Myanmar Update: Cambodia's in your corner!

A monk runs from tear gas fired by police on protesting Buddhist monks in Yangon from the AFP.

My Myanmar blog post, but it's seven updates strong, so it's time for a new post instead of an update.

Last week the UN released a report that was very critical of the government in Myanmar. This week Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia praised Myanmar. In reaction, it seems, UN investigator Paulo Sergio Pinheiro called for Myanmar to enter into talks. It just seems with China supporting it and its neighbors sitting back on the human rights issue, I see no reason why those in power would bother with any talks. Maybe I'm missing something, if so, get me up to speed.

Envoy pleads for Myanmar dialogue

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The U.N. special investigator for Myanmar pleaded with the country's military junta on Wednesday to engage in a serious dialogue about human rights, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush threatened new international sanctions.

"We know that we have a problem," Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who recently visited the country, told Myanmar's ambassador at a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Pinheiro said he was disappointed by Myanmar's reaction to a report he formally presented to the 47-nation body on the government's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in September.

The report released last week found that at least 31 people were killed -- more than double the number acknowledged by authorities. Pinheiro said the death toll was probably much higher.

Pinhero's plea came a day after Cambodia's government defended Myanmar's junta. On Tuesday Cambodia's leader said the U.N. should leave Myanmar alone and stop disrupting the junta's progress toward democracy by issuing critical reports on human rights abuses.

"Myanmar has been moving smoothly ahead," Prime Minister Hun Sen said, becoming perhaps the first national leader to publicly praise the country's military junta since its bloody September crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

Hun Sen, whose government is regularly criticized for human rights abuses, lashed out at the Pinheiro report released last week. Hun Sen said the report did nothing but "disturb" Myanmar's efforts toward reform.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill meant to stop Myanmar's rubies and high quality jade from entering the United States. The bill tightens already tough sanctions against a ruling military junta that killed peaceful pro-democracy protesters and Buddhist monks in September.

The House bill would freeze assets by Myanmar's leaders and cut off tax deductions for U.S. companies working in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

It attempts to stop Myanmar from dodging U.S. sanctions through laundering gemstones in third countries before selling them in the United States.

"Burma's generals fund this repression of their own people by selling off the country's natural resources," Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

More links:

International Herald Tribune: Cambodian leader blasts report, says UN should leave Myanmar alone
AFP: At least 31 killed in Myanmar unrest: UN expert

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International Herald Tribune: Women Nobel Peace laureates demand Suu Kyi's release

The Nobel Women's Intiative has demanded the release of Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

Who they are:

The Nobel Women's Initiative was established in 2006 by sister Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. We six women - representing North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa - have decided to bring together our extraordinary experiences in a united effort for peace with justice and equality.

Here is the article:

Women Nobel Peace laureates demand Suu Kyi's release

Women Nobel Peace Prize laureates urged the United Nations on Wednesday to take decisive action to secure the release of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi's fellow female peace prize winners expressed "grave disappointment" that Myanmar's junta has ignored the U.N. call for her release, in a letter published in The Guardian newspaper timed to mark her 12th year of detention.

"The Burmese regime must not be allowed to continue in its perpetration of gross violations of human rights," the letter said. "The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi is the most visible manifestation of the regime's brutality but it is only the tip of the iceberg."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had asked junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe on Jan. 8 to release Suu Kyi.

The Burmese opposition leader was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1991. She is one of only seven living women to have won — and the only imprisoned Nobel laureate.

The letter released on Wednesday, which is also the 62nd anniversary of the United Nations, was signed by the other six female Nobel Peace laureates: Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire.

The laureates vowed to work together to ensure Myanmar stays high on the international agenda. The military government sent troops to quash peaceful protests, initially led by students and then by Buddhist monks, last month.

"Since Burmese monks courageously took to the streets in September to call for democracy, the Burmese regime has enforced a vicious crackdown on peaceful demonstrators and democratic opposition leaders," the letter said. "Amidst mounting reports of torture and ill treatment, we fear for the safety of the brave people of Burma."

The junta took power in 1988 after crushing the democracy movement led by Suu Kyi. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi's party won a landslide election victory. She has been in prison or under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years.

On the web: Nobel Women's Initiative

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Olympic Boycott Over Burma?

My first post on the crackdown in Myanmar has rolled off the front page and this is big enough that it deserves its own post.

I got this in an email from the people over at OpenMindProjects.org: Pressure the Chinese government to compel the Burmese generals to stop killing and oppressing the Burmese people? In this blog they call for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Here is the blog in full:

Some may say politics and sports should be kept separate. Does anybody believe the Chinese leaders are that (i think that's meant to be "that are" - ExJane) interested in Marathons, 100 m? It’s about politics, and about Chinese prestige. Any political or sports leader suggesting the opposite is either ignorant, or worse.

Chinese support to ‘political stability’ in Burma, means support to the Burmese military. It means providing arms to the Burmese generals?

Against what enemy? Thailand? Laos? China itself? (Burma has no external enemies. The Chinese arms allow for Chinese exploitation of Burma’s natural resources. It benefits greedy Burmese generals and Chinese business while enslaving the Burmese people.

The Chinese government will hardly listen to UN Security Council talk. They veto instead. But they don’t want to lose face. They don’t want to risk the Olympic Games. That is their weakness. So why not use this weakness, to help the Burmese! Persuade sportsmen, Olympians, their leaders, to speak out, to threaten to boycott the games unless China stops sending arms to the generals and uses its influence in Burma, to force the generals to stop killing people, to move to democracy and an economic growth that benefits all the people, not just the generals and their children.

Today the diverse Burmese opposition actually may have a chance to cooperate, the monks and students and the minority peoples, the Shan and Karen, who have for decades fought for their rights and therefore have been persecuted and murdered by the Burmese military. They could join forces if they were able to communicate, via mobiles, Internet. ICT may again prove to be one of the poor and unfree men’s best help. Let’s hope it will.

But the rest of the world should also go on to use the power of ICT, talk to, email, tell politicians, sportsmen, Olympians, their leaders. Tell them to threaten the success of the upcoming Olympic games in China.

I've posted it on a couple of groups on Facebook following the events in Burma and I'll just paste here what I wrote there.

From OpenMindProjects.org blog. A call to press countries to boycott the 2008 Olympics. It's worked in the past, why not this time? At least it will send a very STRONG and economically devastating message. China is prepping like gangbusters right now. They building tons of new buildings, expanding the infrastructure, meddling with the rainfall, etc. If the world says they're not coming to the party that would be huge.

Sports diplomacy has happened in the past and it's effective. It can be used in both a positive since by bringing atheletes and nations together but also in a negative sense which people are pushing for now. Clearly, a boycott is in the negative, but when the stakes are high it can work. Plus, let's not forget the Darfur region of Sudan. That's a thorny issue too. However, maybe the combination of Darfur and Burma can get the momentum going on this idea. It usually takes more than merely boycotting Olympic games, but combined with other efforts, sports diplomacy can be very effective.

For those who don't remember or don't know, I've found a couple of links on sports diplomacy. I'd never really thought of it, but my classmate wrote her master's thesis on sports diplomacy last term. She talked about some of the ideas she had and I gave her some research suggestions. To see people calling for it in this situation is great, because it could definitely make an impact.

Here are some articles:

Washington Post - Countdown to Beijing by Victor Cha
CNN Cold War: Spotlight: Olympic Boycotts

If you run a search on Google for "olympic-boycott, china, burma" you get a page full of results and I've not read them all, so here is that search link: "olympic-boycott, china, burma".

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Myanmar Crackdown - People Mobilizing Via the Net

from the Democratic Voice of Burma website (linked below)
Update 7 (Oct 18, 2007 @ 9:32am)

The news on Myanmar is slowing to just a few snippets. However, those are worth posting. My fear is after this surge interest our ADD/quick cut media culture will forget.
United Press International: Myanmar said to be still making arrests
Agence France-Presse: Defiant Myanmar junta says it won't back down
International Herald Tribune: Japan cancels large aid grant to Myanmar


Update 6 (Oct 10, 2007 @ 1:21pm)

Some new articles from the BBC: What Burma wants from the world and Burmese junta appoints go-between.


Update 5 (Oct. 6, 2007 @ 5:46am)

Maybe some hope that the information lines are opening up, not likely, or the Myanmar fuzz is checking to see what's out there on the crackdown, more likely. Anyway, I was checking the traffic on my blog. I noticed I got a hit from Myanmar that chose to stay on the page for awhile. That person found my page via this Google search "myanmar crackdown pics". Interesting.

Update 4 (Oct. 3, 2007 @ 2;44pm)

Videos are now being submitted to CNN by people who fled Myanmar after the crackdown. It's shows what happened to protestors who got caught by the junta. There are a series of these.

CNN: Video of brutal crackdown - Exclusive video smuggled out of Myanmar shows protesters arrested and beaten by police. CNN's Dan Rivers reports. (note: I couldn't view it in Netscape, but Internet Explorer worked fine.)

Update 3 (Oct. 2, 2007 @ 10:56pm)

The UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has been in Myanmar for a few days and has met with Aung Sang Suu Kyi twice. I'm not really updating that because the mainstream news is covering that.

However, here is a good BBC article: Burmese monks 'to be sent away'. It has some good links.

Also, it's disturbing but it's really easy to ignore what's going on without visuals too. Here is a disturbing photo of the dead body of a monk floating in a riven in Rangoon that I saw on CNN International. It's in the BBC article too.

I found it at on the Democratic Voice of Burma website. This needs to be seen, so that the government in Myanmar will be held accountable.

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Update 2 (Oct. 1, 2007 @ 11:44am)

An article fromt he Times Online: Bloggers who risked all to reveal the junta’s brutal crackdown in Burma

They provide some great multimedia, background and other related links.
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Update 1 (Oct. 1, 2007 @ 8:10am)

These are some videos from Mizzima News website that I discovered today.

No title
Protest in Rangoon: Flag of Fighting Peacock Flying High (1)
There are quite a few other videos and I won't link them all. You can just go to their main video site and click around: Mizzima TV

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You know, I feel really bad about myself as I spent Chuseok sitting here watching the reports on the protests and escalating tensions in Myanmar (aka Burma). I don't really care that George W. Bush talked about it a couple of days ago at the UN considering he's spent the almost all of his two terms in office blasting the wrong nations, sometimes literally. However, this is something that needs to be watched, so I'm doing my part by organizing some links in one spot.

As a blogged earlier this year, Kim Dae Jung's request to visit fellow Nobel Peace Prize receipent Aung San Suu Kyi was denied. The protesters did make it to Suu Kyi's door at the start of the protests, but now they're blocked.

For some reason, I really thought the government wouldn't resort to violence - what was I thinking?

I got home tonight and saw an interesting report on CNN International.

They were talking about how the government is cracking down. In spite of this crack down there are some brave people getting pictures out and blogging on Myanmar who are trying to get the word out. I linked both Israel and Lebanon blogs during last year's conflict.

I think it's good to link to these blogs reporting what's going on in Myanmar right now because they really need the world to watch what's going on there.

Here are some links and video:

Ko Htike's Prosaic Collection

MoeMaKa Media

Democratic Voice of Burma

Burma (Myanmar) Blog

On Facebook: Support the Monks' protest in Burma and Myanmar (Burma) Uprising: Worldwide support

The Nightwatchman: Myanmar Will Be You Tubed

Myanmar Blogs All Over the World - I haven't clicked on most of these links, so I'm not sure what's live and what's not. However, I figure it doesn't hurt to link to the list. This way YOU can click around if you're so inclined.

AP article: Cell Phones, Web Spread News of Myanmar

Interesting blog on "hacktivism" in Myanmar: Empowering Myanmar, one blog at a time

Wear Red on September 28th to Show Your Support

Find Companies Doing Business with Myanmar and Lobby Them to Stop: The Dirty List - The Burma Campaign UK

Help support Burma Issues - Their mission is here BI Ideology

Some YouTube videos:

Life under Myanmar's military government - 18 Sept 07


Monks Revolution Continue in Burma


BUDDHIST MONKS LEADING PROTEST IN RANGOON BURMA


Monks' Revolution in Rangoon

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Myanmar Rejects Visa For Kim Dae-jung

Aung San Suu Kyi on tour (from ibiblio.org)

Okay, I'm tired of superficial and catty celebrity gossip. I'm guilty of indulging, but now I need to switch gears. I've dived right back into those news stories I've been avoiding.

For those who don't know who he is, Kim Dae-jung, is the former president of the South Korea and the winner of the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.

He wanted to visit Myanmar's Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who has been in detention in Myanmar for over 10 years because of her efforts to free Burma. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. It seems that Kim's visa request was immediately rejected

on the grounds that the purpose of his visit constituted "interference in the domestic affairs" of Myanmar...

It's just a sad and unfortunate story, and more people should be aware of it.

Here is the link to the news story: Myanmar rejects South Korea Nobel laureate Kim's visa

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