Outrage and dead-ends

I have not said anything about the disaster in Burma, because I haven't had anything to say beyond "It's a disaster." And, that people should call the country Burma -- as the Bush Administration, Senators Clinton, McCain*, and Obama, and the Washington Post do -- rather than Myanmar, the term chosen by its junta and now accepted by CNN, NPR, and the New York Times.
...
Unfortunately, saying that the regime is evil doesn't automatically indicate how to help its unfortunate people. Invasions -- even for humanitarian purposes -- should be a very last resort. And without spelling out the whole reasoning, the U.S. is not in a great position now to be organizing an international invasion force, no matter how noble the cause. As the international frustrations of the last week have suggested, the main option is the unsatisfying one of putting together as much pressure from as many sources as possible, including China**, to force the regime away from its outrageous refusal to allow aid workers in.

(*About McCain: if it really is true that he has given a major convention role to a lobbyist who represented the Burmese junta, McCain needs to dump that person forthwith -- or be pilloried for not doing so every day between now and the election. Update: I see that the lobbyist, Doug Goodyear, has just quit the convention job. Next, maybe giving back the $300,000+ the generals paid him, to a human rights group? **About China: the latest outrage by the Burmese generals should not become the latest reason to threaten China with an Olympic boycott or disruption. The Chinese government has some influence over the Burmese regime -- but just some. It is better to make China part of the solution to this problem, by pointing out that a regime's refusal to save its own people is the strongest possible reason for an exception in China's "non-interference with other sovereign states" doctrine.)

A year ago, during the time of riots and crackdowns, I posted several pictures of what Rangoon looked like just before the fighting began. Here and after the jump, a few other pictures from that time.
More at Evil in Burma

It's the End of the World As We Know it

General Ne Win banned banknotes that were not divisible by nine

DON'T FORGET BURMA by ~Morphine101

In September 1987, the superstitious General Ne Win who headed the military junta in Burma (renamed Myanmar soon thereafter) banned all high value banknotes that were not divisible by nine. People in a country blighted by years of the junta’s despotism and economic mismanagement lost their savings overnight. This triggered Burma’s first massive uprising, with its indelible image of saffron and red clad monks marching with overturned bowls—a refusal to take alms from the junta or its soldiers amounted to excommunication. On Sept. 18, 1988, the army opened gunfire on a crowd of tens of thousands of protestors in Rangoon (now Yangon), and trucked away hundreds more whose fate remains unknown. It is estimated that more than 3,000 Burmese were killed that black September.
The Failed Saffron Revolution

WTF?

According to Wikipedia...
In 1963 Ne Win issued a decree that 50 and 100 kyat notes would cease to be legal tender giving the reasons that they were subject to hoarding by blackmarketeers and also financing of the various insurgencies. Limited compensation was offered but not universally taken up, and people's life savings were wiped out overnight. At least one insurgency, that of the ethnic Kayan, was triggered by this act. 'Demonetization' again occurred in 1987, this time affecting the 75 kyat notes which fuelled the simmering discontent that came to a head in 1988.
Ne Win was also noted for his interest in numerology. In September 1987 he ordered the Burmese currency, the kyat, to be issued in denominations of 15, 35, 45, 75 and 90 kyats, besides the existing 5 and 10 kyat notes. He reportedly changed the currency to add up to nine because an astrologer said he would live to 90 if he did this. Ne Win was also well known for his penchant for yadaya - cabalistic rituals and spells performed in order to ward off misfortune


In other news, this is my latest collection of search term poetry:

watch out for those falling houses
thinspo blinkies
zillow book
all songs by nicole serin
smellmeand.com
blogaboutablogaboutablogabout.blogspot.com
actress serin
szandora
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t.s.eliot
ghandi vivisection
i to seem all 1dick
naked casey lynch
470 cep french loan brokerage
burmese blog
morgan o'brien public affairs officer
blog panties
fruit loops' days on saturday morning television
bardot hq brigitte
blog brigitte bardot
blog bestiality
dwayne dyer
chastity bra
bizarre japanese bras
patty give the frog a loan rolling stone
marketa bondage
how rich is dr. wayne dyer
becoming an organic pig farmer



In entirely unrelated news, Microsoft's Santa bot says:
You want me to eat what?!? It's fun to talk about oral sex, but I want to chat about something else...

Never quite thought of Aung San Suu Kyi that way...

Despite being a monk, I have always believed that Aung San Suu Kyi would be good and wild in bed. I mean I don't think she shares my carnal enthusiasm, but you know what I mean.

In the absence of any news from Burma (and even our levitation techniques cannot penetrate the censorship), I am a bit worried about her. I mean, house arrest aside, what else might they be doing to her? I can only wonder...

More from Wan Ker-Sin's Worried
BTW the video is well worth watching.

Artwork: Buddha Is My Om Boy by ~T-a-g-g-e-r

Featured Baabaabaab comment: Mitchell on the "The world would soon forget?"

In regards to Edgar's Engdahl link in "The world would soon forget?"

Mitchell said...
Edgar's link is temporarily not working, but you can still find Engdahl's essay at Asia Times, and elsewhere.

I do not think that even Engdahl says that "it was outside influences that got the unrest started". Price rises are always good for an angry mob, especially in a place where the state owns everything. And people do not need the US State Department's go-ahead before they start using digital media to smuggle out words and images of a crackdown. (I note that he overlooked "Blog about a blog about a blog about a blog", in his catalog of made-in-USA subversive institutions.)

There are a few other potentially misleading items I can see. The IMF today is far from being the government-toppling economic enforcer it was in Indonesia ten years ago. And "Malabar 07" only got underway four weeks after the demonstrations started. So I would be very cautious in adopting Engdahl's interpretation of world events. (For a further example, go to his website and see his "ex peak oil" essay, especially his remarks about Russian "abiotic oil" expertise being the prize in the Yukos affair.)

October 16, 2007 6:09 PM

Junta Restores Internet Access in Burma

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Myanmar's (mee-an-MAWRS') military government has restored Internet access and relaxed a nighttime curfew, a partial easing of its crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

In related news...

The Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIF)- an organisation created to help people in China bypass Government censorship of the Internet, says that Burmese web surfers have discovered its facilities and are using them to circumvent Internet censorship amid the recent crackdown by the Myanmar military junta.

The Global Internet Freedom Consortium was formed in 2006 as an alliance of organisations developing and deploying anti-censorship technologies for Internet users in oppressive regimes. The Consortium says it partners "have contributed significantly to the advancement of information freedom in China."

According to GIF, two of its member companies - UltraReach Internet Corp (UR) and Dynamic Internet Technology received over 120,000 average daily hits from IP addresses originating from Burma in September, a sharp increase from less than 40,000 back in August.

Excerpted from Burmese bloggers and surfers discover anti-censorship web technologies


The National's slow drone song.

Free Burma NOW!

Under cover of a curfew, security forces raided monasteries and pagodas across the city. At about 2am, they descended on Ngwe Kya Yan, smashing windows, decapitating statues of Buddha, stealing jewellery and cash and thrashing monks with cudgels.

The next morning, the director-general of Burma's Religious Affairs Department visited the monastery to ask its abbot to leave for the Kaba Aya Pagoda in another part of the city. The engineer, who was there, said the abbot told the official: "I will not abandon this place."

He said: "The director-general told the monks to clean up all the blood, but they refused because they wanted to show what had happened."

At 11.30am, after the official delegation left, the soldiers and police returned with members of an official militia called Masters of Force.

The engineer said: "From every side ... people came out and surrounded the monastery. The soldiers and police inside began to panic because they cannot leave."

- Excerpted from Locals die defending monks


Nepali Monks Rally For Burmese Pals

Free Burma! Petition Widget

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Strange Juxtaposition

Quick update: Gotta love the leadership the U.S. of F-ing A has provided!
Sweet BS La-da-da-da!
Awesome leadership. Where's the applause for this upstanding country of entropic, fat, consumers of perpetual crap?
Yeah, I plan to boycott as much as necessary.


Since Chevron owns Unocal* I found the juxtaposition of their advertising in this Dashing hopes in Myanmar article rather unsettling.

*CCR filed suit against the Unocal oil corporation alleging that it was aware of and supported slave labor, murder, rape and forced relocation of villagers by the Burmese military during the construction of an oil pipeline from Burmese oil fields to Thailand. The parties to several lawsuits related to Unocal's energy investment in the Yadana gas pipeline project in Myanmar/Burma have reached a settlement. Although the terms are confidential, the settlement in principle will compensate plaintiffs and provide funds enabling plaintiffs and their representatives to develop programs to improve living conditions, health care and education and protect the rights of people from the pipeline region.

More on Doe v. Unocal

International Bloggers' Day for Burma on October 4th

Take part in this action for a Free Burma!
1. Publish a posting (Bulletin Board, Forum, Blog, Social Network, Static Website…) on the 4th of October with the header: “Free Burma!”
2. Tag it if you can with “Free Burma”
3. Choose a grafic from our Grafics page and
4. Link to http://www.free-burma.org/ there your readers will find some informations about the campaign and Burma and a participant list which you can join. Even if you're a webmaster of a bulletin board or social network you will find a special Group List to join.
5. Feel free to write any additional text you want
If you have no website or blog we need you even more: Please help us to spread the word across the internet, tell your neighbours, friends or kids and first of all: Sign our list of participants!

Note all of the diamonds Than Shwe's daughter is wearing at her wedding...