. Perhaps he did not recollect of what he told Olympians at the White House last month that they are more than sports competitors. He called US Olympians “ambassadors of liberty” who represent America’s “regard for human rights and human dignity.”

Despite numerous organizations and activists pushing for the President to make a political statement out of the Games, specifically referencing China’s continued economic and political support for the Burmese regime, Bush remains adamant that he will not politicize the Beijing Games missing the fact that an aesthetic of political memorization, reflected in the host government’s declared aim that China should win more gold medals than any country; the world will once again be made to witness a triumph of the totalitarian will, because of its superb dictatorial communist system. We know that there is little more that the Burmese people can hope in Bush administration’s last Hurrah!

Will the torch of President Bush’s statement at the Map room of the White House “to let the people of Burma know that the United States of America hears their voices” be carried on by the President hopeful of Barrack Obama and John McCane? Politics, at least peripherally, have always been part of the Olympics. This time, too. In four days in Beijing, Bush will confer with Chinese President Hu Jintao, and other Chinese leaders to tussle over trade deficits, currency policy and other issues of bilateral mutual benefits. Bushes (his father, former President George H.W. Bush, who was once an American ambassador) will help dedicate a shimmering new U.S. embassy and definitely Burma will be in a forgotten agenda. History will remember him as the first U.S. president to ever attend a Genocide Olympics on foreign soil even though he may not sit together with the Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein.

Thank You America

Admittedly in his eight years of unstinting support, which even the most sceptical Burmese like myself, have had to acknowledge as a major contribution to our cause and we thank President Bush when he uttered

August 8
is not only a day to recognize China’s achievements,
but also an occasion to recall
the unfulfilled aspirations of the Burmese people

We know that the United States has always strongly supported the efforts of Burma’s people achieve freedom from military rule. The current administration has been no exception. Though often criticized at home and abroad for his foreign policy, Bush has won the respect of most Burmese for his firm stance on the repressive regime in Naypyidaw.

In 2003, the US introduced the Freedom and Democracy Act in response to a ruthless attack on Daw Aung Suu Kyi and her supporters in the central Burmese town of Depayin (a name derived from the Portuguese decedents). In 2005, Bush identified Burma as one of the world’s “outposts of tyranny,” together with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Belarus.

Last year, following the crackdown on the September uprising, he blasted the regime and tightened sanctions against the generals and their cronies. As a further sign of support, the US Congress awarded its highest civilian honour, the Congressional Gold Medal, to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi last December. And just this week, Bush signed into law the Burma Jade Act, which restricts the import of precious stones from Burma and extends existing import sanctions.

Bush is not a visionary and his tendency to see complex issues in black and white, just like any self style Burmese foreign experts who tend to equate with any other country and refused to see that Burma is unique. But while many condemn him for trying to impose his political vision on Iraq, few can argue that in the case of Burma, he has taken a genuinely principled stand that is perfectly consistent with reality.

We warmly acknowledge that both Bush and his wife, Laura, who has been a real driving force in keeping Burma at the top of the world’s political agenda. She has met with Burmese activists in Washington and New York on a number of occasions and held video teleconferences with prominent exiles. She has also participated in several roundtable discussions on Burma with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari. When the Burmese regime crushed protests last year, she called Ban to discuss the situation—a rare move by an American first lady, and one that shows the depth of her concern for the fate of Burma’s people.

In May of this year, it became evident just how much the bull dog face General Than Shwe has staked on the ultimate success of this deeply flawed political process, which promises only a continuation of military rule under another guise. But one week before a planned referendum on a military-drafted constitution when the country was hit by its worst natural disaster in living memory, the American response to this disaster was markedly different from that of the rulers in Naypyidaw. The US moved quickly to temporarily suspend its sanctions against Burma so that it could assist in the relief effort, offering aid and the use of military aircraft to transport international emergency relief supplies into the country. But this did not stop the Junta going ahead with its rigged referendum, putting politics ahead of the lives of millions of people. No doubt humanitarian workers in Burma praised the Bush administration for its bold decision to send C-130 flights into Rangoon with relief items, setting aside politics for the sake of saving lives. Our profound and sincere thanks go to Bush Administration for keeping the Burmese cause alive at least morally.

The Realization

We are but halfway through 2008 yet it has already been witness to a sizeable shift in global power. The default Western mindset remains that the Western writ rules. That is hardly surprising; it has been true for so long there has been little reason for anyone to question it, least of all the West. The thinking of the Americans has changed that they live in the greatest country on earth and construe that they have the right to disregard the opinions of other countries and can impose our values on everyone else – after all, why should anyone complain about having greatness thrust upon them? But lamentably the estimate of their worth far outstrips its real-world value. They now see that the Vietnam Syndrome will soon be replaced by the Iraq Syndrome. It’s not just that the world is fed up with U.S. foreign policy; it has become blind to its relative decline. Some construe that unwittingly, the US is the rogue elephant that will not cooperate with the rest of the world. No to Kyoto, no to arms control, no to negotiations and so on and is afraid to take the right action on Burma. I recall the lines in “Raiding the War Chest”, Miriam Pemberton writes that “our country has a massive international-relations repair job ahead in the post-Bush years. This job comes down to acknowledging that our military-led response to 9-11 has made us less safe by creating more terrorists than it has defeated. Furthermore, we must convince the rest of the world’s peoples that we are ready to engage with them in a different way. Whatever is said along these lines won’t be credible unless, as the saying goes, we put our money where our mouth is.”

The assumption is that might and right are invariably on its side, that it always knows best and that if necessary it will enforce its political wisdom and moral rectitude on others. There is, however, a hitch: the authority of the self-appointed global sheriff is remorselessly eroding. There have been two outstanding examples so far this year and the first was Burma. The question facing the rest of the world in the aftermath of the cyclone, however, was how to assist the millions of victims of a humanitarian disaster. China, India and ASEAN — who largely make up the region — were opposed to the use of military force and President Bush bow down to them. If he had followed this instinct in Iraq and use the unilateral action with the whole West backing up President Bush the result would be much rosier. US leaders were living in a time warp: the knee-jerk responses of old, freshened up by the short-lived era of liberal interventionism, have become a stock response. It was not long before the bellicose talk subsided and the West was obliged to channel its aid via ASEAN.

The fact that the West could not understand the geopolitical realities of Asia, now the largest economic region in the world — and adapt its policies accordingly, revealed that old assumptions and attitudes run very deep indeed. Burma has demonstrated was the limits of Western power, the need for the West to understand those limits. The second example is Zimbabwe. This episode has revealed British — and Western — impotence in its starkest form. After much grandstanding at the G8 summit, the Anglo-American attempt to toughen sanctions foundered in the UN Security Council, where it was vetoed by Russia and China and opposed by South Africa and two others. Meanwhile, President Thabo Mbeki, whose efforts to broker some kind of deal have been widely and patronizingly scorned, has scored a major diplomatic triumph. The Southern Africa Development Community’s appointed mediator for Zimbabwe, Mbeki managed to bring both Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC to the negotiating table. All the Western bluster and invective now look just that: the route to a possible solution has been the work of South Africa, the SADC and the African Union alone. This is yet a further illustration of a shift in global authority. The two big bullies China and Russia which has just occupied Georgia seem to indicate that NATO (No Action Talk Only) is just a lame duck.

Western power can no longer deliver in the face of the growing power, competence and self-confidence of developing countries. Instead of universal Western power, we are witnessing the rise of regionalization and regional solutions. This reflects broader changes in the global economy. BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and a growing number of developing economies, now account for less than half of global GDP and that share is steadily falling. Such economic shifts are the irresistible prelude to parallel changes in political power. The two examples discussed are classic instances of this process: Burma involved China and India, together with the ASEAN countries, while Zimbabwe featured South Africa, with Russia which has taken advantage of the Beijing Olympic to invade Georgia, and especially China, emboldened in this instance to play a more assertive role on the global stage. They illustrate what might be described as the growing “Bricisation” of global politics.

They also underline the comprehensive failure of Anglo-American foreign policy. At the time of the invasion of Iraq, no thought was given to the idea that Western economic power was on the wane. Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten Western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying Western impotence. In contrast, those other “rogue” states, namely North Korea, Zimbabwe, and perhaps even Iran, show strong signs of responding in a positive manner to a very different kind of treatment. Liberal interventionism has failed. But as yet the West shows no sign of either understanding the new world or being able to live according to its terms. The West has refused to recognize the diminution in its own authority and, as a result, seemingly incapable of adapting to the new circumstances and coming up with an innovative response especially in terms of economics.

United Nations

Currently, U.N. Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari is scheduled to return to Burma to pave the way for a return visit of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later this year. The time has come for the United Nations to measure success by outcomes alone, not merely by the engagement in process. Were success to be measured by engagement alone, it would have already been achieved. Special envoys and Rapporteur have made literally dozens of trip to Burma over the years, with minimal effect. Unless tangible and specific outcomes are actually achieved from this visit — including the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, which is a prerequisite for any meaningful dialogue — then it is time for the Security Council to take further action. Specifically, it should escalate the pressure on the junta by adopting a binding resolution to transform its recommendations from its presidential statement into demands. Pressure has been increasing from numerous ASEAN countries, which now view Burma as holding back the development of the bloc. And pressure has been sustained by the United States, United Kingdom and France. But all members of the Security Council — including China, Russia, and South Africa, which had opposed prior action on Burma — must be reminded of their subsequent agreement with this roadmap.

Foreign investment in Myanmar plummeted by 77% over the past fiscal year as investments in the oil, gas and electricity sectors were significantly lower even in the Burmese official figures. In the 12 months to March 31 2008, total income for the three sectors was $ 172.72 million. That compares with 2006-07, when 11 enterprises invested $471.48 million in oil and gas, and $281.22 million dollars in electricity, the National Planning and Economic Development ministry said. The figures showed neighboring India is the biggest investor in Myanmar with $ 137 million in the oil and gas sector this year, followed by Thailand with $ 16.22 million dollars. Germany invested $2.5 million in manufacturing, South Korea had $12 million in fisheries and Singapore invested $5 million into mining.

The Junta has also brazenly used the cyclone to its further advantage. The United Nations recently reported that aid groups have lost some 20% of the money they have brought in to Burma because of arbitrary foreign exchange rules imposed by the junta. Not only does the junta retain these funds as its own “tax” on relief operations, but this also reduces the aid provided to those most in need.

What ever the diplomatic pressure is on, Burma will not budge, knowing full well there is nothing ASEAN can do. Of course, what the Junta is doing is to ensure that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is isolated from the political process. The Junta will hold the planned election in 2010 and it will be a fait accompli. The generals will use all kinds of trickery to maintain their power and dodge international sanctions. If the national referendum in May was any indication, the future poll will certainly be rigged. Burma’s ratification of the ASEAN Charter was timed for maximum benefit. For the first time, the pariah state was able to say it is committed to the values and norms of ASEAN. In the 11 years since Burma joined ASEAN, it has caused only headaches for the group. Now, ASEAN and the international community are committed to help revitalize Burma after Cyclone Nargis.

Synchronizing the Foreign and Domestic policy

In deciphering the future policy of Burma one need to know not only that realities on the ground are somewhat different from the reports we are having in the West. Must be able to construed the broad picture and not be distorted with emotions. In astronomy it is called “gravitational lensing”, where light was distorted because of gravity. Hence most of the ethno democratic forces of Burma are often than not blinded by emotions. Johan Alvin rightly asserts that Burma problem is not just the failure of the tyrannical Burmese Generals but `also that of the opposition and the international community. We would rather label it as a collective failure from President Bush on to the lowest resistance Burmese fighter.

The moral approach of the West particularly America and EU, the mainstream rational approach by the UN and the economic approach by ASEAN of the so called Constructive Engagement and the Hegemonic approach by China and India have all failed and one is forced to admit that Burma is unique. What we are clamouring is a collective responsibility approach.

A Burmese intelligentsia will not be fooled by clever Public Relations stance of the US President, because one can almost guarantee the US would place China on its list of priorities above that of Burma. If anything, the US would sacrifice Burma at the altar of vast Chinese economic advantage. Everybody knows that if China drops its support for the Burmese regime today it will collapse tomorrow. What we are emphasizing is that the Burmese ethno democratic movement alone cannot change the Chinese government and the people sitting on the Dragon throne, that’s why we are asking the international community particularly the US to meet them and give another chance to talk. We are soliciting your help.

Burma’s generals have long drawn the ire of the international community, over the brazenly deliberate attempt to restrict the handling of relief operations in the wake of Cyclone Nargis resulting in the death and disappearance of some 140,000 Burmese citizens and turning two million refugees into hostages. It is paradoxical that Bush did not raise this issue to the ten-country consortium of ASEAN that has consistently balked at considering comprehensive sanctions against Burma’s generals, instead preferring a policy melded around engagement.

Coup de Grace

Every Burmese know that the regime is mortally wounded. It is difficult to overstate the outrage felt by almost all Burmese Buddhists at the brutalization of the monks. Monks are integrated into all levels of Burmese society. Monks give babies their names; they provide astrological charts for the newborn; in the almost complete absence of medical care in rural Burma (i.e. for eighty per cent of the population) they give traditional medical care in the monasteries, and general help and advice. Monks and pagodas are just about the most conspicuous things in Burma. The regime has 450,000 soldiers but there are 500,000 permanent monks. If you add the temporary monks (and all Burmese boys become monks for at least a few weeks in their lives) then at times there are more than two million of them. Monks were quite an organized group to provide effective help after the cyclone, handing out what little food was available and sheltering people in monasteries until the regime forced them out to return to their destroyed homes and villages. Hence the brutalising of the monks, along with the aftermath of the typhoon has mortally wounded the regime. There is now a complete understanding between the monastic order and the nation that the present regime is beyond the pale. The danger is that the universal hatred of the generals, now turned into outrage at a sort of sacrilege, combined with rage at their astonishing indifference to the suffering caused by the storm, could lead to a violent eruption. What we need is just a coup de grace.

I often quoted that we don’t need a drop of American blood or anybody’s blood to shed for Burma, we Burmese will do the dirty job of finishing the Junta and its cronies. Just give us coveted support of arms and ammunition to implement our job, be it a CIA or whatever. This is the policy we are opting for. Now, after two decades, every body is convinced that non violent approach is not paying in as much as the world has not confronted Adolph Hitler for a non violent. The Junta knows only one language and when he sees the guns (the prospect of an American navy coming up the delta) is very upset and sends cold shrills through the spines of the Generals.

The ethnic armies even though badly bruised, is still capable of fighting, if properly armed and with the entire supported of the Burmese people and the international community could easily knocked out the Junta’s forces. What more the ENC has already draw up a rough Federal Constitution not to mention the several declarations made by the Burmese ethnic forces that what they want is autonomy in the genuine Union of Burma and not separatism. This action alone proves the ridiculous claim of the Junta that they alone can keep the country together and prevent Balkanization. Remember the crux of the Burmese problem is ethnicity; there won’t be any military coup, if the civilian government can handle the ethnic problem in 1962. And if there is no military coup there is no need for the struggle of democracy. Democratic struggle and ethnic problems are two sides of a coin. Yet, when President Bush met the Burmese dissidents there are only two ethnic representatives while the rest are democracy advocates with their megaphone diplomacy. America needs to change its advisers on Burma especially who stay hands in glove with the Arr Loo (literally translated potatoes) leaders and help solve the Burmese problems from its roots if the Union of Burma were not to repeat the mistakes prior to 1962.

Candidly also that among the ethnic leaders there are several racists who would never lift a finger for the prevalence of democracy and human rights and narrow on its ethnic right and federalism. The extremists from both sides, the Mahar Bama who construe that all Burmese ethnics should follow their lead and the racist ethnic leaders who opted for Balkanization still needs to be weeded out once and for all. Now the start has made with the coming of the Bushes, it need a snowball effect which we are quite positive will solve the Burmese problems once and for all.

The ethnics believe in Daw Aung San Suu Kyi like her daddy is the only person whom the ethnic leaders trust. She is manifestly more intelligent and better educated than they are, a better speaker, and beautiful: She is also the daughter of Burma’s national hero, Aung San, who created the very army that now keeps her under house arrest. Her beauty and charm combined with her birth, her gentleness stand out against the stupidity and sheer brutishness of the Burmese Generals. There is a general belief that she speaks for the whole country and that no one else does so or even could do so. She has offered compromises to the regime. The army can keep some sort of political role if it goes back to the barracks. The top generals can even leave the country taking their loot with them. There is absolutely nothing that an intelligent, patriotically minded military has to fear from her. But the regime construes her as a nymph that comes to haunt them.

On the other hand the Burmese army better known as Tatamadaw has become a Mudane Thatmadaw (translated rapist not satisfied with killing). The whole strategy of the Burmese army is to divide and rule and turn one group against another. There is no claim to legitimacy, no program, no ideology, nothing except the immeasurable fear that it will lose its power and material gains. Add to that that many Burmese see it as handing over the country to its Chinese protectors (and Mandalay is called as 2nd Peking) and don’t harbor any semblance of being patriotic.

Than Shwe is an object of ridicule and contempt. He inherits the paranoia and weirdness of the Ne Win regime but not its measure of credibility. The regime has cocooned itself away from public opinion, and appears to have given up politics completely in favor of simple military rule. The regime’s lack of response to the typhoon, its actual obstruction of both foreign and domestic aid, its determination to go ahead with a bogus referendum designed to legitimize its power in the midst of the emergency have produced exactly the mix of ingredients which can cause a regime to fall. The regime’s 450,000 soldiers have families of their own, many of whom will have suffered, and are themselves (apart from the officers) not well paid.

It is a proven fact that the commanding officer in Mandalay refused to order his men to fire on the demonstrators in September, and was replaced. Many Burmese will tell you with confidence that many of the young officers of the army hate the ruling clique. Mussolini absurdly tried to impose a martial, Fascist mentality upon the Italians and failed and something similar is happening in Burma. What we need is a little push for the Junta to fall off over the cliff. In Berlin Barrack Obama commented, “Will we stand for the human rights of the dissidents in Burma?” Now the people of Burma are asking, ‘Will the new American president able to see this chance and take action?’

Ed. A Burmese Academic Activist from the Simon Fraser University, School of International Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Harbour Campus is one of the founders of the only Burmese University in Diaspora, AEIOU, in Chiang Mai contributed this policy paper.

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Former Thai PM flees to the UK

Thaksin owns properties in England as well as Manchester City football club Ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said he will not return to Thailand from the UK. In a statement released to the Thai media, Mr Thaksin said he and his wife would remain in the UK, “where democracy is more important”. Mr Thaksin is on bail over corruption charges but failed to make a scheduled Bangkok court appearance on Monday. Thailand’s Supreme Court has now issued an arrest warrant for the billionaire, who owns Manchester City football club. Mr Thaksin says the charges are politically motivated and an attempt to remove him from politics. ‘Political enemies’ The former leader had been due to return to the Thai capital on Sunday after a court allowed him to attend the Olympic Games opening in Beijing. CASES AGAINST THAKSIN FAMILY Case one: Abuse of power related to purchase of state land by his wife. Who: Thaksin and his wife. Status: Trial underway Case two: Abuse of power linked to government lottery scheme. Who: Thaksin and several former Cabinet ministers. Status: Case accepted by Supreme Court Case three: Abuse of power related to state loan to Burma alleged to have benefited family business. Who: Thaksin. Status: Case accepted by Supreme Court Case four: Concealing assets. Who: Thaksin, wife and two others. Status: Awaiting court decision on proceeding to trial Case five: Tax evasion. Who: Members of Thaksin’s family. Status: Pojaman Shinawatra and her brother jailed for three years, her secretary for two years Several other claims also lodged Profile: Thaksin Shinawatra He and his wife – who is on bail pending an appeal after she was jailed for three years for tax fraud – were to appear before the Supreme Court in a case involving the allegedly unlawful purchase of land. Instead Mr Thaksin issued a statement announcing his decision not to return home. “What happened to me and my family and my close relations resulted from efforts to get rid of me from politics,” he said in the hand-written statement. “These are my political enemies. They don’t care about the rule of law, facts or internationally recognised due process.” Mr Thaksin apologised to the Thai people for his decision to live in the UK, where his daughter is attending university and where he owns several properties, as well as the Manchester City football club. “If I am fortunate enough, I will return and die on Thai soil, just like other Thais,” he said. Observers have said that the former prime minister may attempt to claim political asylum in the UK, but there was no reference to this in the statement. Thailand’s Supreme Court reacted swiftly. “The court sees that the defendants have broken their bail terms. Therefore, it issues an arrest warrant and orders their bail bonds to be seized,” a statement said. Wrangling The court had agreed to try several cases against Thaksin Shinawatra for allegedly abusing his power while in office. Mr Thaksin was the first Thai prime minister to serve a full five-year term. He was extremely popular in rural areas but far less so amongst the Bangkok elite. In September 2006 the military removed him from power, accusing him of corruption. Military-backed investigators began probing allegations against him. But then Mr Thaksin’s allies won power in the first post-coup polls. The former leader returned to Thailand in February. He said he had no plans to return to politics but his opponents did not appear to believe him. Political wrangling between the two sides intensified and anti-government street protests resumed in the Thai capital. Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej was accused of acting as a proxy for Mr Thaksin and faced calls to step down. In the meantime the courts – newly empowered by the military-backed constitution – continued to pursue various cases against Mr Thaksin and his family. Last month, in an unexpected move, the former prime minister’s wife was jailed for tax fraud. The ruling will both have shocked Mr Thaksin and served as a powerful indication of what could lie in store for him at the hands of the courts, analysts say, hence his decision to remain in the UK. Meanwhile the UK’s Premier League has insisted it is prepared to invoke its “fit and proper persons test” as regards Mr Thaksin’s ownership of Manchester City if necessary. “If we feel the rule has been breached, we will invoke it,” said Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore. “We will not turn a blind eye to issues of a serious nature. “It is quite a complex matter and we can’t just make a judgement on the spot but clearly we have a club owner who has not yet been found guilty of any offence.” Mr Scudamore said the league would seek advice from the UK Home Office and Foreign Office.

China: The Junta’s Best Friend

As the Beijing Olympics approach, each and every citizen of conscience throughout the world has a decision to make: do we lend our support to China by watching the Olympics or do we turn off our televisions? We, and leaders of the democracy movement in Burma (Read the Call from the 88 Generation Students here), are asking you to turn it off.

CHINA’S SUPPORT BLOCKS INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND KEEPS BURMA’S REGIME IN POWER

Below is publicly available information regarding Sino-Burmese military, political, and economic relations. This by no means represents the entirety of China’s support of Burma’s military regime, much of which is not publicly available.

CHINA IS ONE OF THE LARGEST ARMS SUPPLIERS TO THAN SHWE’S BURMESE MILITARY REGIME.

Since 1989, the year after Burma’s military regime brutally suppressed a mass people’s uprising calling for democracy – China has provided Burma’s regime with over US$2 billion worth of weapons and military equipment , some sold at below market prices—arms shipments continue to this day.

• Tanks and armored personnel carriers
• Fighter jets
• Attack aircraft
• Coastal patrol ships
• Small arms and light weapons
• Logistical and transportation equipment
• China also has provided military advisors for training and engineers for building projects

With Chinese arms and military equipment, Burma’s regime has quadrupled the size of its forces to 450,000 men, including with approximately 70,000 child soldiers – more than any other country in the world. The regime has carried out a scorched earth campaign in Eastern Burma, destroying and forcing the abandonment of more than 3,000 villages over the past ten years. To put this in context a more well-known crisis, this is twice as many villages as have been destroyed in Darfur. More than 1.5 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries or are hiding in the jungle struggling to survive.

THE COST OF CHINA’S POLITICAL PROTECTION

BURMA’S MILITARY REGIME WILL FORGO $8.4 BILLION FROM NATURAL GAS EXPORTS TO KEEP CHINA’S INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SUPPORT.

2007 – Than Shwe has agreed to sell Burma’s new found gas from the Shwe gas fields, about 180 billion cubic metres of gas across 20 years to China for the price of US$4.28 per million BTU. India offered the regime US$4.76 per million BTU but Than Shwe rejected India’s offer in favor of China’s costing Burma US$2.35 billion in revenue.

It gets worse – the current market rate for natural gas is around US$7.30 per million BTU and for a long-term contract, such as this one, experts estimate the regime could have negotiated for US$6 per million BTU. Which in real terms means Burma is losing out on US$8.4 billion in potential natural gas revenues.

August 2007 – While Burma’s military regime sells Burma’s natural gas to China at deeply discounted rates, it suddenly and drastically quintupled the price of compressed natural gas, and doubled the price of oil and diesel in Burma, sending the people of Burma, more than half of whom live on less than a US$1 a day, spiraling further into abject poverty.

China is the only country with the ability to shield Burma’s military junta from international intervention.

UNDERMINING MULTILATERAL UNITED NATIONS AND REGIONAL EFFORTS: CHINA HAS CONSISTENTLY TAKEN A UNILATERAL APPROACH

September 2006 – China voted No to placing Burma’s crisis on the UN Security Council’s Agenda, but lost in a vote of 10-4-1.

January 2007 – China vetoed a peaceful UN Security Council resolution – that had garnered enough votes to pass – that would have strengthened the Secretary General’s mandate to resolving the crisis in Burma.

CHINA’S PRISONER: DAW AUNG SAN SUU KYI, THE WORLD’S ONLY IMPRISONED NOBEL PEACE PRIZE RECIPIENT

China is one of the only countries in the world to refuse to back the UN Secretary General’s call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners.

• Three diplomatic missions to Burma to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi by leading Southeast Asian senior statesmen Indonesian Ali Alatas, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid, and Filippino Foreign Minister Alberto Romulo all failed, and China did not endorse these efforts.
• The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the European Union (EU), the United States, Japan, Australia, 14 United Nations Special Rapportuers, One Dozen Nobel Peace Prize recipients, and 59 former Presidents and Prime Ministers from around the world have called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
• The United Nations General Assembly calls for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment violates international law.
• China has refused to support all of these countries, leaders, and UN mechanisms by not calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. Instead, China’s Foreign Minister says “The Aung San Suu Kyi matter is Myanmar’s internal affair.”

China’s refusal to stand with the rest of the world and call for the end of Aung San Suu Kyi’s unlawful detention not only ensured Than Shwe’s had political cover for extending her house arrest, it completely contradicted China’s own statement in which it would support ASEAN’s position on Burma. “China will, as always, support Asean to play a leading role in addressing the issue of Myanmar,” Ambassador Wang Guangya said. Apparently not.

ECONOMIC

The only way to do business in Burma is to do business with the military junta. The Heritage Foundation in their 2007 Index of Economic Freedom ranked Burma as the fifth most repressed economy in the world (153 out of 157) behind only North Korea, Libya, Cuba and Zimbabwe.

INVESTMENT: CHINA IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST INVESTORS IN BURMA.

2006-2007 (April-February), China’s foreign direct investment exceeded $281 million.

Chinese companies, including whole state-owned enterprises have more than 800 projects in Burma with a contractual value exceeding US$ 2.1 billion.

TRADE: CHINA PROVIDES US$ BILLIONS IN TRADE TO BURMA’S MILITARY JUNTA.

• China’s trade with Burma doubled from 1999 to 2005 to US$1.2 billion
• China is Burma’s largest source of imports accounting for more than 31% in 2006
• Current figures estimate that China’s trade revenue with Burma is now $1.28 billion

Burma has a closed and tightly controlled economy in which only the top military leaders in the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and their cronies profit from trade and investment.

LOANS: CHINA GIVES THAN SHWE’S REGIME US$ HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN LOANS AND GRANTS.

January 2003 – China provided Burma with US$200 million in economic assistance.

June 2006 – China signed an agreement to loan Burma’s generals $200 in buyers’ credit.

NATURAL RESOURCES: CHINA IS STRIPPING BURMA OF ITS NATURAL RESOURCES WITH RAMPANT FORCED LABOR, FORCED DISPLACEMENT, AND SEVERE HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES.

BURMA’S MILITARY JUNTA TO MAKE BILLIONS OFF OF CHINA’S INVESTMENTS IN EXTRACTING BURMA’S NATURAL RESOURCES.

China is involved in more than 62 hydro, oil & gas, and mining projects in Burma. These projects take place without consultation of local communities, without regard for environmental concerns and results in destruction of land and loss of livelihood. These projects are accompanied by increased militarization creating large scale forced labor, forced relocation and human rights abuses.

Oil & Natural Gas

In March 2007 – China’s PetroChina signed an MOU with SPDC for the sale of 6.5 trillion cubic feet of gas over the next 30 years to be transported through a new pipeline that will be built across Burma to deliver the gas to China’s Yunnan province for an annual transit fee of $150 million for the next 30 years, earning the regime US$4.5 billion.

In April 2006 – China’s National Development and Reform Commission approved an oil pipeline project from Burma’s Akyab in Arakan State across Northern Burma to Kunming in the Chinese province of Yunnan, traversing 1,434 miles across Burma.

The construction of the Yadana pipeline in Burma over the previous decade resulted in increased militarization, enormous environment destruction, widespread human rights abuses, forced labor, forced relocation, and loss of livelihood. There is no indication Burma’s junta would not commit the same atrocities in the construction of additional pipelines across Burma to China.

Hydropower

China is involved in approximately 40 hydropower projects in Burma.

As of March 2006 – Of the 11 major on-going hydro-power projects in Burma. All contracts have been awarded to Chinese companies.

In June 2006 – China’s state-owned Sinohydro Corporation and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) agreed to build a US$1 billion hydropower station on the Salween River in Burma , this is the first of 5 dams in this partnership, that would destroy the homes of hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities.

Mining

China has been involved in at least 5 major mining projects in Burma. The largest, the Tagaung Taung nickel deposit represents an investment of US$600 million.

Published On: 2008-08-11

Point Counterpoint

Burma’s democratic revolution

Larry Jagan

 

The desire for freedom cannot be suppressed. Photo: AFP

THOUSANDS of people joined mass protests outside Burmese embassies throughout the world yesterday to commemorate the tragic events in Rangoon twenty years ago. Many international personalities, including actress Mia Farrow, joined them, all calling for the immediate release of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a swift move towards democracy. Before leaving for Beijing to attend last night’s opening ceremony for the Olympics, President Bush and his wife Laura added their support to the cause during their visit to Thailand.

“The spirit of 8.8.88 must never be allowed to die,” said a leading spokesperson for the exiled opposition, Zin Linn, who participated in the mass pro-democracy demonstrations twenty years ago. Although there had been sporadic street protests and demonstrations for almost a year, the mass strike and rally called on August 8, 1988 marked a major turning point for the pro-democracy movement. The date was chosen because it was meant to be auspicious — a reflection of the deep-rooted superstition that grips almost all Burmese.

Hundreds of thousands of students, civil servants and monks marched through Rangoon — then the capital — calling for democracy and an end to military rule. These protests grew, bringing Burma to a standstill for weeks and threatening to topple the country’s one-party state. The universities had been shut several months earlier, after the initial student protests, and student leaders emerged to command the movement.

“We felt that there was no justice or freedom. So we decided we had to bring about an uprising that would end single-party rule,” said one of these leaders, Aung Din — now exiled in the US.

“We called for ‘Democracy,’ but none of us knew what it meant at the time,” said another student activist, Aung Naing Oo — now exiled in Thailand. “We had to look it up in the dictionary — but we knew we wanted freedom and an end to military repression.”

Six weeks after the start of the mass protests, on September 18, 1988, the army moved against the protesters, crushing the democratic movement. Thousands of students and activists died, as the military mercilessly crushed the protests. The foreign minister at the time, Ohn Gyaw, in an interview in Rangoon a few years after the events, insisted that only four people died, and that they were killed in the stampede, and not by soldiers’ guns.

Most analysts suggest that some 3,000 people died in the military’s mopping up operations, while many military officials openly admit — albeit privately — that at least 6,000 perished. In fact, a military intelligence officer close to the former intelligence chief, now under house arrest, told The Daily Star recently that General Kin Nyunt’s own assessment was that more than 10,000 people were killed. “Many bodies were quietly cremated so that there was no evidence of the massacre,” he said.

Since then, there seems to have been very little movement towards genuine political change. Many Burmese believed that, with twenty years of no progress, Burma is destined to remain under a military dictatorship for decades to come. “What is certain is that change will only come from within the country,” said Aung Zaw, editor of the independent Burmese news website and magazine, Irrawaddy. “But more than that, I cannot predict.”

Hopes of a new era were again raised last year, when the country’s monks joined the street protests against the military regime, spawning a new movement dubbed the “Saffron Revolution.” Again, the military’s only course of action was to crush the movement with brutal force. The country’s activists were jailed or forced underground.

But last year’s events showed that things have changed in Burma over the last twenty years, even if much of it is intangible. For years, many local Burmese businessmen have described Burma as a social volcano ready to erupt — all it needs is a spark, and that could come any time.

No one wants a repeat of the massive social upheaval that happened in the wake of the events of August twenty years ago. What most people don’t understand is that the “people’s movement” twenty years’ ago came very close to toppling the military government.

“We were on the brink of giving into the protesters,” the senior intelligence officer, Brigadier General Thein Swe — now serving 197 years in prison for corruption and treason — told a close confidante. “If the demonstrations had gone on for another two weeks, we would have been forced to give up and withdraw back to the barracks,” he mused.

But the protesters gave up first — leaving thousands dead — and even more were forced to flee abroad. More than a quarter of a million Burmese have sought political refuge since the end of the student-led protests 20 years ago. The first batch took months to trudge through the jungles in Burma’s border areas close to China, India and Thailand. They had to elude Burmese troops who would have killed them on sight, and suffered illness and disease on the way — many were decimated by diarrhea, malaria, dengue fever and starvation.

Thousands have poignant personal stories of tragedy. Many left behind their parents and siblings; others left their own young offspring behind in the care of their grandparents, as they would not have survived the arduous journey to freedom. These young children have grown into adults without having known or seen their parents.

Although the “Saffron Revolution” cannot be compared too closely to the events twenty years ago, it did politicise a new generation of students — all of whom are too young to remember 1988. They are likely to return to the streets as the root causes of last year’s protests — spiralling food and fuel prices have now been resolved. But one lesson of the last twenty years is that protests do not always produce political change.

“You can expect spontaneous demonstrations against the military — but the problem is that you have to be organised,” said Min Zin, a leading political activist who fled Burma more than a decade ago and is currently studying in the US. “My concern is whether it can lead to a genuine political change.”

The junta now has forced the country to ratify a new constitution, which essentially institutionalises military rule, and promised a fresh election within the next two years. Burma’s military rulers face a quandary, for they now have to garner the public’s support as they seek to move from military to civilian government as outlined in the new constitution.

So the next two years will be uncertain as the regime prepares for these polls.

“It is in times of uncertainty that protest and change seem to happen in Burma,” the independent Burmese academic at Chiang Mai University, Win Min, told The Daily Star. “The next two years are likely to be volatile — with more protests, led by the monks and the students, are almost certain.”

Larry Jagan contributes regularly to The Daily Star from Bangkok. He is a former Current Affairs Editor, Asia, BBC World Service, and covered the 1988 events in Burma.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=49806

Laura Bush visits refugees on Thai-Myanmar border

By AMBIKA AHUJA – 4 days ago

THA SONG YANG, Thailand (AP) — First lady Laura Bush, meeting with refugees who fled a brutal campaign by Myanmar’s military junta, urged China and other countries on Thursday to join the U.S. in imposing sanctions against the country.

Mrs. Bush, who is traveling in Asia with President Bush, flew to the Thai border with Myanmar, previously known as Burma, to visit the Mae La refugee camp and a health clinic run by a woman known as the “Mother Teresa of Burma.”

“We urge the Chinese to do what other countries have done — to sanction, to put a financial squeeze on the Burmese generals,” Mrs. Bush said.

An outspoken critic of the junta, Mrs. Bush urged other nations to apply sanctions to force the military into a dialogue with pro-democracy forces in Myanmar.

At the border, she met with some of the 38,000 refugees at Mae La, mostly from the Karen ethnic minority group that human rights organizations say is the target of an ongoing Myanmar military campaign marked by murders of civilians, rapes and razing of villages. She also bid farewell to a group of Karen ready to depart for resettlement in the United States, including a family of seven bound for South Carolina who were boarding a bus.

The Myanmar junta’s decades-long conflict with a number of the country’s ethnic minorities has sparked an ongoing exodus, and some 140,000 refugees now live in camps strung out along the Thai-Myanmar border. Kitty McKinsey, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Thailand, said more than 30,000 Myanmar refugees have been resettled in third countries, including more than 21,000 who have left for the United States since January 2005.

“While these camps are supposed to be temporary camps, in reality, some people have been living here for over 20 years. Some were born in the camps and now they have their own children,” said Sally Thompson, deputy director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, the key aid agency working in the camps. “They are entirely dependent on handouts, which is not good socially or psychologically.”

“It is a protracted emergency which is hard to keep in the news, but there is human rights abuse going on virtually every day (in eastern Myanmar),” she said.

Mrs. Bush and her daughter, Barbara, made their way through the muddy ground of the camp in pouring rain at about the same time President Bush was delivering a speech in Bangkok, the Thai capital, calling for “an end to the tyranny” in Myanmar.

“The noble cause has many devoted champions, and I happen to be married to one,” said Bush, who also called on Myanmar’s junta to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners.

Mrs. Bush also visited the Mae Tao Clinic, run Dr. Cynthia Maung, a Karen Christian refugee who provides medical care on the Thai side of the border to more than 50,000 people from Myanmar every year. She visited a ward for victims of land mines, which are buried along the border and inside eastern Myanmar.

One day before the Beijing Olympics begin, President George W Bush and first lady Laura Bush meet with Burmese democracy activists in Thailand.  The trip rightly draws attention to a matter China prefers the world would ignore—it’s propping up of one of the world’s most brutal military dictatorships.

The trip also calls into question those in the United States, European Union and many countries in Asia who have for some years placed great hope in the idea that China will assume the role of a “responsible stakeholder” as it is increasingly integrated in the international community. 

In the case of Burma, these hopes couldn’t be more divorced from reality.  China serves as Burma’s financial, political, military and diplomatic backbone, working actively to derail international efforts at change. Without China’s help, the regime would have been forced into peaceful negotiations many years ago.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for the Burmese people.  While not as well-known as Idi Amin, Omar Al-Bashir, Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin, Burma’s dictator Than Shwe rightly belongs in a rogue’s gallery of the worst dictators in history.  Among other abuses, Than Shwe has locked up nearly 2,000 political prisoners, along with the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi. 

He has ordered and carried out the destruction of a staggering 3,200 ethnic minority villages in Burma, forcing millions to flee as refugees and internally displaced people.  To put this in a comparative perspective, this is twice as many villages as have been destroyed by Bashir’s Janjaweed in Darfur.  To make matters worse, when Buddhist monks marched on the streets in Burma last September calling for peace in the country, Than Shwe ordered his troops to shoot directly at the monks. Many monks were killed; many more were arrested, disrobed and tortured, along with leading dissidents and human rights activists.

I can personally testify to the horrors of Than Shwe’s prison gulags.  I was arrested and then imprisoned in Burma for more than four years, during which time I experienced firsthand many of the Burmese military regime’s torture tactics.  Severe beatings, starvation and electrocution are the order of the day.  I still have nightmares about what happens behind Burma’s bamboo curtain.

Many modern dictators who carry out atrocities on this scale are immediately faced with action from the United Nations.  Peacekeepers may be dispatched, the UN Security Council might demand changes or a global arms embargo could be put in place.  Yet, China has prevented any meaningful action at the UN via its veto power at the Security Council. 

When France, the UK and the United States proposed a non-binding resolution in early 2007 that called on Than Shwe’s regime to end its attacks against the Burmese people and engage in peaceful negotiations with the democracy movement, China vetoed the move.

When the military regime opened fire on the Buddhist monks, China permitted a truncated UN Security Council statement calling for change in Burma, only to backpedal the very same day.

Beyond stifling UN efforts at jump-starting peaceful negotiations in Burma, China has served as Than Shwe’s key supplier of weapons for more than two decades, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, fighter jets, attack aircraft, coastal patrol ships, small arms and light weapons. With Chinese arms and military equipment, Burma’s regime has quadrupled the size of its forces to 450,000 soldiers.

In return, Burma has granted China sweetheart deals on natural gas extraction.  By some estimates, the Burmese regime ignored a superior Indian offer by $8.4 billion for
Burmese natural gas; the cheaper deal went instead to China.  Unlike China, India can offer no respite to the regime from the UN Security Council. 

Meanwhile, the regime continues to plead for international humanitarian aid, shockingly siphoning off 10 to 15 percent for itself.  Even after Cyclone Nargis recently devastated much of Southwestern Burma, the regime continued to line its own pockets, stealing millions of dollars in foreign assistance intended to help the most needed.

The President and first lady should raise these issues with President Hu Jintao when they arrive in China on August 8th, the 20-year anniversary of a massive popular uprising in Burma and the opening day of the Beijing Olympics.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=13746

 

                                        The 88 Generation Students

                                 Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma)

                                              Statement 4/2008 (88)

                                              Date: 25 February 2008

Calling Citizens around the World to Pressure the Government of China to

Withdraw Its Unilateral Support for the Burmese Military Junta and to Boycott the

2008 Beijing Olympics

(1) Today, the 88 Generation Students, a coalition of leading former student activists who spearheaded

the country’s 1988 national uprising that nearly toppled decades of military rule, call for citizens around

the world to pressure the Government of China to withdraw its unilateral support of the Burmese military

junta and to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics in response to China’s bankrolling of the military junta

that rules our country of Burma with guns and threats.

(2) China is a major trade partner, major arms supplier and major defender of the junta in the international

arena, especially in the United Nations Security Council. The military junta in Burma is still in power to

this day, despite strong and continuous resistance by the people of Burma, because of China’s support.

China has provided billions of dollars in weapons, used its veto power at the UN Security Council to

paralyze peaceful efforts at change, and unilaterally undermined diplomatic efforts to free the world’s

only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners.

(3) The 88 Generation Students has requested many times to the Chinese Government to play a

constructive role in national reconciliation in Burma. We have also asked China to end its unilateral

support for Burma’s regime and instead facilitate a meaningful and time-bound dialogue between the

military junta, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, and ethnic

representatives to achieve a mutually acceptable solution, by using its significant influence over the junta

or by working together with other members of the UNSC. However, our constructive outreach to China

has been met with silence and more weapons shipments. Therefore, now we call for action to respond to

the irresponsible manner of the Chinese Government. While China plans to celebrate the Olympics on

August 8, 2008, which is the 20

th anniversary of the 1988 popular democracy uprising in our country; it is

essentially enslaving the people of Burma

(4) We call for each and every citizen around the world not to watch the Olympics ceremonies on

television and boycott this Genocide Olympics/Saffron Olympics. We urge people of conscience

throughout the world – including the hundreds of thousands of Burmese in dozens of countries – to

pledge to not watch or support in any way the Beijing Olympics.

(5) We also ask each and every citizen around the world to boycott any Olympics merchandise or

products from China and its Olympics sponsors during the time of Beijing Olympics.

The 88 Generation Students

http://uscampaignforburma.org/The88-GSStatementOlympics.pdf

Subject: [ President and First Lady Visit Burma Dissidentsand Refugees in thailand

 

President and First Lady Visit Burma
Dissidents and Refugees in Thailand

Dear friends,
 
We wanted to let you know some good news.  President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush just visited Burmese human rights activists in Thailand, 24 hours before they head to Beijing Olympics. The First Lady also made a special trip to refugee camps on the Thailand-Burma border to meet with some of the millions of refugees who have fled Burma’s military dictatorship.
 
One of our co-founders, Aung Din, today published an opinion article in the Irrawaddy magazine about President Bush’s trip and China’s role in propping up Burma’s dictators.
 
Burma is an issue in the United States that crosses the fault lines of political parties. We are very glad that Democrats and Republicans have worked together to press for change in Burma.
 
We very much hope that President Bush, after his meetings, will pressure China to make changes in its policy toward Burma. China is the most important ally of Burma’s dictator Than Shwe, providing him billions in weapons and assistance while blocking the United Nations from .
 
Despite having to face both the dictator Than Shwe and China, Burmese human rights activists continue to stand strongly in their struggle for democracy. Inside the country they are preparing for the 20th anniversary of the largest uprising in Burma’s history.  Even as the military has put its soldiers on alert, in the last few days dissidents inside Burma have been secretly spray-painting the color red all over the country’s major cities — the color is a symbol of democracy and change in Burma.  We salute their courage and bravery and pledge to re-double our own efforts here in the United States and internationally. 
 
Thank you for supporting the people of Burma in their struggle for human rights!

 

Myanmar’s ruling junta is hoping that its on-going human rights violations will become a non-issue, but let’s keep flogging this dead horse.

Sunday August 10, 2008

Same old, same old

STRAY THOUGHTS
By A.ASOHAN

Myanmar’s ruling junta is hoping that its on-going human rights violations will become a non-issue, but let’s keep flogging this dead horse.

TWENTY years and two days ago, student activists in a little-known South-East Asian country stood up for democracy against their oppressive, tyrannical government.

People from all walks of life — civil servants, professionals, monks and plain old ordinary folk — all demanding democratic reform, soon joined them.

The military stepped in, and according to most news reports, gunned down thousands of these peaceful marchers.

The people stood firm however, and finally got their way. Two years later, the country held its first general election in decades, and a pro-reformation party won it hands-down. A new era beckoned.

Except that it didn’t. The military rulers declared the election null and void, slapped cuffs on the democratic leaders, and carried on their merry, violent way.

And the world looked on. Twenty years and two days later, the world is still looking on.

Oh sure, governments may issue a few verbal slaps on the wrists once in a while as a salve to their conscience — some even going so far as rapping knuckles — but they’re still only looking on.

Two days ago, while large parts of Asia celebrated the auspicious triple-fatt (08-08-08) or anticipated Olympic glory, people in cities across the world — as far away as San Francisco and London, and right here at home in Kuala Lumpur — marched peacefully in remembrance of the quadruple eight or “8888 Uprising” of Aug 8, 1988.

Coordinating their efforts via websites, alternative news portals, blogs and social media networks such as Facebook, many people across the world are still trying to keep Myanmar (or Burma) on the table of public discourse.

“Actually, for a problem like Burma, which seems so complex, the solution can be surprisingly simple — if only governments and the United Nations stopped talking so much and started doing more,” says K.P. Lee, a Malaysian journalist who has spent much of his working life as an activist.

Governments could turn the situation around right now, if they really wanted.

“What we are seeing in Burma today is a totally avoidable, man-made disaster caused by a particularly nasty regime, but this regime survives only because it is propped up by Asean’s impotence, China’s money and India’s weapons.

“That’s the great tragedy, and a huge frustration,” says the 42-year-old.

The United States and Britain saw fit to invade a sovereign country to save its millions from the tyranny of one dictator, going against international rule of law and the United Nations to do so. (Yes, I know, they first said it was because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a hotbed of Al-Qaeda activity; they only changed their tune after their leaders’ lies were exposed.)

Nobody would dispute that the belligerent Saddam Hussein had committed horrific crimes against humanity. But his repressive government had also provided some basic amenities and infrastructure (most of which were destroyed by the invading forces) to the people.

Compare that with the abominations going on in Myanmar, where most of the population are under the poverty line, where government troops carry out state-sanctioned mass murders and gang rapes (against children too), and Iraq under Saddam seems like a model state.

Myanmar’s military junta is financing its genocide of tribes like the Karen with money made from trade. Governments allowing this to happen are still peddling the fantasy that some of the proceeds trickle down to the masses, despite all evidence to the contrary.

If I hear anyone say “constructive engagement” again, I’ll puke.

That was Asean’s excuse for getting involved with Myanmar’s repressive regime. Let economic prosperity open the door to democratic reform.

In 2005, there was a movement to deny Myanmar the Asean chair. The movement was led by ordinary citizens, activists, NGOs and even some politicians, all of whom had acknowledged that Asean’s “constructive engagement” gambit had failed miserably.

The movement found expression with tributes across the world on the 60th birthday of Myanmar’s “Lady Liberty” herself, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy that won the 1990 election, and is therefore the country’s rightful Prime Minister.

In a column I wrote then, I quoted Kraisak Choonhavan, a senator who had been leading this movement in Thailand: “When you see villages marked for relocation, state-sanctioned mass murder, gang rapes, disappearances and torture, you have a moral obligation not to engage that government in business.”

It’s now three years later, and Suu Kyi just celebrated her 63rd birthday still under house arrest.

Governments are still pussyfooting around the issue, declaring as victories the fact that the Myanmar regime allowed some international aid — and only some, mind you — to go through to the victims of the devastating Cyclone Nargis earlier this year.

Asean officials even praised the regime’s efforts, despite on-the-ground reports from international relief workers condemning the ruling junta’s slow response.

Earlier this year, at a meeting in Singapore, Myanmar finally ratified the Asean charter that will see it subject to certain rules, including those on human rights.

Given that it had promised democratic reforms when it first joined the regional grouping all those years ago, then never bothered keeping those promises, it will be interesting to see what would happen now if it breaches the terms of the charter.

Will Asean finally summon the cojones to act?

Or perhaps we should just stop expecting governments to do, you know, government-ish stuff like that.

While what’s going on in Myanmar is frustrating and heart-breaking, journalist Lee sees hope in what he calls a “quiet revolution.”

“Many Burmese groups, working ‘underground’ and under dangerous conditions, are changing the way people think. They are teaching people about their rights, what to expect from a government, about democracy, economics, security … they are working to empower them.

“Many very brave people, including youths and women, are learning and then sharing this information in towns and remote areas all around the country.

“That’s a key part to changing Burma, I feel. Ultimately it has to come from within. I feel hopeful for Burma because when — and not if — democracy comes, the people will be ready,” he says.

A. Asohan, New Media Editor at The Star, is too riled up to say anything whimsical in this footnote