- This topic has 9 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 2 months ago by
.
- Posts
Repression in Myanmar
Captive nation
A token release from a growing gulag
Feb 18th 2010 | BANGKOK | From The Economist print editionAP
Tin Oo gives thanks where it is due
THE generals who rule Myanmar do not care much for outside scrutiny. So the country is hardly fertile ground for Tomas Ojea Quintana, a United Nations envoy for human rights, who arrived on February 15th for a five-day visit to check on political prisoners and their beleaguered colleagues on the outside.On the eve of his trip the junta freed one prominent detainee after seven years of house arrest. Tin Oo, a former army chief and co-founder of the opposition National League for Democracy, now aged 82, was detained in 2003 along with the League’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after a pro-junta mob attacked their convoy, ending a political thaw.
Might Miss Suu Kyi’s release be next? Much hinges on the timing and scope of Myanmar’s long-awaited election, the first since an annulled 1990 vote won by the League. The junta has promised to hold polls in 2010 and return the country to semi-civilian rule. But there is still no election date and no rules laid down for political parties who want to contest. Some observers are predicting polls by October, one month before Miss Suu Kyi’s current term of house arrest ends. Her party is divided over whether to compete in the election.
As quickly as it empties, Myanmar’s gulag fills. On February 10th Kyaw Zaw Lwin, a naturalised American citizen, was sentenced to three years in jail for fraud, a ruling that the State Department criticised as politically motivated. Indeed, the gulag may be larger than had been previously thought. Exiled activists have identified over 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar’s jails, a number commonly cited by international agencies. But Benjamin Zawacki, a researcher for Amnesty International, a human-rights watchdog, reckons that the number is probably much higher. Ethnic minorities locked up in remote areas often go uncounted.
In a new report Amnesty found that activists in minority areas face predictably harsh retaliation from the authorities, including torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings. These violations are in addition to those meted out to civilians accused of sympathies to ethnic armed groups, such as the Karen National Union, fighting along the Thai-Myanmar border.
By focusing on the war of attrition between Miss Suu Kyi and the junta, it is easy to overlook the role of ethnic minorities in opposition politics, says Mr Zawacki. Some pay a heavy price for their activism. Amnesty found cases of minorities punished merely for talking to exiled journalists. During his visit, Mr Quintana travelled to Rakhine state in western Myanmar to investigate alleged abuses, including of Rohingya Muslims. It was there, in the town of Sittwe, that 300 Buddhist monks marched in August 2007 in protest over fuel prices. It was the first act of defiance in what became the failed Saffron Revolution.
Doc-Those slogans appear every day on the front page of the governmet’s news paper, The New Light of Myanmar. What it really translates to is….
“Oppose all external stooges who jeopardize the state by attempting to bring in destructive elements such as Starbucks, 7-11, McDonald’s & lap dancing in public. These elements are not proper and healthy for contemporary Burmese society as we know it and must be delt with with violent and swift action in the name of The State Peace and Developement Council”
Funny thing is when I was in Rangoon in 1998, by Sule Pagoda there was a restaurant called…McBurger
“Oppose all external stooges who jeopardize the state by attempting to bring in destructive elements such as Starbucks, 7-11, McDonald’s & lap dancing in public. These elements are not proper and healthy for contemporary Burmese society as we know it and must be delt with with violent and swift action in the name of The State Peace and Developement Council”
Translated as: All these things are bad for the common lackey but good for all positions of leadership within the higher echelons of government.
~Stiv
@DrDave wrote:
An acquaintance just sent me a copy of this pic from a trek through Burma (legally as a tourist). Pretty much sums it up.
DrDave – how’d you like touring through Burma? I am loosely considering that sometime towards the end of the year – maybe check out Bagan or something. Is it worth it, or is it too much of a pain?
It’s not a pain. Burma is a beautiful country to travel through. Bagan is outstanding, Mandalay is a great city. The people are incredibly freindly & outgoing. Many Burmese women are drop dead beautiful, more so than Thai birds in a natural way. The food is great. I’d say there’s more to do & see & more places of interest to go in Burma than in Thailand or any other SE Asian country for that matter.
Burma is the only country in south east Asia where you can go scuba diving in the south part of the country, or off one of it’s many islands. And in the far north go snow skiing (obviously during the winter time). If Burma changed for the better it would kick Thailand’s arse for tourism, it’s only a matter of time.
I say go go go! You will not regret it
Just avoid the military & secret police & go easy on the fish sauce
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.