Wednesday, October 31, 2007

200 monks protested in Pakokku, Burma (updated)

This is the first monk protest since the crackdown in September.

BBC reports that 100 monks marched today at a historic town in central
Burma. The monks chanted the metta sutta (sutra of loving kindness) as they marched through Pakokku, the site of an incident last month that triggered pro-democracy protests nationwide." Pakokku is a center for Buddhist learning with more than 80 monasteries.

British ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, told the BBC he expected further unrest in the country.

I do think this sort of economic and political frustration that is within the population will manifest itself again in the coming months.
Update: The Democratic Voice of Burma reports:

Oct 31, 2007 (DVB)–Around 200 monks from several monasteries in Pakokku staged a walking protest at 8.30 this morning, according to a monk who participated in the march.

The monk said that the protest was a continuation of last month’s demonstrations as he said the monks’ demands have still not been met.

"Our demands are for lower commodity prices, national reconciliation and the immediate release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners," the monk explained.

The monks came from monasteries around Pakokku, including the West and Central monasteries, and chanted metta as they marched three in a row, with monks in the first row holding Sasana flags.

They started walking along Bogyoke road towards Thida road, then turned into Pauk road before ending the march at Shwe Ku pagoda.

The monk said the group was not afraid of the response of the authorities.

"We are not afraid of getting arrested or being tortured. We are doing this for Sasana," he said.

The protest began about one hour after a pro-government rally in the same town ended, and authorities did not intervene to stop the monks’ march.

The monks reportedly notified the authorities in advance, telling them that if a pro-government demonstration was taking place then the monks should also be allowed to hold their protest.

The monk said there would be more and larger demonstrations in the future.

"We did not have much time to organise the protest as we did not actually plan for it, so there weren't a lot of monks. But there will be bigger and more organized protests soon," he said.

The monk said that civilian bystanders supported the protest but were afraid to express this openly.

"We would like to urge people not to be afraid since we are doing this for good future of our country," he said.

Map: BBC News

Burma Recruiting Child Soldiers

BBC reports "The Burmese army is forcibly recruiting children to cover gaps left by a lack of adult recruits, says a report by a US-based human rights organisation. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says children as young as 10 are beaten or threatened with arrest to make them enlist." Here is HRW's report.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

New Myanmar postage stamp not sticking

This laugh comes from JJ at Burm-Myanmar News (via Jeg):
The junta in burma has created a new first-class postal stamp featuring it's leaders.

The stamp was not sticking to envelopes, which enraged the junta, who demanded a full investigation. After a month of testing, a special junta commission presented the following findings about why the stamps were not sticking:

1) The stamp is in perfect order.
2) There is nothing wrong with the adhesive.
3) People are spitting on the wrong side.

Cultural insensitivity is deadly. So where are the anthropologists?

Recently I blogged about an article in the NY Times by anthropologist Rick Schweder. Judging by some of the feedback he's getting, it seems many have failed to grasp what he is talking about. Typical of many academics, his critics don't see the forest for the trees.

Schweder was writing about a matter of profound importance to US foreign policy.

Americans bases encircle the planet. Iraq is not the last insurgency the US will ever fight. In the future, American troops will be sent to one "failed state" or another. Historical circumstance means that many Americans will end up stomping around in other countries for years to come. US foreign policy will continue to matter globally.

Yet, Americans remain among the most inter-culturally naive people on the planet. This should come as no surprise. Few hold passports, most speak only one language, many can't find their own country on a map, the US news media skimps on coverage of international stories, etc.

The end result? American cultural insensitivity -- incompetence by another name -- gets foreigners and Americans killed. Even if a plan is well-intentioned, humanitarian, UN supported, etc., America's inter-cultural incompetence is potentially deadly.

That's the big conundrum Schweder seems to be thinking about.

In this context, US anthropologists ought to make themselves matter, make their perspective matter. Teaming up with institutions of US foreign policy is one way to start. Wherever and whenever the circumstances to do so present themselves, it's probably for the best that anthropologists get involved. That's thinking long term.

Anthropologists need to look beyond this administration -- and the present Iraq debacle. That's what Schweder is saying. And I might add, not just the anthropologists. We all have to think more constructively, present long-term visions. We can't allow ourselves to stay trapped in a static recoil when confronted with the lunatic nightmares of neo-conservatives.

* * * * *

Speaking of neo-conservative lunatics, in a recent campaign ad, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney asserted that America is in a struggle with people who aim “to unite the world under a single jihadist Caliphate. To do that they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us.”

Romney likely doesn't know it, but he's rekindling the same outlandish myth that encouraged the allies to carve up the Ottoman Empire at Versailles (the peace conference held at the end of World War I). As David Fromkin explained in his classic work, A Peace to End all Peace, the myth of the Caliphate was an obsession that drove British statesmen to entirely misread the situation in the Middle East (I mentioned the Fromkin book in my previous post on Schweder's article).

Update: David Price's critique of the US military's "human terrain program" is posted at Counterpunch (via Jinjabeelah). He paints a grim picture of the program:
Human Terrain research gathers data that help inform what Assistant Undersecretary of Defense John Wilcox recently described as the military's "need to map Human Terrain across the Kill Chain". The disclosure that anthropologists are producing knowledge for those directing the "kill chain" raises serious questions about the state of anthropology.
Price relates some of the harsh lessons anthropologists have learned over the years:
But as Bryan Bender reports in the Boston Globe, "one Pentagon official likened [Human Terrain anthropologists] to the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support project during the Vietnam War. That effort helped identify Vietnamese suspected as communists and Viet Cong collaborators; some were later assassinated by the United States." This chilling revelation clarifies the role that Pentagon officials envision for anthropologists in today's counterinsurgency campaigns.
Price's view seems to be that institutions beat down the anthropologist, forcing conformity to a preconceived vision:
. . . My research examining the frustrations and contributions of World War II era anthropologists identifies a recurrent pattern in which anthropologists with knowledge flowing against the bureaucratic precepts of military and intelligence agencies faced often impossible institutional barriers. They faced the choice of either coalescing with ingrained institutional views and advancing within these bureaucracies, or enduring increasing frustrations and marginalized status. . . In large part, what the military wants from anthropology is to offer basic courses in local manners so that they can get on with the job of conquest. . .
Such concerns not withstanding, I believe Americans abroad equipped with insufficient cultural knowledge pose the greatest risk -- both to themselves and others. Despite everything the Bush Administration has done, in the long-term, I'm far more concerned about US incompetence than US malevolence. The danger that cultural knowledge will be misused may be real, but I believe it is -- far and away -- the lesser danger.

Because, it seems to me, the former begets the latter: a general cross-cultural ignorance serves those with unscrupulous designs. (Only in a country hampered by a severe deficit of inter-cultural knowledge would a neoconservative who tells Americans to "fear the Caliphate" be taken seriously by the news media).

To the extent Americans are rather ignorant of foreign cultures, the discipline of anthropology is partially to blame. One issue I have with American anthropologists -- and social scientists generally -- pertains to their reflexive use of jargon and uncritical use of postmodern theory. This goes a long way to explaining why so much good scholarship has had so little impact on the wider society.

A commitment to work with the military or foreign policy establishment forces anthropologists to explain the insights of their discipline in more straightforward terms. The much heralded "Army Insurgency Manual" by General David Petreus is a case in point. Professor David Price shows it to have comprised the unattributed scribblings of various leading social scientists. Accusations of plagiarizing aside, the Manual represents a step towards making anthropology more accessible to some Americans in urgent need of cross-cultural knowledge.

But to get back to my original point, I think it's easy to get so worked up about the trajectory of the present US Administration that we forget that in the future, the US military will be called upon to play a constructive role in the world -- beyond "conquest." Increasingly it will be called upon to bring stability to failed states (Paul Collier talks of the pressing need for this here). And in this regard, "A basic course in local manners" is not such a bad place to start. The underlying focus should be to conceive a positive new role for American institutions and foreign policy, to provide vision for the new leadership. To get from here to there, it's not helpful to simply be against the institutions. We have to articulate what we want from them.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Are Thai agents helping Burma junta to oppress Burmese people?!

The Irrawaddy has a disturbing story. Apparently Thailand is censoring and oppressing Burmese news groups and dissidents at the request of Myanmar:
A Burmese exile media organization in Bangkok has dropped its Web site news service “temporarily,” amid reports of a crackdown on such operations on Thai territory that carry material critical of Burma’s junta.

The reports surfaced last week and caused other exile media groups in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Mae Sot to lower their profile. There were warnings of possible raids by Thai police and immigration authorities.

The Bangkok-based media organization that dropped its Web site news said it had been asked by Thai authorities to close its office “temporarily” starting from last Friday. A spokesman for the organization asked The Irrawaddy not to identify it.

The unnamed organization and several other Web sites and publications run by Burmese exiles have played a key role in reporting on the brutal suppression of September’s demonstrations.

They have come in for constant attack by the Burmese junta, along with overseas-based targets such as the Burmese service of the BBC and the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma.

Zin Lin, spokesman of Burma’s democratic government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, told The Irrawaddy that its office in Bangkok had been warned by Thai authorities to adopt a “low profile.”

. . . “The Burmese state-media blamed the exile groups in Thailand for recent mass protests,” said Zin Lin.

Myint Wai, of the Bangkok-based Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that his group is also vigilant in view of the reports of a possible crackdown.

The TACDB’s operations are mainly focused on Burmese migrant workers, many of whom have no legal documents. . . .

Burmese officials are rumored to have asked Thai authorities to close some offices linked to the September demonstrations in Burma. In the past, the Burmese government has usually used a friendly channel to pressure Thai authorities close to Burma to harass exiled Burmese.
It's one thing for Thailand to basically say it's not going to do anything at this time on Burma (that's what the Thai Prime Minister has said), it's another thing entirely for Thailand to actively help the Burmese junta to silence Burmese citizens in exile. If there is truth to this story, the international community must hold Thailand accountable. It's a complete outrage.

Strange Burma Story - Part II

I was in Burma in the middle of October. I went there to find out what I could about the situation following the brutal crackdown against the monks and other demonstrators. I hope you will read my serious investigative stories of the situation -- including video and interviews -- here.

However, the first thing I saw when I walked out on the street in Burma struck me as -- well, one word for it would be "strange." Actually, it was something so unexpected that I could hardly stop laughing.

The last thing I went looking for in Burma was comedy, but that's the first thing I found there. Make of it what you will, Strange Burma Story is told in a two-part video (visitors from YouTube and Jotazaine.com may already have seen Part I).

Strange Burma Story, Part I: "Paying Attention"
Click here to view Part I.

Strange Burma Story, Part II: "What's that?"




Videos: by Jotman.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Burmese monk leader Ashin Kovida has escaped to Thailand

Thomas Fuller of the NY Times (via KyiMayKaung) reports that a leader of the protests has escaped to Thailand:

During a six-hour interview in this border town, the monk, Ashin Kovida, said he had been elected the leader of a group of 15 of his fellows and led daily protests in Yangon from Sept. 18 through Sept. 27, the day after the authorities began raiding monasteries.

He said he was inspired by the popular uprisings in Yugoslavia against the government of Slobodan Milosevic, videos of which were circulated by dissident groups in Myanmar.

Read the whole story. The tale Kovida tells of his role in organizing the protests and his subsequent escape from Burma is harrowing -- the stuff of which movies are made.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Anthropologists in ideal position to convey the Ottoman Empire's secrets to the US

The US military is putting trained anthropologists into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some anthropologists have responded by proposing a boycott of this "anthropologists on the battlefield" plan by the military (also known as the “human terrain” program). Writing in the NY Times, University of Chicago's Richard A. Schweder explains why a boycott is not such a wise idea, in the larger scheme of things:
. . . I began to imagine an occupying army of moral relativists, enforcing the peace by drawing a lesson from the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans lasted a much longer time than the British Empire in part because they had a brilliant counterinsurgency strategy. They did not try to impose their values on others. Instead, they made room — their famous “millet system” — for cultural pluralism, leaving each ethnic and religious group to control its own territory and at liberty to carry forward its distinctive way of life.
The Ottoman Turks knew the secret to keeping peace in the Middle East. One of the great tragic mistakes of the past century was the decision by the allies to break up the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. A Peace to End all Peace by David Fromkin remains one of most important books on the Middle East.

As Rick Schweder points out, the experience of the Ottoman Turks holds some important lessons for America. And so far as anthropologists can position themselves to help the United States to hear that message, so much the better.

Update: To read my follow-up to this post, click here.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Burmese and Thais celebrate the end of Buddhist Lent

I took this video last week of an impressive fireworks celebration at a temple in Burma (turn up the volume and you can hear the monks chanting).



Today Burmese, Thais, Laotians and others around Asia celebrate the end of Buddhist Lent.

What is Buddhist Lent? Also called vassa (vasso in Pali, varsah in Sanskrit) meaning "rain," it lasts for three lunar months -- from July to October -- and coincides with the rainy season in northern Southeast Asia. Traditionally during the monsoon rains, Buddhist monks go into retreat. Monks may spend more time in their temples, and may adapt a strictly vegetarian diet. In Thailand or Burma, members of the laity will sometimes take monastic vows for the duration of vassa. More at Wikipedia.

At this moment, in Laos the dragon boat races are over and people are starting to light floating candles, in Thailand people are also setting candles afloat, and the Burmese -- hopefully -- are visiting temples and letting off firecrackers (Don't miss this rather unusual Jotman video!).

Video: Jotman

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Is Jotman a disloyal ------------ ?

Threats to human freedom stem not only from totalitarian rulers – such as Burma’s. The foundation of civil society is civil discourse. Voices can be silenced through campaigns of innuendo, lies, smears -- and the attending fear of being smeared -- as surely as through government censorship.

Case in point: prior to the Iraq war, only a handful of American journalists dared to question the US Administration’s claims about Iraq’s weapons program, or the prudence of war, or America’s utter lack of preparation for the post-war occupation phase. It was a time when US journalists cowered, fearful of being labeled “disloyal Americans” if they dared to question the White House in the wake of 9/11.

Today, generally speaking, the American news media is as cowardly as ever, even as the nation stands on the brink of a new, even more reckless war. US neo-conservatives – the minds who dreamed up the Iraq war – fervently advocate an attack on Iran. The president is listening.

As Seymour Hersh explained in the New Yorker, the neo-conservatives' propaganda machine, orchestrated by renegade US Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has shifted tactics. The polling they did over the summer indicated that an attack on Iran predicated on haulting Iran’s nuclear program would be unpopular with the American People. This prompted Cheney’s neo-cons to seize upon a more marketable excuse for war with Iran: fear of terrorism.

The new plan is to portray the Revolutionary Guard (RG) as a “terrorist organization.” The first step to war was getting Congress was declare the RG a terrorist group.* The second step occurred just today when the US President authorized severe sanctions against Iran (citing the US designation of the RG as a “terrorist organization”). Apparently sanctions are quite severe. It's clearly an attempted provocation.

Obstructing the neo-conservative movement's call for an attack on a third Middle Eastern country stands something rather inconvenient for them: the facts.

One journalist, James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly, wrote a series of articles investigating the prospects for victory should the US launch an attack on Iran. He spoke with leading US military planners, four-star US generals, Iran experts, etc. He found an overwhelming consensus within the US military leadership: America’s best war planners believe a US attack on Iran would be a foolish – likely monumental -- mistake. The Pentagon planners’ bottom line: success in a war against Iran could only come at an unacceptably high cost to the United States interests in the region -- and globally.

How does the White-House backed neo-conservative movement react to coherent presentations of fact, reason, and analysis; to the independent investigations of an outstanding American journalist? This week we learned the answer.

They smear him.

Just the other day Gabriel Schoenfeld of Commentary Magazine, a neo-conservative journal, asked “Is James Fallows a Disloyal American?” Basically, Schoenfeld took something Fallows wrote entirely out of context, setting him up for a smear-job (Fallows' response to Schoenfeld posted here).

Coincidentally, about a week before Fallows wrote the post for which he was smeared, I expressed the same idea in a post at Jotman.com. This prompted me to leave a comment -- an invitation actually -- to Schoenfeld at his Commentary Magazine blog. Because my comment was not accepted for posting, I present my "invitation" here:

Dear Gabriel,

Are you looking for someone to smear today?

By your criteria, I seem to qualify for your one of your smears. I made the very same point as Fallows at my blog Jotman.com. My own post predates what Fallows wrote. In fact, on account of my timely posting, I consider myself to be more smear-worthy than he.

In my post at Jotman.com, I explain how various interest groups -- the most often cited being those with ties to Cuba, Israel, Armenia, Poland, or Ireland -- can be seen to have influenced US foreign policy in ways that have not necessarily furthered the US national interest. That's smearable, right?

Wait, why am I asking you this question? You didn't actually read Fallows before you smeared him. Anyway, just take my word for it: it's essentially the point Fallows was making when you smeared him. For the benefit of your readers this what I actually wrote:

http://jotman.blogspot.com/2007/10/us-congress-playing-turkey-while-burma.htmlplaying-turkey-while-burma.html

Can I expect the same smear treatment Fallows got? I don't see why I should have to settle for a second-rate smear. This means you will have to pretend -- as you did with Fallows -- that I was only writing about Israel.** You will have to make like my whole post was about Israel. (Never mind that I have never written an entire post concerned mainly with Israel on this blog, ever). As you well know, the truth is irrelevant to a good smear.

After you have smeared me, take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Smile! As they say, "a smear a day, keeps Iran at bay."

Jotman

P.S. Speaking of Iran, somewhere on my blog I wrote that I think the US should not bomb Iran. That makes me even more smearable, right?

The US stands on the verge of a completely pointless and self-destructive war with Iran -- a war advocated by the Vice President. The neo-cons work like a pack of attack dogs. The kennels for these hounds are the various right-wing journals and the so-called think tanks. US Vice President Dick Cheney's office calls out a command -- i.e. "get Willson!" -- and off they go. Fallows' research on Iran stands as a beacon of reasoned analysis in a sea of news media pandering to the US Vice President's world view (much of which amounts to the dissemination of Propaganda Headlines for the White House). As I have tried to show here, the recent smear-job on Fallows looks extraordinarily contrived. It smells like Cheney's dogs to me.

______________
* Sen. Hillary Clinton actually voted for the resolution. Effectively the Senator from New York has now written George W. Bush a second blank check, having already authorized one reckless war, she went at least half-way to authorizing Bush to launch a second war! (I guess she thought the vote would make her look tough-on-terror).

** The neo-cons’ feigned alliance with America’s Jewish community is certainly useful to neo-cons when they want to smear someone. But like Americans in military uniform, the Jewish are expendable to the neo-cons. The shift in tactics vis-a-vis their Iran attack plan shows this to be the case: the neo-cons now advocate the destruction of the Revolutionary Guard, but are backing off talk about strikes against alleged Iranian nuclear sites. This is not what their “friends” in the Jewish American community want at all.

The US Republican Party plays a similar kind of manipulative game with America’s evangelical Christians. At election time Republican Party candidates pretend to care deeply about family values, but when in office, they promote the interests of America’s giant media conglomerates – corporations that profit wildly through the global dissemination of gratuitous violence, sex, and vapid celebrity-focused current affairs programming.

Technology empowering Burma's junta

One thing that struck me, standing behind one of Myanmar Customs and Immigration counters last week, was how the technology had changed since my last visit, only one year ago. The Burmese border guards appeared to have acquired the same technologies as those used by the Thai border agents. Their set-up was sophisticated and very efficient. Who is selling Burmese government the latest technology? Thailand?

It could well be the United States, according to a report out today.

The CSM reports (via slashdot) that a US tech firm has sold surveillance equipment to the Burmese junta and that such sales to the Burma remain legal under US law. Essentially the junta has been using US-made software to censor the Internet. Money quote:
US export rules focus mainly on national-security criteria, says Clif Burns, a partner at Powell Goldstein LLP in Washington and editor of exportlawblog.com. "It may well be the case that something doesn't have a [security] impact on the US but is otherwise improper or not good citizenship to export," says Mr. Burns.

The only cases where censorware cannot be sold, he says, involve certain forms of encryption or countries under broad US trade sanctions. In the case of Burma, sanctions probably don't outlaw a sale, he says, because the sanctions mostly prohibit imports from Burma, not exports of US goods to it.
The CSM article names US companies believed to have sold Internet-filtering technologies to Burma. It's clear to me that the battle against totalitarianism -- in all its forms -- is the fight to secure access to free communications and the exchange of ideas. Sure, let's have an arms embargo against Burma.

But that's not going to replenish the front lines of Burma's democracy movement.

The front line is Joseph tuning into VOA or BBC (Jot); it's the mobile phone a monk named Dak used to call his friend in Mandalay (Jot); it's the email service another monk used to report a massacre to a CNN editor (Jot).

We have to think of clever ways to empower Burma's people with one kind of communications technology, while working to keep other technologies out of the hands of the junta. At times these goals may contradict (see the CSM article), but that's no reason not to try.

In other Burma-related news: Today the NY Times published an article about a monastery in Mandalay. Compare with Dak's account (previous post) -- exclusive to Jotman -- concerning another monastery in Mandalay.

Video interview with a monk at a monastery in Burma

This is the third post in a series based information I gathered while inside Burma last week.

BURMA: I spoke with a monk about the crackdown and the situation in Burma. It was not easy to find an English speaking monk in the Burmese countryside.

En route to ------, our minibus stopped at a village for lunch. After buying some fruit, I followed a group of monks, anticipating that they would lead me to their temple. I was introduced to the abbot of the temple, who summoned Dak, an English-speaking monk.

"Please make yourself at home, feel free to look around," said Dak.*

Dak led me into the main temple complex. I took off my shoes before entering the hall. Wearing only my socks, I slid across the polished white floor. Small lights illuminated the gold Buddha at the front of the room.

Seated at the front of the alter were four soldiers, paying respect. We sat down next to the soldiers. Dak handed me a plastic cup and poured me a coke. The soldiers soon got up and left. A group of women showed up, they offered plastic bucket filled with food, and on a pole sticking from the bucket was a Thai banknote - 100 baht (about $3.00). To my left a fat man in a red polo shirt sat. He seemed to be watching me -- secret police? I wondered about him. Another monk appeared, wanting to know if I followed football.

Suddently Dak turned to me and said: "I don't like the government."

I don't like the government. The statement had come out of the blue. He continued: "I really want to talk about this with you. But I am afraid my English is not good enough to explain this."

So much for my concerns about Mr. Secret Police who still sat there, staring.

I looked around to be sure the soldiers really had left. I thought I had noticed them lingering beside the door. "What about the soldiers?"

"They are our friends. They are not a problem," said Dak. The women who had come with a donation were trying to speak the another monk. "Let us go outside and talk," Dak suggested.

Dak walked me down the driveway and along the road. Outside a small shop -- heat and thirst overcoming me, I bought some water there -- I asked Dak if I could record some of his thoughts on video.

In one hand Dak held a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I listened as he spoke of the situation for the monks in Manadalay, the economic hardship of the Burmese, and the fear.



Clarifications and Commentary:
What was the situation for the monks in Dak's own monastery and town? This was the over-riding question that had prompted me to visit his temple -- and others in the vicinity. Dak told me that monks in this district had not been involved in any protests, and that there had been no arrests made. The protests were in Rangoon and Mandalay he said. One man I spoke with implied that the ethnic composition of the local monasteries had a bearing on their disinclination to protest (On this trip I became more sensitized to the ethnic divisions within Burmese society). Having personally spoken to a number of monks and non-monks in this area of Burma, I have concluded that my initial fears were unfounded: the monasteries in this district appeared intact.

Dak said monks have been getting enough to eat("One meal a day is sufficient for a monk" he said). "Persons" -- Dak's word for non-monks -- are the ones going hungry. At one point in the video Dak explains how much the average Burmese earns -- "1000 kyat" which he said is worth "25 baht" ($0.70).

Listening to Dak, it struck me how Burmese monks, in collecting alms, get to see firsthand just how little the families supporting them have for themselves to eat. It should come as no surprise that the monks felt an obligation to take to the streets -- to do something about the peoples' hunger. Most acutely, the monks realize that their own food comes at great expense to those who can barely afford to feed themselves. You or I would likely feel a need to make a strong statement were walking in the monks' sandals.

Another point that comes towards the end of the video is Dak's conviction that the monks' struggle on behalf of the people must go on. The fight is by no means finished; it may have only just begun.

Photo: Jotman
Video Note: The visual distortion on the video is intentional, but sound quality is quite good.
* Names and certain other details may have been changed.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Burmese are tuned-in with high hopes

This is the second post in a series based on information I gathered while inside Burma last week.

I sat down in a street side coffee shop and ordered some fresh orange juice.

Joseph, a construction industry supervisor, a Burmese Christian, joined me at my table.

“Burma has been the news,” I said to Joseph, attempting to broach the subject.

Joseph laughed. “The news? Yes. I’ve heard the news!”

“Lok Chen turn on the BBC!” His nephew grabbed the remote and changed the channel -- the kid was watching some kind of Thai soap -- to BBC World. Hardtalk.

I was a bit shocked. “You get BBC World?”

“Satellite.” Joseph replied. Then he looked at his watch. “Lok Chen, get us the shortwave radio. It’s time for VOA!”

Lok Chen produced a small shortwave radio. The boy fiddled with the dial. Lots of static.

At first I couldn’t make out coherent speech in any language. Joseph assured me that the radio was tuned to the Burmese language service of Voice of America. Lok Chen sat with us at the table and we all listened.

“Local news, all liars” Joseph said. “VOA, BBC – that’s where we Burmese get the real news -- real local news.”

What does the future hold in store for Burma?

“Smooth and easy. Smooth and easy.”

Not expecting this answer, I asked him to explain.

“The world will pressure the Burmese government to change.”

“What about China?”

“Bad, bad place. Burmese don’t like China.”

“India?”

“India’s balancing. Not good, not bad. Balancing.”

His impression of the US, Japan, Europe and Thailand was very favorable. (“Thailand is a free country. . . Japan has factories, good business. . . .”)

A more good natured man than Joseph I have never met. But there was tinge of sadness behind his outward cheer. He had lost his wife only two years ago, and his teenage daughters were studying in Rangoon.

“BBC local Burma news – in Burmese -- is at nine. VOA local news is at 10pm.” He told me both networks offer twice daily news reports. “BBC and VOA are real news, not LIAR’S news of the Burmese government -- Burmese government LIARS.”

Then Joseph said, "Everyone in Burma is listening to BBC and VOA.”

“Do the soldiers listen to VOA and BBC?” I asked.

“Military listen with one ear. But the Burmese people listen with two ears."





On the way back to my hotel -- it must have been close to midnight – I passed a man by the side of the road. The sound of shortwave radio static. The muffled voices. The man held the a similar model of shortwave receiver to his ear, the radio gleamed in the moonlight. Sitting in the bushes by the side of a Burmese road at midnight, this man too was also listening -- with two ears.

The next day, meeting a monk, I said: “VOA, BBC?”

He smiled. “VOA. BBC. Yes!"

My talk with the monk is the subject of the next post in this series.


Photo: Jotman
Video: In the video clip Joseph says he's counting on the UN.

Commentary: What was unexpected to me was not only how media savvy Joseph was, but how publicly Joseph displayed his media. I mean we were seated in a cafe open to the street. Anyone who happened to be walking down the street could have seen that we were watching BBC World, or heard a radio tuned in to VOA. Perhaps, still mourning the loss of his wife, his daughters away in Rangoon, Joseph had reached a point of almost reckless indifference to his own security. Or maybe police don't care if Burmese listen to shortwave radios or BBC. Thinking of the man I passed at the side of the road, I'm tempted to think the police must not care.

. . . not LIARS' news of the Burmese government . . . LIARS. Joseph made this remark a number of times. Unlike the frightened boys I had spoken with outside the temple, Joseph had no hesitations about speaking his mind to me. I cannot forget the way he intoned the word "liars." I feel the printed fails to convey the depths of Joseph's contempt for Burma's junta; something his spoken word accomplished.

“I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to die.”

This is the first post in a series based on my travels inside Burma last week.

BURMA - Last week, at night, outside a temple, I spoke to two young men, named Ki and Tup.*

After determining that one young man – Ki -- spoke some English, I decided to broach the subject.

“Burma is in the news. . . ” I said.

“We just heard about it yesterday,” Ki replied.

I asked him how he felt.

“Great danger. We are afraid to say anything. We are afraid of the police and the soldiers. Danger.” They looked around. No other people were within earshot. Nevertheless, they were clearly uncomfortable.

“Did the trouble happen in this town?”

“No.”

“Did the monks protest here?”

No answer.

Their lack of response to this question led me on a whirlwind tour of the town's monestaries: for this was a matter far too important to leave unanswered.

Ki then ended our conversation: “I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to die,” he said.

Continued.

Photo:
Jotman
* Names and certain other details have been changed to protect those I spoke with in Burma.

Monday, October 22, 2007

International Weblog Award Finalists

The nominees for the 2007 International Weblog Awards were announced today in Germany. Jotman is a finalist under the category "Reporters Without Borders Award." I was informed of Jotman's nomination by email:

The Best of the Blogs Awards - The BOBs - is an annual blogcompetition sponsored by Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster (think Germany's BBC). The BOBs consider sites from 10 different languages and is the biggest international blog competition in the world.

Your blog has been nominated for the Reporters Without Borders Award. This award goes to blogs which "take a strong stance for freedom of information all over the world".

Your site definitely fits that bill and I hope that you encourage your users to vote for your site.
Here's how to vote for me. First, click here. Second, click on the small white circle to select Jotman. Third, scroll to the bottom of the page. There they want you to enter the code shown in the box, your name and email, and click "I've read the fine print." Then hit "Send."

Thanks for voting. - Jotman

U Obhasa, hunted monk leader, speaks out

The Irrawaddy reports:

A leading monk—one of four being hunted down by the junta—told The Irrawaddy from his hiding place that monk-led demonstrations may resume in Burma in late October, in spite of at least 100 monks killed during pro-democracy demonstrations and about 1,200 monks arrested.

“Our people are in poverty,” said U Obhasa. “How can monks be silent about the real situation in the country?”

“The situation is terrible for monks,” he said. “But we still fight on for the Dhamma. We will resume our activities for Dhamma soon, perhaps in late October. Dhamma (justice) will win over Ad-Dhamma (injustice).”

U Obhasa said life is uprooted, and he moves from safe house to safe house, sometimes daily.

“I have not been able to sleep for weeks,” he said. “Our future is not certain even for the next few hours.”

U Obhasa said many monks are still missing and their whereabouts are unknown.

About 50 nuns were arrested during the junta’s crackdown on the Sangha in Rangoon, which started on September 26. He said he believes reports that some nuns were raped and sexually harassed by soldiers at detention centers.

“The soldiers are very crude,” he said.

Monks and monasteries in Rangoon and other cities remain the military regime’s main target, said U Obhasa.

“If soldiers see a monk in a robe on the street, they will follow the monk,” he said.

I have exclusive interview reports from inside Burma that I will post shortly.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Swedish toys for Thailand's generals - the Burma angle

Reuters (via Fonzi's blog) reports that Thailand's air force has agreed to buy six Swedish-made JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets from Sweden's Saab for about half a billion US dollars. A second-phase purchase of roughly equivalent size is planned within the next ten years.

As it happens, there's a Burma-angle to this report. And it highlights the fundametal problem here.

Just the other day, Thailand's prime minister Surayud Chulanont said that Thailand's unelected interim government was in no "moral" position to approve punitive measures against the Burmese junta following the crackdown. By the Thai prime minister's own logic, surely a military-junta appointed interim government has no business authorizing major long-term defense expenditures. Now there's a conflict of interest!

The Thai media have shown little interest in covering this story, but Fonzi at Thailand Jumped the Shark writes, "do the math, it comes out roughly to $90 million plus change a plane. Ninety million is a lot of money for one fighter craft " Fonzi has done some serious digging (his comments page is also informative), and Bangkok Pundit provides further context.

"What's good for the Thai military is good for Thailand" has been the unspoken motto of Thailand since last years coup. Alarmingly, the Thai media seems to have swallowed this line. This jet fighter procurement is but the latest -- though possibly the most egregious -- example in recent months of the Thai military taking care of its own priorities first.

Does Thailand need these fighter jets? One justification by the military for the purchase of new jets could be the insurgency in Southern Thailand. One might well ask whether Thailand's generals now need the Southern insurgency in so far as they need excuses to justify initiatives that could increase their power and line their pockets. One historical analogy to the present juncture is the Thai military's role in stoking and exaggerating the communist insurgency of the 1970s. A misguided policy served to expand the Thai military and empower and enrich Thai generals at the expense of civil society. Another -- contemporary -- analogy might be present-day Burma. Some speculate that Burma's junta chooses not to completely defeat Burma's own ethnic insurgencies in order that the junta might justify its expansive budgets and repressive policies.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Blogger Jotman goes inside Burma

This week I was in Burma. I spoke to Burmese students, Buddhist monks, businessmen, tradesmen, and leaders within the Muslim and Christian communities.

Every evening, across Burma, millions of Burmese tune their shortwave radios to into Voice of American and BBC to get the local news. I listened to VOA with a Burmese family. The VOA broadcast is in Burmese, and the announcer is reporting that the United Nations Special Liaison to Myanmar, Gambari, is in Indonesia.



Much more to come.

Coming Soon: Jotman in Burma

Monday, October 15, 2007

A Conversation with a Burmese Muslim

Today I spoke with a Burmese man of the Muslim faith about the recent events in his homeland. Mohammad (not his real name) described to me what members of his family living in Burma had been through: He spoke of the torture and disfigurement of one relative, and he told me another person he knew -- a woman -- had been burned alive. These horrible crimes occurred several years ago.

Mohammad spoke of the respect Burma's Muslims have for the monks of Burma.

"A few years ago, the government told soldiers to shave their heads and then go and attack Muslim neighborhoods." He said they had done this in an effort to get Burma's Muslims fighting the Buddhists.

The regime's strategy did not seem to have worked.

"As Muslims, we honor the monks' special place in our society. We are horrified at the fact the regime will do this to its own holy men. We see what they will do to monks, and we see that these men in charge must truly be crazy." Mohammad pointed to his head.

He was deeply worried about Burma, but also he said, "we have the upper hand now against the regime. They have cut off telecommunications. Cut the Internet. They are trying to put a wall around the country. They are afraid, should the world see what they are doing. . . "

Mohammad said, "This time is different than 1988. Back then it was democracy. This time the people are hungry." He pointed to his stomach, and his face looked pained. "They don't have enough to eat. The people are really hurting! They protest now because they have no choice." It's not about having a better political option this time round: it's now a matter of survival.

It's a race against the clock said Mohammad. "We have only a short window of opportunity; while Burma is center stage, we need the world put pressure the regime."

He added, "I am hopeful about what the Americans are saying. But they must do more. America has got to go to China. . . " Mohammad put his hand on my shoulder, "and say this and this is what is at stake for China if you don't work with us on Burma." Mohammad said the Olympics ought to be brought up with the Chinese. He also said every country needs to examine its business ties with the regime.

See also: "Muslims, Christians and Hindus defending the monasteries"

Sunday, October 14, 2007

TRACKING BURMA'S HIDDEN CRISIS

Hidden Crisis of Burma - Reports Tracking Page
Last update: 23:00 in Bangkok (22:30 in Rangoon) on Sunday 14 October

What is the Hidden Crisis?
The Hidden Crisis in Burma would appear to entail Crimes Against Humanity on a vast scale. Reports concerning this new crisis can be grouped into several categories. 1) They speak to round-ups of civilians and monks, beatings, imprisonment and torture, and the transfer of prisoners to unspecified locations. 2) Other reports concern the denial of medical treatment to the wounded, leading to preventable deaths. 3) There are reports of monks being massacred. 4) There are reports of a large number of "secret cremations."

Why is it a Hidden Crisis?
The term "the hidden campaign" was first used by Rosalind Russell of The Independent. Personally, I prefer the term "Hidden Crisis." It's a fact that the campaign itself -- a massive one waged by the junta against its people -- is largely hidden from view. Few news agencies have correspondents on the ground in Burma. The Internet is blocked, so it's hard for Burmese to blog what's happening (as they did during the protests). But, unless you live in Britain, it's not only the campaign that is hidden; the crisis is also hidden. It's a hidden crisis largely because the gatekeepers of the US media severely discount the validity of reports necessary to telling the story (see here). The Hidden Crisis is unquestionably a bigger story than the September's highly visible protests -- in terms of how it impacts the Burmese. But it's a more challenging story to document, and an even harder one to prove.

We can't help that we don't see the campaign; but if the crisis is invisible -- well, frankly, that's our fault. At Jotman, for the past 10 days, I've taken it as a personal mission to make this campaign less hidden; I have collected and collated reports; at Jotman.com you will find every report concerning the Hidden Crisis I know about. I have explored inconsistencies I found among overlapping reports (see here). I also set up a tracking page, previous to this one, to group monk massacre reports.

As expatriates in Rangoon told the Sunday Times, ". . .the consistency of the stories makes them credible." I am convinced that the story of the Hidden Crisis becomes more coherent and less speculative if you look at the reports not as a series of newspaper stories, or isolated reports, but as a whole. It's time someone brought all these reports together, so we can look at them, side by side, in one place. That's the purpose of this post, of this "tracking jot."

Method of Tracking
For each category, there is a brief description, I tally the number of reports, note the origin of the report (phone call, interview, email, blog, etc), and indicate the sources where such a report was collated or written up. I have also addressed the question of the validity of the reports (beyond the obvious issue that most of these reports have come from anonymous sources). If you are journalist or editor in a position to clarify any these points, I invite you to email me and set the record straight.

I. ROUND-UPS, BEATINGS, TORTURE, IMPRISONMENT
Description: "Harrowing accounts smuggled out of Burma reveal how a systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror is being waged by the Burmese security forces as they take revenge on those suspected of involvement in last month's pro-democracy uprising."
No. of unique reports: numerous
Source of reports: many; various
Reports compiled by:The Independent (Jot) and Guardian (most recently), many sources.
Validity: extremely high
(Note: I am still working on this category, it was too big to tackle last night.)

II. DENIAL OF MEDICAL TREATMENT
Description: Apparently "orders went out to hospitals and clinics not to treat the wounded." Beaten, injured or wounded people taken into custody received no treatment.
This evidence has given rise to grave concern for the well being of elderly monks and very young novices rounded up, by all accounts, with brutality."
No. of unique reports: 2
Source of reports: Western medical expert speaking to respected Burmese doctors, 18-year-old novice monk*,
Reports first compiled by: Sunday Times (Jot), Sydney Morning Herald (Jot)
Validity: High: “We have first-hand evidence from respected Burmese doctors that hospitals and clinics were ordered not to give any treatment to the wounded,” said a foreign medical expert.

III. MASSACRES OF MONKS
Description: There are also reports of monks being killed in mass executions.
No. of unique reports: 3 (plus 1 report of extreme brutality)
Source of reports: interview*, diplomat's source, email to CNN*, phone+blog
Reports first compiled by: Daily Mail (Jot), CNN website (Jot), Jotman (Tracking Jot), Bangkok Post/Sunday Times (Jot)
Validity: Do these reports all refer to different monasteries or the same ones? The BBC interviewed the same defecting Burmese military man as the Daily Mail had, but the BBC report omitted all-important details from the Daily Mail report concerning the alleged massacre. Why? (See this Jot)

IV. SECRET CREMATIONS
Description: "The secret cremations have been reported by local people who have seen olive green trucks covered with tarpaulins rumbling through the area at night and watched smoke rising continuously from the furnace chimneys."
No. of unique reports: many
Source of reports: Burmese - told to diplomats and aid workers.
Reports first compiled by: Sunday Times (Jot)
Validity: Sunday Times journalist expresses confidence in the reports: "Their accounts have been volunteered to international officials and aid workers in Rangoon, Burma’s main city. The consensus in the foreign community is that the consistency of the stories makes them credible."

* Denotes report said to have come from an eyewitness (not secondhand). If vague, no star.

What to do about the Hidden Crisis
It's up to us to pressure the news media to cover this story, lobby governments and international agencies to act, and lend our support to groups positioned to make a difference. This much is certain: if you don't pay attention, nobody else will. The Burmese have nobody else they can turn to. It's up to us.

Thailand's Looming Succession Crisis

HM the King of Thailand has apparently a stroke and been hospitalized. King Bumibol is widely believed to have exerted a stabilizing impact on Thailand during times of crisis.

For the past year, Thailand has been under the rule of a caretaker government set up after a military coup deposed the elected Prime Minister, Thaksin. Elections for a new government are scheduled for December, but there have been persistent rumors about a second coup. In August The Economist neatly summed-up the situation:
The army may have doomed Thailand to further cycles of constitution, crisis, and coup. . . . The next flashpoint may not be far off. Hundreds of Mr. Thaksin's former MPs have regrouped under the banner of the People's Power Party (PPP). . . . But the generals will surely do their damnedest to thwart a Thakinite restoration.
Bloomberg reports on the king's health and the issue succession:
. . . few Thais publicly discuss the succession to the throne. Bhumibol's only son, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, is most likely to succeed his father. . .

The crown could also pass to the unmarried Princess Sirindhorn, who shares her father's popularity, according to , according to Paul Handley, author of ``The King Who Never Smiles,'' a biography of Bhumibol. A 1974 constitutional change enabled a woman to ascend to the throne.

Thailand's present political situation is precarious by any measure. Long live the king!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

What happened re. Burma on October 12 - 13

It's 15:30 in Bangkok (15:00 in Rangoon) on Saturday October 13

- Myanmar's military regime rejected a U.N. statement calling for negotiations with the opposition. (AP)

INSIDE BURMA

- Hidden Crisis update: Britain's Guardian has just published a report from Burma, describing the "unspoken terror" of the Burmese in Rangoon.

- "The Butcher of Depayin" is dead: The fourth-ranking member of the regime, Prime Minister Soe Win, 59, died Friday in a military hospital after a long illness. He was nicknamed "the Butcher of Depayin" for his role in the 2003 attack on Suu Kyi and her followers in that northern town. (AP)

- Higher education system dismal: An on-the-ground report from Myanmar in today’s issue of Science paints a bleak portrait of the higher-education system in the country formerly known as Burma (CHE). Comment: No wonder bright Burmese kids have such anachronistic career aspirations (see my report from Burma here).

- Pro-government rallies: Tens of thousands of people were taken early Saturday to a pro-government rally in Yangon in a show of strength by Myanmar's junta, as a UN envoy returned to Southeast Asia to pile pressure on the regime. (AFP) The crowd shouted slogans denouncing VOA and the BBC (Bangkok Post). Comment: a newspaper photo of female participats in the pro-junta rally presents a sea of glum faces -- a far cry from the shining faces of those demonstrating monks.


INTERNATIONAL
- Thailand's junta likes Burma's junta: Thailand's army-appointed government will take no action against Myanmar's junta for its bloody crackdown on democracy protests as it lacks the moral authority, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said on Saturday.

"But if we do anything that will cause bad feelings with our neighbour, that will be problematic for the new elected government," he said. "My government, therefore, is very careful on this issue."

Despite Surayud's admission, Thailand remains one of the few countries with any sort of lever on the junta, mainly because it buys around $2 billion (1 billion pounds) of natural gas every year from its neighbour -- nearly half of all Myanmar's export earnings. (UPI)
Comment: That was lame. Thai Deputy PM Sonthi made a strong statement defending the butchers of Burma after the shooting had already started. How much influence does Thailand have over Burma? Bangkok Pundit investigates.

- Most arms deals with Myanmar legal: and some are even reported to the United Nations. But countries more sensitive to international opinion apparently try to mask their activities. Analysts say these include India, as well as Israel and Singapore. (AP)

- Burma's arms deals with North Korea: The most mystery shrouds the junta's deals with North Korea, widely believed to have supplied weapons such as Scud-type missiles that other nations are unwilling or unable to provide. (AP)

- Burma crisis refugees in Thailand: Burmese monks fleeing into Thailand have been warned that Thai officials may deport them for traveling without papers. (UPI)

- Gary Player designed golf courses for junta: Renowned golfer Gary Player has reiterated his company was only involved in the design of a golf course in Burma and had no links with the controversial Myanmar regime.

US Congress playing Turkey while Burma burns


This is unbelievable. We have a series of reports out of Burma of a sinister hidden crackdown by the junta against its people. It's happening now. There are many reports of beatings -- the injured being denied medical treatment, secret cremations, and monks being massacred. It is widely acknowledged that thousands of monks and protestors have simply "gone missing." And we hear that protestors are still being round-up; police and soldiers go door-to-door searching homes for suspected protestors. Privately, an editor at CNN even brought up the "G word" in relation to the situation in Burma: Genocide.

So what is the US Congress doing? They are busy debating a statement about a genocide that is believed to have taken place in Turkey almost 100 years ago. What's more, the debate is stirring up anti-American feelings in Turkey, one of America's closest allies. Obviously, the US needs all the friends it's got in the Middle East because Americans troops are dying in neighbouring Iraq.

There you have it: a real genocide -- one that the US Congress could actually do something about -- may well be happening in Burma at this moment. And what does the US Congress do? It decides to debate one that occurred 100 years ago, angering the Turks.

Congress is voting on the "Armenian genocide resolution" to score points with Armenian voters. The great weakness of US foreign policy has long been that it gets warped by elected representatives' eagerness to cater to the narrow interests of various ethnic constituencies. Sometimes this produces policies that run counter to the national interest of the United States.*

Photos: I took the photo at the top of the page in Northern Burma in 2006. The second photo, which I took in 2002, shows Turkish women in Bursa, an historic town not far from Istanbul. Visiting Turkey even prior to the Iraq war -- which is very unpopular among Turks -- I noted considerable Anti-Americanism. The Turkish people don't want any US Congress telling them about right and wrong. The US has no moral authority in their eyes. It won't make them more open to the question of genocide; in fact, it's almost certain to have to opposite effect. Turks are fed up with the US. They are also angry with racist Europeans who say corruption-ravaged (but Christian) Romania qualifies for EU membership, but not their own country. They see where the Greek part of Cyprus gets to join the EU, but not the Muslim side. Why do politicians in the West -- European and American alike-- act as if they are determined to alienate the people of Turkey? It's just plain stupid.

* The election cycle takes precedence over national interest in the minds of little politicians like House Leader Nancy Pelosi, who stands firmly behind the nonsensical -- and possibly dangerous -- Armenian declaration. At times this unfortunate aspect of the US political system has led to some questionable foreign policy decisions; most commonly cited is US policy towards Israel and Cuba. Catering to Polish voters in Chicago, in the late 90's the US drew the whole of the old Eastern Block into NATO -- an arrogant and assertive move which the awakening Russia bear has certainly not forgotten. Less egregiously, Senator Ted Kennedy, catering to his Boston constituents, was able to change US immigration law to favor the Irish.

Friday, October 12, 2007

"a hidden campaign . . . even more sinister and terrifying than the open crackdown"

Today another highly disturbing report out of Britain, published in the The Independent.
The first-hand accounts describe a campaign hidden from view, but even more sinister and terrifying than the open crackdown in which the regime's soldiers turned their bullets and batons on unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Rangoon, killing at least 13. At least then, the world was watching.

The hidden crackdown is as methodical as it is brutal. First the monks were targeted, then the thousands of ordinary Burmese who joined the demonstrations, those who even applauded or watched, or those merely suspected of anti-government sympathies.
I have been writing about this hidden crackdown for over a week (start here). This is but the latest in a string reports out of Britain that many around the world are not being told about.

"Some of the novice monks were under 10 years old, the youngest was just seven. They were stripped of their robes and given prison sarongs. Some were beaten, leaving open, untreated wounds, but no doctors came."

On his release, the monk spoke to a Western aid worker in Rangoon, who smuggled his testimony and those of other prisoners and witnesses out of Burma on a small memory stick.

Another report:
Mr Kyaw told the aid worker: "The prisoners were let out of the trucks. Even though now they were safe, they were still so scared. They walked with their hands shielding their faces as if they were expecting blows. They were lined up in rows and sat down against the wall, still cowering. Their clothes were dirty, some stained with blood. Our friend had a clean T-shirt on. We were relieved because we thought this meant that he had not been beaten. We were wrong. He had been beaten on the head and the blood had soaked his shirt which he carried in a plastic bag."
This strongly reinforces the point I made in the previous post:

The scale of the crackdown remains undocumented. The regime has banned journalists from entering Burma and has blocked Internet access and phone lines.

Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK says the number of dead is possibly in the hundreds. "The regime covers up its atrocities. We will never know the true numbers," he said.

At the weekend the government said it has released more than half of the 2,171 people arrested, but exile groups estimate the number of detentions between 6,000 and 10,000.

In Rangoon, people say they are more frightened now than when soldiers were shooting on the streets.

"When there were demonstrations and soldiers on the streets, the world was watching," said a professional woman who watched the marchers from her office.

"But now the soldiers only come at night. They take anyone they can identify from their videos. People who clapped, who offered water to the monks, who knelt and prayed as they passed. People who happened to turn and watch as they passed by and their faces were caught on film. It is now we are most fearful. It is now we need the world to help us."

For my reflections on this last quotation, see my next post (here).

How Asean will defend it's "do nothing" approach to Burma

An informative piece in Singapore's Straights Times suggests how Asean leaders will try to talk themselves out of taking tough action against Burma:
It might come as cold comfort, but if it had not been for Burma's membership of Asean (Association of South- east Asian Nations) and five years of what the organisation calls "constructive engagement", the bloodshed in last month's monk-led protests could have been a lot worse.

Self-serving or not, Asean secretary-general Ong Keng Yong's assertion may hold some water. During the 1988 uprising in Burma, troops killed at least 3,000 protesters. This time the body count is anywhere between 13 and 130, with indications that, for all its brutality, Burma's military regime did hold back somewhat.

"We believe they did act with a certain restraint," Ong told The Straits Times. "They see a certain usefulness in Asean. They don't want to just walk away from the table. The situation could be a lot worse. They could be outside the membership and not give a damn about the rest of South-east Asia."

The real test, however, will come at the Nov 19-21 Asean summit in Singapore, when its leaders will have to deal with the perfect diplomatic storm - the crisis in Burma itself and a new charter giving the organisation the authority to expel a member for a breach of principles.

It's a highly informative article. Nevertheless, I think journalists have no business declaring the body count in Burma "is anywhere between 13 and 130" when the true figure could well be many times higher than 130.

I would refer journalists and Asean officials to this post. It summarizes -- and sources -- the big unknowns: reports of secret cremations, the massacre of monks, and the question as to whether Burma's hospitals had been ordered not to treat the wounded. Frankly, there are too many such reports from too many sources for anyone outside the Burmese junta to say they know how many died with such specificity. It's simply not possible to know the number of dead at this time. So let's stop pretending that any of the numbers we have are meaningful.

What we don't know about the extent of the crackdown in Burma far exceeds the extent of knowledge of the crackdown. There is still no working Internet in Burma! How many international news agencies even have correspondents in Rangoon?

The Asean leader's assertion of confidence in the regime and in the moderating impact of Burma's Asean membership is based on highly spurious figures that the world press has taken far too seriously. Journalists and politicians should not assume published figures of dead or missing Burmese present a valid reflection of the full scope of the terrible reality of what has happened and is presently occurring in Burma.

Because they do not.

Health and Economic Development in Burma (Myanmar)

The regime has succeeded in maintaining economic growth of over 5 percent annually, earning it widespread trust by the people. Therefore, as far as I can see, there are few who are willing to challenge the government at the risk of their lives.

Yoichi Yamaguchi,
Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar 1995-97,
on October 10, 2007
You can read more of the former Japanese Ambassador's controversial views here. The best response to Yamaguchi is to present some data concerning the health of the Burmese people. Because the numbers speak for themselves:
  • growth rate 4-5%
  • budget allocates 2% for health care Vs. 40% for military
  • infectious disease rate is the equal of many African countries
  • one of the world's highest rates of tuberculosis (TB)
  • strains of drug-resistant TB and malaria are spreading
  • World Food Program (WFP) tries to feed 1.6 million Burmese, but largely prevented from doing so by the junta
  • One third of Burmese children under age five are "chronically malnourished" (WFP)
Source: The Economist. For more facts and figures about Burma, see this post.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Japanese support for Burma's junta

The truly astonishing essay by Yoichi Yamaguchi, former Japanese Ambassador to Rangoon, in which he voices his unwavering support for the Burmese junta (next post, see here), prompted me to probe Japan's involvement with Burma. I came across an article that appeared in the Irrawaddy in 2000 by Neil Lawrence. Although somewhat dated, it is highly relevant to my question. It also refers to the former Japanese Ambassador.
Relations between the Japanese government and Burmese opposition groups both inside Burma and in Japan are more strained now than at any other point in the past decade. . . Japan pushes ahead with a program of democratization in Burma that inspires little confidence in dissidents. Once forming the western extremity of Japan’s World War II-era empire, Burma is still seen by many Japanese politicians as "part of our garden, our sphere of influence," according to Nemoto. The loss of a great deal of this influence to China since 1988, and the desire for access to Burma’s largely untapped economic potential, are generally seen as the key reasons for Japan’s persistent efforts to make a full-scale comeback as the military regime’s chief benefactor.

While Japan’s Burma policy is ostensibly linked to improvements in the country’s political situation, many have their doubts about Tokyo’s claims that it is trying to promote democracy. "Frankly speaking, I don’t think the Japanese government has much interest in the democratization of Burma," says Mizuho Fukushima, one of a group of 16 parliamentarians from the opposition Social Democratic Party. . .

Despite such intransigence on the part of the SPDC, however, it is the attitude of the opposition that Japanese officials seem to find harder to take. "Ninety-nine percent of the Japanese embassy staff in Rangoon is pro-SPDC," maintains Nemoto. "They meet with the SPDC almost every day, but with the NLD only once or twice a month... They feel (Suu Kyi) is very stubborn." . . . "

In the past, Aung San Suu Kyi has stated that Japan, as a democracy, should take a stronger position to support the development of democracy in Burma. As that support is not always evident, however, she is losing patience," notes Tamaki Ohashi, a Tokyo-based Burma activist. She adds, however, that the appointment of Ambassador Shigeru Tsumori to the Japanese embassy in Rangoon may help restore some balance after damage done by a former ambassador, Yoichi Yamaguchi, an open supporter of the regime who wrote two books lauding the junta’s efforts to develop the nation.
Photo: Fallen Japanese Cameraman Kenji Nagai, shot dead at point-blank range by a Burmese soldier on September 27, 2007.