Burma Watchers To Burmese Junta: Democratize Or Face More Protests

MANILA, Philippines (September 19, 2008) - "There is no way the military regime can hide the continuing denial of human rights in Burma and its deplorable management of the country. It is therefore urgent for the international community to take stronger and more comprehensive action against the kind of government that turned its country into a garrison state."

Thus said Free Burma Coalition-Philippines spokesperson Egoy Bans on the 20th anniversary of the bloody coup d'etat staged by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), now known as State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the official name of Burma's military junta.

FBC-Phils and other pro-democracy groups around the world, hold the SLORC responsible for the 1988 arrest and murder of thousands of peaceful activists and civilians calling for democratic reforms in Burma.

Year 1988 also saw the rise to popularity of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as she assumed leadership of the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy.

Bans said, "Twenty years have passed but nothing has significantly changed in Burma. In the guise of restoring peace and order, SLORC was founded and later changed its name to SPDC in another attempt to fool the people into believing empty promises of political change and economic development.

Except for the junta's name, nothing has changed at all. Peace, development, democracy and even the rule of law are nowhere to be found."

FBC-Phils also challenged the military regime of Burma to democratize or else the junta faces more international condemnation.

"This is a show of force between the junta and the international community. The world is closely watching Burma and we will not stop staging protest actions, particularly infront of the junta's embassies wherever they are stationed," Bans stressed.

CHALLENGE TO CHINA

FBC-Philippines likewise criticized China for cuddling the junta saying that it "has contributed so much to the suffering of the peoples of Burma" through continued supply of arms and ammunition to SPDC's armed forces.

In 2006, China and Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on Burma saying that Burma does not pose a threat to regional peace and security.

FBC-Phils explained that China "acts like the popular Big Brother" and blocks any UN effort to address growing global concern for human rights and democracy in Burma.

The international community has constantly asked China to play a crucial role in Burma's democratization but the Chinese regime has refused citing the principle of non-interference or respect for a country's sovereignty by not meddling with its "internal affairs."

"Although China is not the only country engaged in Burma, it is imperative for the Chinese government to break its silence on the issues of human rights violations of the SPDC. Before quickly defending the junta, China should first offer viable alternatives for democratic reforms in Burma," Bans concluded.

BURMA: Media-in-Exile Examine Strengths, Weaknesses: IPS

BANGKOK, Oct 18 (IPS) - Exiled Burmese journalists are now feeling the pressure to fill the information vacuum about events in their country in the weeks following the military’s clampdown on citizen journalists and on pro-democracy protesters there.

There is now just a trickle of news where there was free flow of information via blogs, videos, photos, phone calls and text messages from people inside Burma that international news media depended on until late September, when the military on Sep. 26 broke up rallies and raided monasteries to quell weeks of protests led by monks.

Although the government has eased its tight hold on the Internet and opened communication lines once again, the seed of fear has apparently been sown.

"People are too afraid to talk on the phone as the lines are tapped. We can still call some numbers but these are very limited calls. Many people can still use email but they are careful because these too are being monitored," said Aung Naing, chief editor of the Thailand-based Network Media Group, which distributes news to Burmese-language radio programmes of media outfits as Radio Free Burma and the Democratic Voice of Burma.

For Aye Chan Naing, director of the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma, the suppression of both the voices of the public and of journalists in Burma has made the double-checking of information all the more difficult.

"While we still have regular communication with our reporters on the ground, getting accurate information is getting to be a challenge," he said. But people are still turning to shortwave radio to listen to broadcasts by the Burmese media abroad.

"The military may be aware of this, but this does not prevent people from listening to the BBC, Democratic Voice of Burma or Radio Free Asia," said Network Media Group editor Moe Zaw.

All these stations can be accessed via shortwave radio at certain times of the day. At best, they get more information from sources in the border areas. The challenge now is for these exiled media organisations to protect their sources and keep them out of harm's way, explained Aung Naing.

What is quite alarming for Aye Chan Naing is that journalists in Burma, particularly the underground network of journalists that ‘smuggle’ information out, are now the next targets of the junta, called the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

"We are very worried about their situation within the country. (We have received reports that) some pro-regime journalists are giving authorities information about their colleagues in the media who covered the recent protests (last week of September) in Rangoon," he told IPS.

While there is no solid evidence of pro-government journalists turning against their fellow media members, Aung Naing believes this is quite possible.

"Government control is too strong and they have been known to use journalists working for state-run media to help them hunt down anti-government journalists," said the former student activist who fled to Thailand after the 1988 crackdown on pro-democracy student protesters where more than 3,000 people were killed.

For the India-based editor of ‘Mizzima News’, Soe Myint, recent events have negatively affected the morale of local Burmese journalists whose lives are now being threatened.

"The regime has basically made the journalists and activists 'hostage' in its last efforts to hold on to power, using any means to ensure its own survival," he said.

"We always keep in mind the safety of our network of journalists. This is our utmost priority," he told IPS.

He, however, cautions people against letting down their guard in the wake of government's relaxing Internet restrictions, intimating that this could be a ploy to trace those who send information to the outside world via the Internet.

Learning from the lessons of the September protests, Aung Naing sees the need for journalists both in and outside Burma to develop their information technology (IT) skills.

We've seen how IT played a big role in the recent events, unlike in the 1988 protests,” he explained.

“We now know that most of the information about the demonstrations that were picked up by the news media worldwide came from tech-savvy teenagers who made full use of the new media during those critical times.”

Exiled Burmese media groups will be assessing their situation at the Burmese Media Conference in November, to be held in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.

Burma News international, a network of 10 media in exile organisations, is also expected to discuss new reporting strategies in its regular conference.

"We will discuss how we can develop the Burmese media more and how we can make use of new communication technologies to improve reporting from within and outside Burma," said Aung Naing.

"We need to be able to learn more IT skills, use software and programmes available to us." But lest people start to expect too much from exiled journalists, Aye Chan Naing says he does not think that the exiled media alone can bring democracy and freedom back to Burma. These have to come from the people inside Burma, he said.

For Moe Zaw, objective reporting remains the exiled media’s priority. "Most of our news reflect the real situation. The exiled media, because of their different backgrounds, have different 'leanings'.

Some journalists, because of their political backgrounds, are more involved in pro-democracy ideas," he said.

Aung Naing agrees, saying that the style of reporting and the choice of stories are different among the exiled media. Some want to be more objective in their reporting while some are more 'involved', he added. But one thing is clear, and that is "most of the exiled media are pushing for change".

"To my knowledge, there is no alliance of exiled media formed to bring down the dictatorship as a united front. We all report on the news and what is happening in Burma, including pro-democracy movements. It is only right that we should let people decide for themselves and not to try to influence them based on what we want to happen,” explained Aye Chan Naing.

“Otherwise, we won't be any different from the Burmese government media,” he stressed. (Lynette Lee Corporal)

Burma: One Monk For Every Soldier: The Observer

Only a mutiny in the army - and it is possible - can end the Junta's rule in Burma.

It is an epic clash between the monks and the military in Burma. On one side: the wisdom and non-violent principles of over 2,500 years of Buddhist tradition. On the other: military might honed over 45 years of brutal authoritarian rule. The number of monks in Burma is estimated to be anywhere between 400,000 to 500,000. The number of soldiers is around 400,000. So, one monk for every soldier.

When the monks began marching in peaceful protest over a week ago, the junta remained ominously silent. Then, on Tuesday, the crackdown began. An unconfirmed number of monks were shot dead, monasteries were raided and hundreds of monks have been imprisoned.

How will the predominately Buddhist population of Burma respond to this attack on members of its revered religious order? With absolute horror, I imagine, as they have done to previous attacks (an unverified number of monks were shot dead during the nationwide uprising in 1988, and over 500 were imprisoned).

But people's reactions will probably be expressed behind closed doors. The regime has a terrifyingly effective network of spies and informers, and people are often not willing to openly voice any criticism of the regime for fear of imprisonment and torture.

The surveillance has been so insidious that there are Burmese people I have met who do not trust anyone outside their immediate family; they won't talk openly to cousins or close friends. When I asked a friend for advice on how to safely do research in Burma, he told me to operate under the assumption that everyone I met was an informer - including him.

After the events of 1988, the regime began to eliminate all possible means of dissent within the country. The student community, which had led and organised the demonstrations, was politically emasculated. Through surveillance and intimidation, the regime managed to create a country in which there is no social or political space for people to gather or organise in big numbers.

Many Burma watchers, myself included, thought that protests of the kind which took place in 1988 couldn't happen again as there is seemingly no way to gain a critical mass within such an oppressive environment.

And yet, over the past fortnight, the monks have risen up in numbers it would have been impossible to imagine just a few weeks ago. They are being led by the Alliance of All Burmese Buddhist Monks, an organisation that must have been operating deeply underground as few people had ever heard of them before last week.

Many of my Burmese friends are unsurprised by surprising events such as this. One friend always travels prepared for any eventuality; he sits bolt upright throughout overnight train journeys with his belongings clasped in his lap, just in case. When I ask his opinion on future events, he squints his eyes with theatrical aplomb and says, "In Burma, anything can happen."

Somewhere within that "anything" is the possibility of a mutiny within the army. For many soldiers, being ordered to shoot or beat up a monk goes against every grain of their spiritual up-bringing, and ensures they will carry the burden of bad karma for life-times to come. And the lower-ranking soldiers share certain similarities with the rest of the population: they, too, are poor, badly treated and afraid.

I used to see soldiers living in the crumbling outbuildings of the old British Secretariat, the regime's main ministerial building until it moved to its new capital. In the centre of Rangoon, these poorly-paid soldiers had to use kerosene lamps and cook over camp-fires as if they were in the jungle.

One of the many rumours to emerge from Burma over the past couple days is that there may be a split in the army. Troops from central Burma are said to be marching towards Rangoon. Some say they are coming to challenge the soldiers who are attacking monks; others say they are coming to reinforce them. Whether these rumours are true or not, they are often accurate barometers of people's hopes and fears: Will they free us, or will they crush us?

If the army succeeds in crushing this uprising - which, so far, it seems to be doing - then the regime will set to work purging the monastic order of what it likes to call "destructive elements" and even more monks will be imprisoned and tortured. The regime's intelligence agents will shave their heads and infiltrate the monasteries, praying among the monks as one of them.

What little space for political organisation once existed within the monkhood will be obliterated. Yet another attempt by the people to speak out about their suffering will have been silenced.

So how will the Burmese people respond to soldiers aiming their guns at unarmed monks? How can they respond? If they are able to push aside a lifetime of oppression and fear, they can make martyrs of themselves and walk out into the street towards the guns. And the monks could do the same - if they are still able to mass themselves - there is, after all, at least one monk for every soldier willing to shoot him. (Emma Larkin/The Observer)

(Emma Larkin is the author of Secret Histories: Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop, published by John Murray. She spent the better part of two years living in Burma to research the book and is currently based in Bangkok, Thailand)

Madness in Myanmar: Edmonton Sun

Increasingly serious situation could turn into another Iraq or Yugoslavia.

Growing unrest and mass street demonstrations across Myanmar could herald an extremely dangerous period for the nation formerly known as Burma.

Military-ruled Myanmar is extremely difficult to enter and bans foreign journalists. This writer has managed to get into Myanmar three times. On the last, I was told the secret police were actually conducting bed checks in people's homes in the capital to ensure no trouble-makers from the rebellious northern states were in town.

On a second visit, I eluded the secret police and got to see the nation's Nobel prize-winning democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi in her home in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, where she has been under house arrest for 17 years.

The crisis in Myanmar seems a simple morality drama. The saintly Suu Kyi is held like a bird in a cage by a junta of brutal, wicked generals, who until recently called themselves the State Law and Order Council, or SLORC. In 1988, the junta's soldiers crushed student demonstrations, killing 3,000. After Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, the generals annulled the vote and declared martial law.

This week President George W. Bush and other western nations called for even tighter sanctions against Myanmar's junta and urged its replacement with democratic government.

Myanmar, in-deed, is a nasty police state. Its generals have plundered resources and kept this magnificent nation in direst poverty. Myanmar is often called a "jewel" and "unspoiled Asia of 1940s." True enough. But that's because the junta and its predecessor, mad dictator, Gen. Ne Win, turned Burma into a weird, hermit kingdom.

But extreme caution is advised in dealing with Myanmar. If things go wrong there, it could turn into an Asian version of Iraq, Yugoslavia or Afghanistan.

50 YEARS

Myanmar has been at war for 50 years with 17 ethnic rebel groups seeking secession from the former 14-state Union of Burma created by Imperial Britain, godfather of many of the world's worst current problems.

Burmans, of Tibetan origin, form 68% of the population of 57 million. But there are other important, well-defined, independence-minded ethnic groups: Shan, the largely Christian Karen, Kachin, Chin, Mon, Wa, Rakhine, Anglo-Burmese, and Chinese.

The largest, Shan, with its Shan State Army, are ethnically close to neighbouring Thailand, and in cahoots with the Thai military. Each major ethnic group has its own army and finances itself through smuggling timber, jewels, arms, and drugs.

The military juntas in Rangoon, and their 500,000-member armed forces, known as Tatmadaw, battled these secessionists for decades until the current junta managed to establish uneasy ceasefires with the major rebel groups.

If the junta were to be replaced by a democratic civilian government led by the gentle Suu Kyi, and military repression ended, it is highly likely Myanmar's ethnic rebellions would quickly re-ignite. The only force holding Myanmar together is the military and secret police.

Shan, Karen, Kachin, and Mon still demand their own independent nations. Myanmar's powerful neighbours -- India, China and Thailand -- have their eye on this potentially resource-rich nation.

China exercises strong influence over Myanmar and is building a naval base near Rangoon to give direct access for the first time to the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean.

India sees rival China threatening its rebellion-plagued eastern hill states along the Burmese border, and is increasingly alarmed by Chinese naval ambitions in the Indian Ocean.

NEIGHBOURING INTERESTS

A new democratic government in Yangon-Rangoon that is not tough enough to deal with secessionist regions around its troubled periphery could see Burma fall into internal turmoil and also invite intervention by covetous neighbours.

At worst, India and China could even clash head-on over control of strategic Burma, a threat identified in my book on Asian geopolitics and Indian-Chinese rivalry, War at the Top of the World.

So the West should tread with great caution in Myanmar. The West and Asia must exercise great care they do not exchange military dictatorship for ethnic strife and regional conflict. (Eric Margolis/Edmunton Sun)

Militant Groups Slam Arroyo For Burma Statement

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo waves to well-wisher during her arrival from New York, United States of America (Sept. 30) at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City. With the president in photo are Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Armed Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon Jr. (Luisito Iglesias/OPS-NIB)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner/ Sept. 30) – Two Filipino political groups on Sunday have criticized President Gloria Arroyo for calling on Myanmar to free pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners while political killings still continue in the Philippines.

"The economic and political crisis in Myanmar, which triggered series of protests tackling variety of issues from oil price increases and human rights violations, is similar to what the Filipinos are experiencing under the Arroyo administration," said Jeppie Ramada, a spokesman for the group Bagong Alayansang Makabayan (BAYAN) in southern Philippines.

Ramada said Arroyo's statements in the 62nd United nations General Assembly urging Myanmar "to go back to the path of democracy," are mere rhetoric that contradict the human rights problems in the Philippines.

"With Arroyo's speech in the United Nations General Assembly centered on Myanmar's atrocities, it only manifests that she's trying to evade and divert the issue of political killings in the Philippines."

"Instead of answering allegations of political persecution in her own country, she managed to wipe the dirt into her fellow dictators in Myanmar. She has lost the moral ascendancy to talk about human rights violations since 2001, when hundreds of activists summarily executed," Ramada said.

The militant women's group, GABRIELA, also branded Arroyo's statements as hypocritical and ironic.

"Mrs. Arroyo's statements are attempts to cover up her regime's murderous record on extra judicial killings and disappearances, amid much international criticism over the human rights crisis in the country."

"This duplicitous show of support for Aung San Suu Kyi and the pro-democracy movement in Burma is mortifying. Mrs. Arroyo even had the gall to summon women power for the Burmese leader when in her own country, her repressive policies are the very hindrance to women power," Rep. Liza Maza said.

Maza said that human rights documentation in the country since Arroyo assumed office in 2001 indicate that 96 women have fallen victims to extrajudicial killings and 31 have disappeared.

Under Arroyo, the Philippines have had 22 women political prisoners, many of them in conditions no different from Suu Kyi, she said.

"No different from the military junta in Burma, Mrs. Arroyo has led the violent dispersal of protests with her calibrated pre-emptive response. She has led attempts to silence critics with her Proclamation 1017 and deny Filipinos the truth behind the rampage of corruption in her administration with EO 464. Certainly, her two-faced statements cannot hide her bloody record from the international community," Maza said. (Mindanao Examiner)

Brutal Generals And Dissenting Monks: The Globe And Mail

"If priesthood forms an alliance with the winner of 1990 election, a 'very significant force' would be born".

Penniless, devout and thoroughly dangerous.

Amid reports of mounting violence inside isolated Myanmar, that assessment now seems to be the ruling military's view of the unarmed, maroon-robed Buddhist monks leading the popular revolt against 45 years of dictatorship.

Numbering 400,000 to 500,000 in a country that is 90 per cent Buddhist, with a monastery in virtually every community, the monks in what used to be called Burma command huge respect, providing spiritual guidance and a ubiquitous role at weddings, funerals and other events in the community.

The monks are traditionally aloof and secretive, and the absence of foreign correspondents in the country makes their aims hard to read, said A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, a professor of international development studies and Asian specialist at Trent University.

In the first weeks of the protests, he noted, the priesthood known as the sangha appeared anxious to keep some distance from pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the 1990 election and has spent most of the intervening years under house arrest.

But recent reports of an alliance with the famous dissident suggest a shift in the landscape.

"This is the most surprising development if it turns out to be the case," Prof. Akram-Lodhi said.

"Together they would be a very significant force ... and the military would have to use a lot of violence."

Sixty years after Burma secured its independence, the generals running one of Asia's most repressive nations have changed its name to Myanmar, built a shiny new, eerily empty capital city 320 kilometres north of Rangoon (now called Yangon) and struggled to persuade their few foreign friends the current upheaval can be contained.

But in many regards, Myanmar's crumbling infrastructure and its 50 million impoverished, ardently religious people remain stuck in a time warp in which Buddhism remains the basis of daily life.

Thus it was hardly surprising that the army held its fire for several weeks, as throngs of demonstrators led by monks choked the streets of Rangoon, Mandalay and other cities, galvanized over a 500-per-cent jump in fuel prices last month.

"An attack on the monks is an attack on people's faith, and that's where there's going to be a lot of problems," Prof. Akram-Lodhi said.

It is thought that about 10,000 monks have been taking a role in the protests. And they know how to yank the military tiger's tail.

Dependent entirely on donations for their livelihood, the monks' recent announcement that they would no longer accept handouts from the junta struck a particular nerve, said Myint Swe of the BBC's Burmese-language radio service.

"The government wants the image they are pious and helping the monks."

Drawn from the Theravada, or southern, school of Buddhism, Myanmar's monks have long been politically active - "the worst of all" the trouble makers, George Orwell wrote in Burmese Days, his 1934 novel about British imperialism's fast-fading glories.

From the British colonial era, through to the 1988 rebellion in which an estimated 3,000 civilians died, non-violence has been the monks' hallmark.

And by every estimate, the support they enjoy is near universal.
"The country is very devout. It's also incredibly poor and unequal, and people find solace in their faith," Prof. Akram-Lodhi said.(Timothy Appleby)