posted by Damozel | On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart pointed out what most of us in America would have to admit: far from being "outraged" by events in Burma [Myanmar] as our president represented to the UN General Assembly, most of us had no idea that anything in particular was going on there till we heard about the president's speech. We were outraged? We were? Really? Well, anyway we are now, those of us who bother paying attention to anything that happens elsewhere in the world.
The Brits, an island and seafaring people keenly aware that there is a world outside their own borders, have been watching events in Burma build up to a crisis for some time now. On September 27, Britain's verbally unimpaired prime minister published a comment in The Independent that bluntly enjoined the regime to "stand down the troops. The age of impunity is over." (The Independent).
Stirring words which I hope this will prove to be true, but they aren't true for the present. The Independent speculates that hundreds may be dead, as the junta tries to keep the scope and brutality of the suppression of the protests out of the world's line of sight.(The Independent)
It's their standard mode of operation in the face of dissent. Gordon Brown, the British PM: "Burma already had one of the worst human rights records in the world: a country of only 20 million people with a thousand political prisoners, 500,000 political refugees, poets and journalists tortured for speaking out..."(The Independent). Such tactics appear to be on the verge of successfully quelling the "10 days of ever braver defiance."(The Independent)
In a report that well conveys the implacable cold-blooded inhumanity of the junta's response to Burmese citizens, a journalist describes the scene as the junta cracked down.
Forty monks and about 20,000 people met at Jakhasan Street just before 2pm on Thursday. The crowd was mixed – young students, women and some Muslims too. The message had come from the monks the day before to meet there. A few monks had managed to get out of the temple for the meeting, although the temples are closed by the government.
The leader of the monks said to us all: "Just pray, don't shout, don't throw rocks. Pray for peace, protection and love." The civilians were very moved and some were crying. Some people were clapping, many were praying. They were inspired by the monks and very angry at the government.
Then the crowd came down along Jakhasan Street. Everyone was trying to help and give them water. The crowd was not afraid, until the police came... By now maybe 60,000 people had come.... Then police and soldiers started to come towards us banging their shields. They had batons and guns. There seemed so many. Some of the crowd ran, but the rest just sat down and started to pray. They didn't throw stones, they did not shout against the government, they just sat down and prayed. The police told everyone to move but we stayed where we were.
The police fired into the crowd. First they shot rubber bullets and tear gas. Everyone was running and screaming. People were hit. I turned round and I tried to take pictures of everything.
A group of police ran up to us, they pulled down two of us. They stuck a gun into my chest. They told me to give them the camera. I said no. They said they would shoot. I was so frightened and crying. They took the camera. I thought they were going to take us in the police car or shoot us, but then an older soldier came over and said, "These are not journalists, they are just kids – don't waste time with them." They kept my camera and we ran.
So now everyone was running. The police were shooting everything – houses, trees, anything. They were firing bullets rapidly. The bullets were flying over our heads. It was as if they were on drugs and were crazy. They seemed like mad people, not normal. We ran to the construction site of the National Library. Some of the people were hiding there. We were lying under some of the building materials, some people were lying in the long grass. Three groups of police came. We were so frightened. My two friends were crying loudly and I was scared the police would find us. Seven young people were hiding in the grass. Informers were pointing to the grass. The people got up and ran, but the police just fired into their backs. Four were gunned down straight away. Shot dead. The other three tried to run but they were caught and taken to the police car.
Then we ran again, without our shoes which had fallen off during the shooting. Everyone had scratches and was bloody. We managed to get to the road and get a taxi (The Independent; emphasis added).
Another Briitish journalist, reporting on the protests, describes the solidarity and kindness of the Burmese crowd even as the Burmese troops----what are those guys on; or rather, how did the generals get them to the state where they'll mistreat their own people?---advanced:
I was half a mile from the Sule pagoda when I saw the people running, fear and panic written on their faces. Drivers were making hasty U-turns and speeding back on the wrong side of the street. The driver of my battered Toyota taxi refused to go any further, so I stepped out into the hot, humid street
Stallholders were hurriedly bundling away their vegetables, DVDs and rails of childrens' clothes. Two boys, postcard-sellers, aged no more than eight or nine, ran up to me, still clutching their gaudy pictures of tourist scenes. "Madam it is dangerous for you," one said, offering to lead me away to safety....
Rounding the corner of Rangoon's main avenue, the gleaming temple can be seen at the other end.
But we met a cloud of tear gas. Crowds were retreating, scurrying from the golden stupa towards us, and lines of soldiers were advancing towards them. The crackle of gunfire came then, the sound was unmistakable....
Now the retreating crowd was fleeing from the pagoda and the soldiers followed them, advancing in strict, terrifying, military formation. The rhythmic stamping of their boots on the road surface was chilling. For 10 days Burma's monks had marched. Now the enforcers of the brutal junta were on the march.......(The Independent; emphasis added)
The immediate triggers for the protest were "a sharp rise in food prices, occasioned by economic mismanagement and international isolation, and the brutality with which police tried to suppress the first protests."(The Independent)
For years, Burma's military junta has succeeded in "sealing off Burma from the rest of the world." (The Independent) Can they succeed again? The Independent speculates that the protests, however brutally put down, might signal the beginning of the end for them. "The likelihood must be that when the UN special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, arrives in Burma today, he will find a regime confident that it can restore its ultra-repressive form of order and resistant to pressure for compromise. If this is so, however, the generals may have miscalculated....The speed with which these protests escalated was a clear warning to the generals." (The Independent)
In 2006, when you and I were thinking of other things, The Washington Post reported on the Burmese generals' construction of their new, secret capital, and the methods they used to clear villagers out of the surrounding areas, particularly the members of ethnic minorities.(WaPo) Having sucked their once flourishing nation dry, the generals---needing new sources of revenue to maintain their lavish lifestyles----needed to clear out the areas around Burma's beautiful Salween River as part of a deal with Thailand to build dams. ( Nov. 2006 Washington Post) A displaced farmer reported:
They were going village by village, forcing men and women into labor," he said. "Then they started burning villages, so we packed what we could and escaped into the jungle. From the trees, we saw them set our homes on fire. They burned our crops. They left us with nothing."
Thin and languid from malaria, Saw said he found out there was no going back after one villager tried to return, only to lose his leg when he stepped on a freshly laid land mine.
"We don't know what to do," he said. "My heart wants to go back, but I know it is not safe for my family. I don't know if we can go to Thailand. I don't know if they will accept us. So we are here. We have nowhere else to go." ( Nov. 2006 Washington Post)
According to me, the weirdest aspect is the generals' decision to move their capital to a "secret" location deep in the jungle. Were the deeply superstitious generals warned by astrologers that "the dilapidated capital on the bay of Bengal" would become too hot for them to handle? (Nov. 2005 New York Times) Did they fear an American invasion? "The junta's physical move into a fortified retreat reflects what many experts on Myanmar [Burma] say is a bunker mentality in the face of what it may see as a bewildering and antagonistic world."(Nov. 2005 New York Times) In November 2005, The New York Times reported:
Seen from their perspective, the notion of an American invasion might not seem far-fetched. They are a ruling clique of soldiers whose background is jungle warfare and who know little of the outside world.
For years they have been squeezed by economic sanctions and battered by relentless criticism from the West over their abuses of human rights, and they have responded by pulling further into their shells.
In January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice included [Burma] in a list of "outposts of tyranny," along with North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe and Belarus. (Nov. 2005 New York Times).
Even Condi is right sometimes.
[R]umors of an American "rescue" circulate among opponents of the government - a current of wishful thinking that is as extravagant as the fears of the ruling generals.
"The joke going around is, 'After diamonds, gold,' " [an expert on Burma] said. In the Burmese language, "sein" - as in Saddam Hussein - means diamonds. "Shwe" - as in Gen. Than Shwe, the leader of the military junta - means gold...(Nov. 2005 New York Times)..
So...our adventures in making the world safe for democracy (which one nation cannot do) had the opposite effect in this particular "outpost of tyranny." Well, that's just another one of the risks of being a superpower with a propensity to unilateral intervention.... Let's hope this time that the international community will work together to put an end to the misery of the Burmese people in whatever manner will do the least harm to the least number of them.
Naturally, my indignation makes me wish to see the junta immediately overthrown and driven out of power in some sort of definitive fashion....but I think the rule for intervention ought to be the same rule that doctors are supposed to apply when they confront ghastly illness or injury: "First, do no harm."
And if you're wondering whether it should be "Burma" or "Myanmar" this BBC article explains.
The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon.
The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the United States and the UK.
A statement by the Foreign Office says: "Burma's democracy movement prefers the form 'Burma' because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognised."
But really it's not important. Who cares what people call the country? It's the human rights abuses that matter.
"There's not a really strong call from the democracy movement saying you should not call it Myanmar, they just challenge the legitimacy of the regime. It's probable it will carry on being called Myanmar after the regime is gone."...
The two words mean the same thing and one is derived from the other. Burmah, as it was spelt in the 19th Century, is a local corruption of the word Myanmar....
"The UN uses Myanmar, presumably deferring to the idea that its members can call themselves what they wish, provided the decision is recorded in UN proceedings. There are hosts of papers detailing such changes. I think the EU uses Burma/Myanmar." (BBC News)
RELATED BN-POLITICS POSTS
The Internet: a weapon in the Burmese rebels' armoury
LINKS & RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
- Peaceful Defiance Meets Brute Force (The Independent)
- Should it be Burma or Myanmar? (BBC)
- 'The young people got up and ran, but the police just fired into their backs...' (The Independent)
- Burma: Hundreds may be dead, as junta tries to keep brutality unseen (The Independent)
- Gordon Brown: I want to tell the regime: stand down the troops. The age of impunity is over (The Independent)
- President Bush's Speech to U.N. General Assembly (Sept. 27, 2007)
- Misery Spirals in Burma as Junta Targets Minorities ( Nov. 2006 Washington Post)
- Looking for the Burmese Junta? Sorry, It's Gone Into Hiding (Nov. 2005 New York Times)
BACKGROUND
Thanks for this informative post. It's a great backgrounder for many of us who have only scanned past Myanmar stories in the news and assumed nothing would change there as long as the military held fast.
Posted by: Bill | September 29, 2007 at 10:00 AM