Than Shwe And Family

Burma's Ruling Junta And Their Families Who Are Responsible For The Country's Situation

State Peace and Development Council (Na Aa Pa)

1 Than Shwe (Senior General) , Chairman - DOB. 02.02.193

2 Kyaing Kyaing , Wife of Than Shwe

3 Thandar Shwe , Daughter of Than Shwe

4 Zaw Pyo Win (Major), Husband of Thandar Shwe, Deputy Director Export Section,
Ministry of Trade

5 Khin Pyone Shwe, Daughter of Than Shwe

6 Aye Aye Thit Shwe, Daughter of Than Shwe

7 Tun Naing Shwe a.k.a Tun Tun Naing, Son of Than Shwe

8 Khin Thanda , Wife of Tun Naing Shwe

9 Kyaing San Shwe, Son of Than Shwe

10 Dr Khin Win Sein , Wife of Kyaing San Shwe

11 Thant Zaw Shwe a.k.a Maung Maung , Son of Than Shwe

12 Dewar Shwe, Daughter of Than Shwe

13 Kyi Kyi Shwe, Daughter of Than Shwe

Photos and Eye witness account of Voting scene Infront of Burmese Embassy, Singapore on 27 April 2008

This is the translation of the Ma Linlet Kyalsin Articles about the voting experience infront of Burmese Embassy on the 27 April 2008 (sunday). you can read the original post in Burmese here at linletkyalsin' Blog

Please Visit Pan Bay Dah's Blog for full report.

Her Choice - Zaw Min Or A Dog ?

By Goldie Shwe (On behalf of the people of Ye Nan Chaung)

Zaw Min, the minister of Electric Power (1) went campaigning in the area of Yenun Chaung, Magwe when he made some derogatory remarks about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, which made the locals furious. (DVB report)

"He said that if one lets one’s daughter marry a dog, then she will only be a dog's wife, or if she marries a beggar, she will be a beggar's wife,” the resident said.

“He went on to say that if a woman marries a Kalar [vulgar term for Indian and also for westerners] then she'll be a Kalar's wife. He said people would be wise not to make the wrong decision [by choosing the Kalar's wife]."

So on be half of the angered residents of Yenun Chaung, who were forced to gather and listen to Zaw Min’s cowardly remarks, I decided to analyse how his wife Khin Mi Mi actually feels as a wife of the senior junta officer.

a) Zaw Min has the rank of Colonel : he was obviously a senior military man before taking up his civil position. However the junta’s military never fights with enemies other than the ethnic minority groups, who are usually very poorly trained and equipped guerillas. The junta’s brave military actions only shine against the unarmed civilians. What is more, they are known as the world’s most cowardly group of men as they are only good at torturing political prisoners in the notorious prisons. Should a wife of such cowardly man be so proud of him?

b) Zaw Min holds the position of Minister of Electric Power (1): the power supply 'services' in Burma have been gradually going from bad to worse, and now virtually non-existent, since the military junta took over the country in 1962. The leading generals changed - from Nay Win to Khin Nyunt and now to Than Shwe. Names of the ruling bodies changed - from Socialist Government to SLORC to now SPDC. However none, after all these years, has ever been able to muster the competence to manage to supply the country with the sufficient electric power. Should any wife of such incompetent and unintelligent men posses any pride of their husbands’ inability?


c) Both Zaw Min and wife Khin Mi Mi are named among the long lists of notices of sanctions issued by leading democratic countries such as US, EU and Australia. Being named and shamed in the international criminal lists for stealing and robbing their own country ? How worried is Khin Mi Mi, for herself, her children and her family members’ future?

d) Zaw Min is described as one of Burmese government leaders. Well, what is the Burmese government? The government who came to the power by force ; the government who shamelessly ignores the overwhelming landslide victory of the opposition political party – the National League for Democracy – led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; the government whose leadership and management is so incompetent and corrupt that the country has the worst economy in the world; the government who is responsible for every one of the 400 children, who die from the poverty related causes, daily.

From the bottom of her heart, can Khin Mi Mi honestly and sincerely deny that she wished she was the wife of a dog, a beggar or a Kalar than being married to ignominious and disgraceful criminal and a liar – Zaw Min ?

End

Fancy A Chicken Leg Salad ?

People’s hatred for the Than Shwe led junta has been so great in Burma, they just can’t wait to vote ‘No’ on 10 May for the referendum.

The latest campaign for ‘No’ vote is that whenever people meet they greet each other with a ‘signal’ question, ” I am going to have a chicken leg salad. Fancy one ?”

Note : A cross as in X, in Burmese is known as ‘crossed chicken legs’.

Original Source : Ko Mo Thee

A Single Copy Of Draft Constitution At London Embassy But You Can’t Read Or Photocopy It

It is reported that the Burmese Embassy in London possesses a single copy of the controversial draft constitution. However none of the Burmese residents in the UK are allowed to see, read or photocopy it.

That means the Burmese expatriates who are supposed to be voting for the referendum in less than 48 hours have not got a clue what they are voting for.

The unavailability of the draft constitution copy has also created suspicion which added disbelief in junta’s statement of it being democratic and justified.

U Nay Win, the Ambassador kindly explained that the free voting system has been arranged so that people should be assured of freely expressing their genuine desire – ‘yes’ or ‘no’- without having to worry about anything else. He also said that any possible assistance would be arranged by the embassy.

However when one of the staff called U Soe Myint was contacted for a copy of the draft constitution he said that it wasn’t quite available, just yet, as the referendum has been arranged in advance for oversea Burmese, so that all the votes could be sent back securely to Burma in time for the national voting day – 10 May.

When asked if there would be any press conference concerning the much publicized draft constitution, he replied, “There won’t be any because the rooms here are not really big enough to hold such public gatherings.”!

Original Source : Ko Htike

Advanced Referendum Voting Dates at Burmese Embassy, London

Saturday 26 April 2008

Sunday 27 April 2008

Monday 28 April 2008

Time

9 am to 5 pm

Place

Burmese Embassy
19 A , Charles Street
London W1J 5DX

ကံၾကမၼာကို ကန္႔ကြက္မဲက ေမြးဖြားေပးမည္ဟု ယုံၾကည္မိပါသည္။

အရင္ ဒိုင္, အခု ထိုးသား
၀င္းေပၚေမာင္
ဧျပီ ၁၄၊ ၂၀၀၈

ဖြဲ႔စည္းပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ အတည္ျပဳေရး ျပည္လုံးကၽြတ္ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲသည္ အႏွစ္သာရအားျဖင့္ စစ္အစိုးရ ျဖဳတ္ခ်ေရး ျပည္လုံးကၽြတ္ ဆႏၵေပးပြဲ အျဖစ္သို႔ တေရြ႕ေရြ႕ အသြင္ေျပာင္းလာေနၿပီ ျဖစ္သည္။

ျမန္မာ့ႏိုင္ငံေရး ျဖစ္စဥ္မ်ားကို ၾကည့္လွ်င္ စစ္တပ္မွ လႊမ္းမိုးခ်ဳပ္ကိုင္ လုပ္ေဆာင္သည့္ ကိစၥရပ္တိုင္း၌ ျပင္ပအသြင္သဏၭာန္ႏွင့္ အတြင္းအႏွစ္သာရတို႔ အျမဲတေစ ကြဲျပားေနေလ့ ရွိသည္ကို ေတြ႔ႏိုင္ပါသည္။ အေရးပါသည့္ ကိစၥရပ္မ်ား ျဖစ္သည့္ ၁၉၅၈, ၁၉၆၂, ၁၉၈၈ ခုႏွစ္ စစ္တပ္အာဏာသိမ္းမႈမ်ား၊ ၁၉၆၀, ၁၉၉၀ ပါတီစုံ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားႏွင့္ ၁၉၇၃ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲတို႔တြင္ အသြင္ ႏွင့္ အႏွစ္ ကြဲျပားေနသည္ကို အထင္အရွား ေတြ႔ျမင္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။

စစ္တပ္က အာဏာသိမ္းမႈတိုင္းတြင္ `ယိုယြင္းေနေသာ တိုင္းျပည္အေျခအေနအရ မလႊဲမေရွာင္သာ အာဏာယူရျခင္း´ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း မြဲျပာပုဆုိး အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္ကို ထပ္တလဲလဲ ေပးခဲ့ျမဲ ျဖစ္သည္။ အမွန္မွာ `အာဏာ´ကို လိုခ်င္၍ `သိမ္း´ျခင္းသာ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

စစ္တပ္က လုပ္ေပးေသာ ပါတီစုံ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားတြင္ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တစြာ ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ႏိုင္ရန္ ႀကီးၾကပ္ေပးသည္ဟု အသံေကာင္းဟစ္ေသာ္လည္း၊ လက္ေတြ႔တြင္ စစ္တပ္က ၄င္းတို႔ လိုလားသည့္ဘက္မွ ပင္းခဲ့ျမဲ ျဖစ္သည္။

တပါတီစနစ္က်င့္သုံးမည့္ အေျခခံဥပေဒ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲမွာ ၿပိဳင္ဘက္မရွိဘဲ တေယာက္တည္း ဟန္ေရးျပသည့္ `လုပ္ပြဲ´တခုသာ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

သို႔ရာတြင္ စစ္တပ္က ဘယ္လုိပင္ အေၾကာင္းျပျပ၊ ဘယ္ေလာက္ပင္ အသံေကာင္းဟစ္ဟစ္ ျမန္မာလူထုက အသြင္ႏွင့္ အႏွစ္ကို ေကာင္းစြာ ခြဲျခား နားလည္ၿပီးသား ျဖစ္သည္။ ခ်က္ဆို နားခြက္က မီးေတာက္ၿပီး ျဖစ္သည္။ စကားလုံး အႀကီးအက်ယ္ အလွအပမ်ားႏွင့္ ဘယ္လိုပင္ တန္ဆာဆင္ ေျပာေနေစကာမူ အတြင္းအႏွစ္သာရကို ဇတ္ခနဲ ဆြဲထုတ္ ေကာက္ယူၿပီး ျဖစ္သည္။

ေမလတြင္ က်င္းပမည္ဟု ေၾကညာထားသည့္ အေျခခံဥပေဒ အတည္ျပဳေရး ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲ၏ အႏွစ္သာရကိုလည္း ျမန္မာလူထုက အေတာ္ေစာေစာကပင္ ေကာက္ယူၿပီး ျဖစ္သည္။ စစ္တပ္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ခ်က္အေပၚ ျမန္မာလူထု၏ ဘာသာျပန္ခ်က္က ႏိုင္ငံေရး ဆန္ခ်င္မွ ဆန္မည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ရွင္းလင္းသည္။ စကားလုံး လွခ်င္မွ လွမည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ တိက်သည္။

ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲကို လူထု အဓိပၸာယ္ဖြင့္ပုံက "ဒါ သူတုိ႔ ဆင္းမေပးဖို႔ လုပ္တာ" ဟူ၍ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

၁၉၉၀ ဒိုင္

ဗိုလ္ေန၀င္း ဦးေဆာင္သည့္ အိမ္ေစာင့္အစိုးရက ၁၉၆၀ ေဖေဖာ္၀ါရီလတြင္ `တတိယအႀကိမ္ ဥပေဒျပဳလႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ´ ကို ၄၇ အေျခခံဥပေဒႏွင့္အညီ က်င္းပေပးခဲ့သည္။ ထိုေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ ဒိုင္ျဖစ္သည့္ အိမ္ေစာင့္အစိုးရ (စစ္တပ္) က တည္ျမဲဖဆပလ ဘက္မွ ပင္းခဲ့သည္။ ယင္းသို႔ ပင္းခဲ့ေၾကာင္း သက္ေသထူသည့္အခ်က္မွာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအတြင္း မသမာမႈမ်ားတြင္ တာ၀န္ရွိသည္ဟုဆိုကာ တပ္မွဴးႀကီး ၁၃ ေယာက္ကို ဗိုလ္ေန၀င္းက ျဖဳတ္ပစ္လိုက္ျခင္းပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။

၁၉၉၀ တြင္ ဗိုလ္ေစာေမာင္ ဦးေဆာင္သည့္ န၀တ စစ္အစိုးရက ပါတီစုံ ဒီမိုကေရစီ အေထြေထြ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို က်င္းပေပးခဲ့သည္။ ထိုေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမွာ အေျခခံဥပေဒ တခုမွ် မရွိသည့္ အေျခအေနတြင္ က်င္းပျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို ၁၉၄၇ ကကဲ့သို႔ `တုိင္းျပည္ျပဳလႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ´ ဟုလည္း အတိအလင္း မဆိုထား။ အာဏာလႊဲေျပာင္းေရးကိုလည္း တိတိက်က် မျပ႒ာန္းထား။ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲဥပေဒတြင္ "လႊတ္ေတာ္ကို မဲဆႏၵနယ္မ်ားမွ ဤဥပေဒႏွင့္အညီ ေရြးေကာက္တင္ေျမာက္လိုက္ေသာ လႊတ္ေတာ္ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားျဖင့္ ဖြဲ႔စည္းရမည္။" ဟူ၍ ျပ႒ာန္းထားေသာ္လည္း လႊတ္ေတာ္ ေခၚယူေရးအတြက္ အခ်ိန္ကာလ တိတိက်က် မသတ္မွတ္ထား။

ထိုသို႔ ေပ်ာ့ကြက္မ်ား ရွိေနေသာ္ျငား န၀တ ဥကၠ႒ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္မွဴးႀကီး ေစာေမာင္က "ပါတီစုံ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ၿပီးရင္ ဘာလုပ္ၾကမလဲ၊ ဖြဲ႔စည္းပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ ေရးဖို႔ပဲ ျဖစ္တယ္္။ … အေျခခံ ဥပေဒကို အေရြးခံရတဲ့ ပါတီအဖြဲ႔အစည္းေတြက လႊတ္ေတာ္ကိုယ္စားလွယ္ေတြ ညိႇႏိႈင္းၿပီး လုပ္ၾကရမယ့္ ကိစၥ" ဟူ၍ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ မတိုင္မီကေရာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ အၿပီးတြင္ပါ ကမၻာသိ ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သည္။

ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအၿပီး ႏွစ္လအၾကာတြင္ ထုတ္ျပန္သည့္ ၁/၉၀ ေၾကညာခ်က္တြင္ စစ္အစိုးရက လႊတ္ေတာ္ေခၚယူေပးေရးကို တာ၀န္ခံၿပီး၊ လႊတ္ေတာ္ကိုယ္စားလွယ္မ်ားက အေျခခံဥပေဒ ေရးဆြဲေရးကို တာ၀န္ယူရန္ ထပ္မံ အတည္ျပဳခဲ့သည္။

ထိုအခ်က္မ်ားအရ စစ္အစိုးရက မိမိကိုယ္ကိုယ္ အိမ္ေစာင့္အစိုးရကဲ့သို႔ သေဘာထားကာ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို က်င္းပေပးခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္ဟု သုံးသပ္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။ ျပည္သူလူထု အမ်ားစုကလည္း ဤသို႔ပင္ ႐ႈျမင္ခဲ့ၾကပါသည္။ စစ္အစိုးရက ဒိုင္ ျဖစ္သည္။

စစ္အစိုးရက ဒိုင္ေနရာကို ယူခဲ့ေသာ္လည္း ကစားပြဲကို အဆုံးသတ္ေအာင္ မေဆာင္ရြက္ပါ။ အေၾကာင္းမွာ ထြက္ေပၚလာသည့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ရလဒ္က မိမိလိုလားသည့္အတိုင္း မဟုတ္ေတာ့၍ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ စစ္အစိုးရအေနႏွင့္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ ဘယ္ပါတီမွ ျပတ္ျပတ္သားသား အႏိုင္ရလိမ့္မည္ မဟုတ္ဟု တထစ္ခ် တြက္ဆထားခဲ့ပုံ ရပါသည္။ ပါတီမ်ားအခ်င္းခ်င္း အားၿပိဳင္ေနလွ်င္ စစ္တပ္က အဆုံးအျဖတ္ေပးႏိုင္သည့္ အုပ္စု ျဖစ္လာမည္ဟု ထင္ျမင္ထားပုံ ရပါသည္။ သို႔မဟုတ္ စစ္တပ္ ေထာက္ခံသည့္ ပါတီက အသာစီးရလာမည္ဟု ယူဆထားပုံ ရပါသည္။ ထိုယူဆခ်က္မွာ ဗုိလ္ေန၀င္း၏ အိမ္ေစာင့္အစိုးရေခတ္ ယူဆခ်က္ႏွင့္ ထပ္တူနီးပါး ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

ဗိုလ္ေန၀င္းေခတ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ သိသိသာသာ ဘက္လိုက္ခဲ့သည့္တိုင္ စစ္တပ္အားေပးသည့္ ဘက္က ခြက္ခြက္လန္ေအာင္ ႐ႈံးခဲ့သည္။ ဗို္လ္ေစာေမာင္ေခတ္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္လည္း စစ္တပ္ လိုလားသည့္ဘက္က ခြက္ခြက္လန္ေအာင္ ႐ႈံးခဲ့ျပန္သည္။

ဘက္လိုက္၍ မႏိုင္ေသာအခါ ဗိုလ္ေန၀င္းသည္ ေနာင္ႏွစ္ႏွစ္အၾကာတြင္ အာဏာသိမ္းခဲ့သည္။ လိုလားသည့္ဘက္က မႏိုင္ေသာအခါ ဗိုလ္ေစာေမာင္သည္ လႊတ္ေတာ္ေခၚေပးရန္ ျငင္းဆန္လိုက္ေတာ့သည္။

ထိုေရြးေကာက္ပြဲ ႏွစ္ခုစလုံးတြင္ ျပည္သူလူထုက စစ္တပ္လႊမ္းမိုးမႈကို မလိုလားေၾကာင္းႏွင့္ ဒီမိုကေရစီကိုသာ လိုလားေၾကာင္း ထင္ထင္ရွားရွား ေဖာ္ျပခဲ့သည္။ သို႔ရာတြင္ ျပည္သူလူထု ဆႏၵႏွစ္ခုစလုံးကို စစ္တပ္က ဆန္႔က်င္ ပစ္ပယ္ထားဆဲ ျဖစ္သည္။

စစ္အစိုးရသည္ ျမတ္မလားလို႔ ဒိုင္ကိုင္ခဲ့သည္။ သူဘက္လိုက္ထားသည့္ ထိုးသားႏွင့္ ေ၀စားမွ်စား လုပ္ရန္ ျပင္ဆင္ထားသည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ရလဒ္က သူလိုခ်င္သည့္အတိုင္း မဟုတ္ေတာ့ေသာအခါ ယခု သူကိုယ္တိုင္ ထိုးသား အျဖစ္ ၀င္ေရာက္လာေတာ့သည္။

၂၀၀၈ ထိုးသား

၉၀ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲသည္ ျမန္္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ က်င္းပခဲ့သည့္ ပါတီစုံ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမ်ားအနက္ မဲလိမ္ မဲခိုးမႈ အကင္းရွင္းဆုံး ျဖစ္ခဲ့သည္။ ပါတီခ်င္း အုပ္စုခ်င္း ဥပေဒမဲ့ တိုက္ခိုက္မႈမ်ား ကင္းစင္ခဲ့သည္။ စစ္တပ္ႏွင့္ အာဏာပိုင္မ်ား၏ အလြန္အက်ဴး ဖိအားေပးမႈမ်ား ေလ်ာ့နည္းသြားသည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ လုံး၀ လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တသည္ဟုေတာ့ မဆိုႏိုင္ပါ။ တင္းက်ပ္ေသာ အကန္႔အသတ္မ်ားၾကားမွ စည္း႐ုံးလႈပ္ရွားခဲ့ရျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ သို႔ရာတြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲကို အားလုံးက `လြတ္လပ္၍ တရားမွ်တ´ သည္ဟု အသိအမွတ္ ျပဳခဲ့ၾကၿပီး၊ ရလဒ္ကိုလည္း တရား၀င္ အတည္ျပဳခဲ့သည္။

ထိုအခ်ိန္က စစ္တပ္ပိုင္ပါတီ မရွိပါ။ စစ္တပ္ပိုင္ပါတီ အျဖစ္မွ စ်ာန္ေလ်ာလာေသာ တိုင္းရင္းသားစည္းလုံးညီၫြတ္ေရးပါတီသာ ရွိပါသည္။ အာဏာကို လက္လႊတ္ခဲ့ရသည့္ မဆလ တျဖစ္လဲ တစညပါတီသည္ ေငြအင္အား လူအင္အား အေတာင့္တင္းဆုံး ျဖစ္သည္။ အင္အားႀကီးပါတီ ျဖစ္၍ ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲတြင္ အႏိုင္ရမည္၊ သို႔မဟုတ္ အဓိက အတိုက္အခံ ျဖစ္လာမည္ဟု စစ္တပ္က တြက္ဆထားပုံရပါသည္။ ထိုသုိ႔ ျဖစ္လာလွ်င္ တစညႏွင့္ စစ္တပ္ လက္ခ်င္းခ်ိတ္ထားႏိုင္မည္။ စစ္တပ္အေနႏွင့္ ကိုယ္ပိုင္ပါတီ မရွိေသာ္လည္း မဟာမိတ္ပါတီ ရွိေနမည့္ သေဘာျဖစ္သည္။

သို႔ေသာ္ သမိုင္းက ထိုသို႔ မျဖစ္ခဲ့ပါ။ ဒိုင္ကိုင္သူ စစ္တပ္သေဘာကို ေနာေက်ေအာင္ သိေနေသာ လူထုက လႊတ္ေတာ္အတြင္း ပါတီခ်င္းအားၿပိဳင္မႈ မေပၚေပါက္လာေစရန္ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ တခုတည္းကို ပုံေအာ၍ မဲေပးခဲ့သည္။ တစညမွာ သူရသည့္မဲမ်ားကို စုေပါင္းလိုက္လွ်င္ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ေနာက္မွ ဒုတိယလိုက္သည္ မွန္ေသာ္လည္း အမတ္ေနရာ ၁၀ ခုသာရ၍ လႊတ္ေတာ္တြင္း၌ အတိုက္အခံေနရာကိုပင္ မရႏိုင္ေတာ့ပါ။

ေရြးေကာက္ပြဲအၿပီးတြင္ စစ္အစိုးရသည္ တစညႏွင့္ အိုးစားခြဲကာ၊ ထာ၀ရ အာဏာဆြဲကိုင္ေရး လမ္းစဥ္ကို သူ႔နည္းသူ႔ဟန္ျဖင့္ စတင္ခဲ့ေတာ့သည္။ ပါတီတခုခုႏွင့္ မဟာမိတ္လုပ္ကာ အာဏာခြဲစားမည့္ လမ္းစဥ္မွ စစ္တပ္ကိုယ္တိုင္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးနယ္တြင္ လႊမ္းမိုးခ်ဳပ္ကိုင္္ေရး လမ္းစဥ္သို႔ ေျပာင္းလဲခဲ့သည္။

"ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္၏ အမ်ိဳးသားႏိုင္ငံေရး ဦးေဆာင္မႈအခန္းက႑တြင္ တပ္မေတာ္က ပါ၀င္ထမ္းေဆာင္ႏိုင္ေရး" ဆိုသည့္အခ်က္ကို ေျပာင္ေျပာင္တင္းတင္း ေတာင္းဆိုလာသည္။ ဤအခ်က္ကို ေတာင္းဆိုႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ `အမ်ိဳးသားညီလာခံ´ကို ဇြတ္တရြတ္ ဖန္တီးခဲ့သည္။ တခ်ိန္တည္းမွာပင္ ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ကို ေထာက္ခံေပးမည့္ `ၾကံ့ဖြံ႔´ကို စစ္တပ္ပိုင္အဖြဲ႔အစည္း အျဖစ္ မဟားဒရား တည္ေဆာက္ခဲ့သည္။

နအဖသည္ လႊတ္ေတာ္ေခၚယူေရးကို ျငင္းဆန္၍ အမ်ိဳးသားညီလာခံကို က်င္းပႏိုင္ရန္ သုံးႏွစ္မွ် အခ်ိန္ယူခဲ့ရသည္။ ညီလာခံကို အတြင္းအျပင္ ဖိအားေပးျခင္းႏွင့္ အခ်ိန္ဆြဲဆန္႔ျခင္း ဗ်ဴဟာမ်ားျဖင့္ ကိုင္တြယ္ခဲ့သည္။ စင္စစ္ ၉၆ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ႏုတ္ထြက္လိုက္ခ်ိန္မွ စ၍ အမ်ိဳးသားညီလာခံမွာ အသက္မရွိေသာ အဆာသြပ္႐ုပ္လုံးသက္သက္ ျဖစ္သြားၿပီ ျဖစ္သည္။

ညီလာခံက ေလွ်ာေမြးေလး ျဖစ္သြားခ်ိန္တြင္ ၾကံ့ဖြံ႔က ဘီလူး ျဖစ္လာခဲ့သည္။ သို႔ႏွင့္ ၁၄ ႏွစ္အၾကာတြင္ စစ္အစိုးရ၏ ေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္သည္ ညီလာခံ၏ အေျခခံမူအျဖစ္ ေမြးဖြားလာျပန္သည္။

ယခု အဆိုပါေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ကို လူထုဆႏၵခံယူျခင္းသည္ စစ္အစိုးရကိုယ္တိုင္ `ထိုးသား´ ျဖစ္လာျခင္းပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။ စစ္အစိုးရ ဒိုင္ကိုင္စဥ္က ပါတီမ်ားကို လႊတ္ေတာ္သက္တမ္း `တႀကိမ္စာ´ အတြက္ ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ခိုင္းခဲ့သည္။ စစ္အစိုးရကုိယ္တိုင္ ထိုးသား၀င္လုပ္သည့္ ယခုအခါတြင္ လႊတ္ေတာ္သက္တမ္း `တသက္စာ´ အတြက္ ယွဥ္ၿပိဳင္ေနျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။ ျပင္ဆင္ေနသည့္ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲသည္ ျပင္ပအသြင္သဏၭာန္အားျဖင့္ "ဖြဲ႔စည္းပုံအေျခခံဥပေဒ အတည္ျပဳေရး" ျဖစ္ၿပီး၊ အတြင္းအႏွစ္သာရအားျဖင့္ "စစ္တပ္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္မႈဥပေဒ အတည္ျပဳေရး" ျဖစ္ေနပါသည္။

ထိုးသားျဖစ္လာသည့္ နအဖသည္ အႏိုင္ရေရးအတြက္ နည္းလမ္းမ်ိဳးစုံကို အိတ္သြန္ဖာေမွာက္ ထုတ္သုံးမည္ အေသအခ်ာ ျဖစ္သည္။ ဘယ္နည္းနဲ႔ ႏိုင္ႏိုင္, ႏိုင္ရင္ၿပီးေရာ ဆိုသည့္ စိ္တ္ႏွင့္ မတရားမႈအေပါင္း သရဖူေဆာင္းၾကမည္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုကိစၥအားလုံးကို ၾကံ့ဖြံ႔အမည္ခံ၍ လုပ္ကိုင္ေနၾကၿပီ ျဖစ္သည္။

ကန္႔ကြက္မဲအလြန္

ယခုပြဲတြင္ `ဒိုင္´ မရွိေတာ့ပါ။ အေၾကာင္းမွာ နအဖသည္ `သူပဲ ဒိုင္, သူပဲ ထိုးသား´ အျဖစ္ ရယူထားေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲအတြင္း တစုံတရာ ျပႆနာေပၚေပါက္ပါက တိုင္ၾကားေျဖရွင္းရန္ `တရား႐ုံး´ လည္း မရွိေတာ့ပါ။ အေၾကာင္းမွာ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္တရားသူႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ ကိုယ္တုိင္ က်င္းပေရးေကာ္မရွင္ ဥကၠ႒ ေနရာယူထားေသာေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲသည္ တဖက္ႏွင့္တဖက္ `ပြဲျပတ္´ ျဖစ္ကိုျဖစ္မွရမည့္ အေျခအေနသို႔ ဆုိက္ေရာက္ေနပါသည္။ ပြဲမျပတ္လွ်င္ အေျခအေနက ပိုမို႐ႈပ္ေထြးႏိုင္ၿပီး `ကင္ညာ ၿပီးေတာ့ ျမန္မာ´ ျဖစ္သြားႏိုင္ပါသည္။

ထိုအခ်က္ကို နအဖကလည္း လက္ခံထားပုံရသည္။ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္၀န္ႀကီးခ်ဳပ္ တာ၀န္ယူထားသူ ကိုယ္တိုင္ ေထာက္ခံမဲထည့္ေရး စည္း႐ုံးေနသည္ကို ေထာက္လွ်င္ သူတို႔ဘက္က ေထာက္ခံမဲ အျပတ္ရေရးအတြက္ မေသခ်ာေသးဟု တြက္ဆႏိုင္ပါသည္။ သို႔မဟုတ္ စိတ္ခ်ေသခ်ာေအာင္ ၀ါယမစိုက္ထုတ္ေနသည္ဟုလည္း ဆုိႏိုင္ပါသည္။ သို႔မဟုတ္ ဒီတႀကိမ္ ႐ႈံးလွ်င္ ငါတုိ႔ ဇီ၀ိန္ခ်ဳပ္လိမ့္မည္ဟု စစ္အစိုးရ လိပ္ျပာလန္႔ေနတာလည္း ျဖစ္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။

ညီလာခံက ခ်မွတ္လိုက္ေသာ အေျခခံမူ၏ အဓိကက်ေသာ အခ်က္ႏွစ္ခ်က္ကို အေျခခံဥပေဒ မူၾကမ္းတြင္ ျပင္ထားလိုက္ျခင္းက နအဖသည္ အလြန္အမင္း ေၾကာက္စိတ္၀င္ေနေၾကာင္း ေဖာ္ျပေနသည္။ ပုဒ္မ ၄၄၁ တြင္ အေျခခံဥပေဒ အတည္ျပဳဖို႔ ဆႏၵမဲေပးခြင့္ရွိသူအားလုံး၏ ၂၆ ရာခိုင္ႏႈန္းလိုအပ္ေၾကာင္း ျပ႒ာန္းထားၿပီး၊ ပုဒ္မ ၄၃၆ (က) တြင္ အေျခခံဥပေဒ ျပင္ဆင္ဖို႔ ဆႏၵမဲေပးပိုင္ခြင့္ရွိသူအားလုံး၏ ဆႏၵမဲ (ရာႏႈန္း ၁၀၀) လိုအပ္ေၾကာင္း ျပ႒ာန္းထားပါသည္။ ထိုအခ်က္မ်ားမွာ ဒီမိုကေရစီစနစ္ႏွင့္ ညီၫြတ္ဖို႔ ေနေနသာသာ အမ်ိဳးသားညီလာခံက ခ်မွတ္ေပးလိုက္ေသာ အေျခခံမူႏွင့္ပင္ မညီၫြတ္ေတာ့ပါ။ ထိုအခ်က္က နဂိုက ေထာက္ခံခ်င္သူမ်ားကိုပင္ ကန္႔ကြက္ေအာင္ တြန္းပို႔ေပးလိုက္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။

ျမန္မာလူထု အမ်ားစုက စစ္အစိုးရကို မလိုလားတာ အေသအခ်ာ ျဖစ္သည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ေထာက္ခံရမွာလား ကန္႔ကြက္ရမွာလား မသဲမကြဲ ျဖစ္ေနသည္။ လူထုအေနျဖင့္ ကိုယ္ပိုင္ဆုံးျဖတ္ခ်က္ခ်ရန္ အခ်က္အလက္ ျပည့္ျပည့္စုံစုံ မရေသးပါ။ ရသည့္တိုင္ေအာင္ အခ်ိန္ မလုံေလာက္ပါ။ လုံေလာက္သည့္တိုင္ေအာင္ ရွင္းလင္းေဆြးေႏြးခြင့္ ရႏိုင္မည္ မဟုတ္ပါ။ ယခု ဧၿပီ ၂ ရက္ေန႔က အမ်ိဳးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္က ျပည္သူလူထုကို ကန္႔ကြက္မဲထည့္ရန္ အတိအလင္း ႏိႈးေဆာ္လိုက္ၿပီ ျဖစ္၍ သဲသဲကြဲကြဲ ျဖစ္သြားၿပီ ျဖစ္သည္။ ေမွာက္ေရး မည္းေရး ကိစၥလည္း အဆုံးသတ္ၿပီဟု ဆိုႏိုင္ပါသည္။ သပိတ္ေမွာက္စရာ ရွိခဲ့လွ်င္ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲထည့္ၿပီးမွ ေမွာက္ၾကရန္ ျပင္ဆင္ထားဖို႔ ျဖစ္သြားပါသည္။

ကန္႔ကြက္မဲလႈပ္ရွားမႈ က်ယ္ျပန္႔လာသည္ႏွင့္အမွ် လူထုယုံၾကည္မႈႏွင့္ ဆုံးျဖတ္ခ်က္ ပီျပင္ခိုင္မာလာမည္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ လူထုအေနႏွင့္ ပြဲျပတ္မွ ျဖစ္မည္ကို သိလာေလေလ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲေတြ မ်ားလာေလေလ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲသည္ ဒီမိုကေရစီကို အၿပီးသတ္ ဆြတ္ခ်ဴေပးမည္ မဟုတ္သည့္တိုင္ ပန္းတိုင္ဆီသို႔ တိုး၍ေလွ်ာက္လွမ္းလိုက္သည့္ ေျခတလွမ္း ျဖစ္သည္။ ထုိအခ်က္ကို လူထုအေနႏွင့္ ေကာင္းစြာ နားလည္လာေလေလ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲေတြ မ်ားလာေလေလ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ အေရးႀကီးဆုံး အခ်က္မွာ ဆႏၵမဲလက္မွတ္ကို လုံျခံဳလြတ္လပ္စြာ ေရးျခစ္ႏုိင္ခြင့္ ရဖို႔ပင္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

ကန္႔ကြက္မဲေတြ အမ်ားစု ျဖစ္ၿပီဆိုလွ်င္…

အခ်ိဳ႕က ကန္႔ကြက္မဲထည့္လုိက္လွ်င္ နအဖက ဒီအတိုင္း ဆက္လက္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္သြားလိမ့္မည္ဟု ေျပာၾကပါသည္။ ထိုစကားမွာ ေထာက္ခံမဲထည့္ရန္ မလွိမ့္တပတ္ စည္း႐ုံးေသာ စကားသာ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ အခ်ိဳ႕က ဒီဥပေဒကို ကန္႔ကြက္လွ်င္ ေနာက္ ဥပေဒတခုကို ထပ္ေရးလိမ့္ဦးမည္၊ အခ်ိန္ဆြဲထားလိမ့္ဦးမည္ဟု ေျပာၾကပါသည္။ ထိုစကားမွာလည္း ေထာက္ခံမဲရရန္ ဆင္ေျခေပးျခင္း တမ်ိဳးသာ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ထိုစကားမ်ိဳး ေျပာသူတုိ႔မွာ ေရွ႕ဘာျဖစ္မည္ အေသအခ်ာ မသိဘဲ ကိုယ္ထင္ရာ ဗရမ္းဗတာ ေလွ်ာက္ေျပာျခင္းသာ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။

ကန္႔ကြက္မဲအလြန္တြင္ ဘာေတြျဖစ္မည္ကို မည္သူမွ် တပ္အပ္ မေျပာႏိုင္ပါ။ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲ ျဖစ္ခဲ့လွ်င္ ဘာလုပ္မည္ဟု ေရးသားထားေသာ ဥပေဒလည္း မရွိ။ ယုံၾကည္ရေလာက္သည့္ အေျခအေနမ်ိဳးလည္း မရွိ။ နအဖကလည္း ဘာမွ် မေျပာ။

သို႔ေသာ္ ေျပာႏိုင္တာတခုေတာ့ အေသအခ်ာ ရွိပါသည္။ ယင္းမွာ "ျမန္မာျပည္သူလူထုက စစ္အစိုးရေတာင္းဆိုခ်က္ကို အႂကြင္းမဲ့ ပယ္ခ်လိုက္သည္" ဟု ကမၺည္း ေမာ္ကြန္း စိုက္ထူႏိုင္မည္။ လက္နက္ကိုင္ စစ္အစိုးရကို လက္နက္မဲ့ ျပည္သူမ်ားက ႏွလုံးရည္ျဖင့္ ေအာင္ႏိုင္မည္။ နအဖသည္ လူထုမလိုလား လက္မခံေသာ တရားမ၀င္ အစိုးရျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း ဒုတိယအႀကိမ္ ေၾကညာႏိုင္မည္။

ဒါ ေနာက္ဆုံးလား

လူထု ထည့္မည့္ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲသည္ `အေျခခံဥပေဒကို ကန္႔ကြက္ျခင္း´ ဆိုသည္ထက္ ပိုလြန္စြာ "စစ္အစိုးရ ျဖဳတ္ခ်ေရး ဆႏၵမဲ" အျဖစ္သို႔ ေရာက္ရွိသြားေတာ့မည္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ အဘယ္ေၾကာင့္ဆိုေသာ္ လူထုကန္႔ကြက္မဲ အမ်ားစုရခဲ့လွ်င္ နအဖ၏ ဖ၀ါးခုနစ္လွမ္း ႏိုင္ငံေရး အစီအစဥ္ႀကီးသည္ တုံ႔ခနဲ ရပ္တန္႔သြားမည္ ျဖစ္သည္။ လူထုက `ရပ္´ ဟု တားျမစ္လိုက္ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။ ထို႔ျပင္ စစ္အစိုးရ ေတာင္းဆိုထားသည့္ "ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္၏ အမ်ိဳးသားႏိုင္ငံေရး ဦးေဆာင္မႈအခန္းက႑တြင္ တပ္မေတာ္က ပါ၀င္ထမ္းေဆာင္ႏိုင္ေရး" ကို ျမန္မာလူထုက `ခြင့္မျပဳ´ ဟု အဓိပၸာယ္ထြက္ပါသည္။

ဤတြင္ အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္၏ ျပည္သူသို႔ ပန္ၾကားခ်က္ပါ အပိုဒ္ ၄ ကို အထူးသတိျပဳသင့္သည္ဟု ထင္ပါသည္။

၄။ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ကို အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေနေသာ အဖြဲ႔အစည္းတခုသည္ ျပည္သူလူထု ေထာက္ခံမႈ မရရွိလွ်င္ တည္တံ့ခိုင္ျမဲျခင္း မရွိႏိုင္ေၾကာင္းကို မိမိႏိုင္ငံသမိုင္းမ်ားႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာသမိုင္းမ်ားက သက္ေသထူလ်က္ ရွိသည္။

ထိုအခ်က္က ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲသည္ ဥပေဒကိစၥမွ်သာ မဟုတ္၊ စစ္အစိုးရ ဆက္လက္ တည္ရွိေရး မရွိေရးႏွင့္ တိုက္႐ိုက္ဆက္စပ္ေနသည္ဟု ေဖာ္ျပေနပါသည္။ ဥပေဒထဲတြင္ပါသည့္ အနာဂတ္၌ စစ္တပ္ ဦးေဆာင္မႈကို လူထုက မေထာက္ခံဘူး ဆိုသည္မွာ၊ ယခု အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေနသည္ကိုလည္း လက္မခံဟု ဆိုလိုက္ျခင္းပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ လူထုအေနျဖင့္ ဥပေဒကို ကန္႔ကြက္မဲ ေပးျခင္းသည္ `နအဖ အလိုမရွိ´ဟု ေႂကြးေၾကာ္လိုက္ျခင္းပင္ ျဖစ္သည္။ မဲစာရြက္မ်ားျဖင့္ ေဖာ္ျပလိုက္ေသာ ေႂကြးေၾကာ္သံက စစ္အစိုးရ ဆက္လက္တည္ျမဲမႈကို အႀကီးအက်ယ္ ကိုင္လႈပ္ႏိုင္မည္ဟု အဓိပၸာယ္ ေကာက္ယူႏိုင္ပါသည္။

အကယ္၍ စစ္အစိုးရကို စိမ္ေခၚႏိုင္ေလာက္သည့္ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲ မရလွ်င္ `အဆိုးဆုံး´ အေျခအေနႏွင့္ ရင္ဆိုင္ရဖြယ္ ရွိပါသည္။ အလုံးစုံ ပ်က္သုဥ္းေရးလား၊ အလုံးစုံ ေျပာင္းလဲေရးလား ေ၀ခြဲရန္ မလြယ္ေသးပါ။ ဒီတပြဲမွာ လူထုဘက္က စြန္႔စားရမွာေတြ အမ်ားအျပား ရွိသလို၊ နအဖဘက္မွာလည္း စြန္႔စားစရာေတြ ဒုႏွင့္ေဒး ရွိေနပါသည္။

ေလာေလာဆယ္တြင္ နအဖက ဖ၀ါးခုနစ္လွမ္း လမ္းစဥ္အတိုင္း အျပင္းအထန္ ခ်ီတက္ေနၿပီး၊ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ႏွင့္ စကားေျပာဆိုပြဲကို အရန္လမ္းစဥ္ သို႔မဟုတ္ ေခၽြးသိပ္သည့္လမ္းစဥ္ အျဖစ္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ေနသည္။ အကယ္၍ ကန္႔ကြက္မဲေၾကာင့္ သူ႔အစီအစဥ္ကို ဖ၀ါးေလးလွမ္းေျမာက္တြင္ ရပ္ေပးရလွ်င္ အရန္လမ္းစဥ္ကို ပိုမိုခ်ဲ႕ထြင္၍ အေျခအေနကို ထိန္းထားႏိုင္ေအာင္ ႀကိဳးစားမည္ဟု ယူဆရပါသည္။

ႏိုင္ငံတကာႏွင့္ ျမန္မာ့သမိုင္းတြင္ ျဖစ္ေလ့ျဖစ္ထ ရွိခဲ့သည္မွာ အစိုးရတရပ္သည္ အလြန္အမင္း အၾကပ္အတည္းႏွင့္ ရင္ဆိုင္ရလွ်င္ အေျပာင္းအလဲ တခုကိုေတာ့ လုပ္ၾကရစျမဲ ျဖစ္သည္။ ေမွာက္ထားေသာ ေရခြက္ကို ဆြဲလွန္လိုက္သလို အားလုံး ေျပာင္းသြားမည္ဟု မေမွ်ာ္လင့္ပါ။ သို႔ေသာ္ အလြန္ေခါင္းမာေသာ စစ္ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ႀကီးမ်ားသည္ သူတုိ႔ အေဖႀကီး ဗုိလ္ေန၀င္း၏ လမ္းစဥ္မ်ိဳးေလာက္ေတာ့ ေျပာင္းႏိုင္ေကာင္းသည္ဟု မရဲတရဲ ယူဆမိပါသည္။

အျမင့္ဆုံး အေျပာင္းအလဲမွာ ဗိုလ္သန္းေရႊႏွင့္ ထိပ္ပိုင္းလူအခ်ိဳ႕ ကန္႔လန္႔ကာေနာက္သို႔ ၀င္သြားျခင္းမ်ိဳး ျဖစ္ႏိုင္ပါသည္။ အနိမ့္ဆုံး အေျပာင္းအလဲမွာ ဆႏၵခံယူပြဲကို တာ၀န္ခံရသူတို႔ ဓားစာခံအျဖစ္ ထိုးေကၽြးခံရဖြယ္ ရွိပါသည္။ ျပယုဂ္ျဖစ္သည့္ လူအေျပာင္းအလဲမ်ားႏွင့္အတူ ႏိုင္ငံေရး အစီအစဥ္သစ္တရပ္ရပ္ ေပၚထြက္လာႏိုင္ပါသည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ ေရွ႕သို႔လမ္းစဥ္လား၊ ေနာက္သို႔လမ္းစဥ္လား ဆိုသည္ကေတာ့ တိုင္းျပည္၏ ကံၾကမၼာေပၚတြင္ မူတည္ေနပါသည္။

ကံၾကမၼာကို ကန္႔ကြက္မဲက ေမြးဖြားေပးမည္ဟု ယုံၾကည္မိပါသည္။ ။




_________________________________________________________________
Burmese Democratic Movement Association - UK
BDMA-UK, 110 B, Rectory Road, Stoke Newington, London N16 7SD
[Tel: 02072757413] [Email: bdma@bdmauk.org ] [Web - http://www.bdmauk.org ]

Keep Demanding Peace From China: Campaign Steps Up

Don't Watch the Olympics: Spread the Word

Yesterday in San Francisco, as the Olympic Torch went through the city, ten thousand protestors gathered demanding change from China. Furthermore a thousand Burma supporters were lead by Buddhist monks in a peaceful march across the Golden Gate Bridge.

More people around the world are realizing that the China's human rights record should not shame the Olympics. John McCain today came out stating that President Bush should strongly consider not going to the Bejijng Olympics. Also recently, Hillary Clinton has also came out in support of boycotting the opening ceremonies. Read more here.

During the San Francisco marches, Archbishop Desmond Tutu also released a statement concerning China's involvement with Burma, saying "I urge the government of China to end their arms trade with Burma's generals. It is still possible for China to realize the Olympic principles of 'respect for universal fundamental ethical principles' by 'promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.' The world is watching and expects no less."

Now is the time to take the Olympics campaign to another level.

Here are some more things you can do:

Watch and share the 8.8.08 video: A new video which gives an overview of Burma and China's involvement with the country. Watch it and share it with your friends.

Email Corporate Sponsors : Now you can in just a few minutes send an email to the Olympic corporate sponsors urging them to use their leverage to bring peace to Burma.

Be a part of the Street Team: Be a part of the team that is taking to the streets and getting the word out. Win prizes as well as the knowledge that your chapter is the strongest. The month of April we are having a competition to see who can collect the most amount of names of people who are pledging to not watch the Olympic Games. There will be updates on our website and the winners at the end of the month will be given prizes (t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc). Join the movement.
Keep the momentum going! Don't let people forget about Burma!

Support 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and the struggle for freedom and democracy in Burma.

The Olympic Torch Relay : The Faces Said It All

7 March 2008

Thousands of people who turned out to see yesterday’s London leg of the Olympic torch relay, witnessed how vulnerable and tiny the actual torch looked, carried by a single athlete and surrounded by a group of Chinese looking men in blue and white jogging suits. I couldn’t stop wondering who they were.

Later, I learnt that those Chinese minders were employed by Beijing Olympic Organising Committee to look after the torch and they are to go with the torch on its journey around the world. And they are called “flame attendants”.

News around the world reported how the ugly scenes of protest disrupted the relay and people’s concentration around the farce, violence and ignominy throughout the route. But for me, the most interesting sight was a phalanx of Chinese minders and in particular their faces.

Their rigidly upright bodies with the tight shoulders said they were military trained but what is the most striking for me was their expressions. The faces that could not disguise the anxiety and uneasiness. In fact, they looked so worried and disturbed that they looked like a herd of hyena who had just caught a zebra but were still surrounded by the lions.

They were equipped with communication ear pieces but that’s all, and it was clear how frustrated and strangely vulnerable they looked for not being able to hold guns, as they normally would in China, whenever they are up against protesters.

Those poor men, the employees and servants of the Chinese government with their remarkable behaviour and facial expressions of hyenas are only the reflection of their bosses and superiors. The same hyena-like expression and behaviour also applies to the faces of the Burma Junta, who China helps and supports throughout their oppression of the country’s democracy movements, in exchange of the cheap deal of natural resources.

By Goldie Shwe

Join us for the Olympic Torch's only US stop: Stand up for Burma!

Peace Walk Across Golden Gate Bridge

The Olympic torch in its journey has been met with thousands of challenging voices from people who resoundly disapprove of the ceremonies being held in a country with such a dark human rights record, including propping up Burma's military junta. In London and Paris thousands of people gathered in the streets creating many blockages to the torch's path.

Read news coverage of the protests here

On April 9th, this Wednesday, the Olympic torch will be making its only stop in the U.S., in San Francisco and we are strongly prepared for it. It is a crucial time, the world's focus will be there that day, as well as the Chinese government's attention. It is our turn to match the huge turnouts in London and Paris.

Burmese and Buddhist supporters will gather for a large march across the Golden Gate Bridge to declare that China must support peace in Burma. Led by Burmese monks and Buddhist clergy, including Jack Kornfield and other senior teacher, we will walk in peace to support the people of Burma. We call on China to reflect the peaceful values of the Olympics by: immediately halting arms supplies to Burma and demonstrating support for a comprehensive UN Security Council arms embargo on Burma.

The August 2008 Beijing Olympics are a key opportunity to draw attention to China's role in the suffering of the Burmese people. China is a major trading partner of the Burma's military regime, not only buying Burma's natural gas but as the largest single supplier of military goods to the junta. Furthermore, China has paralyzed any constructive UN Security Council action on Burma.

Even if you can't attend, you can still do something:

- Sign our online petition to pledge to not watch the Beijing Olympics and boycott Olympic sponsors, then get your friends to sign this as well. The more people who sign, the stronger the call to the Chinese government.

- Tell others about this event. Forward this email to friends in the area or if you use Facebook, you can easily tell your friends about it through our event page.

March Details:

This is a permitted walk. Parking is limited in bridge areas and we will have shuttles running from the SF side to Vista Point so that people will only have to walk one way. Wear red! The Bridge has strict rules. All signs must be hand held by one person. No sticks. Signs must be 3 feet by 2 feet at most. No musical instruments, banners, or flags. We can have these things before and after just not while on the bridge.

Schedule:


8:30 Park at Battery Park gravel (free) parking lot on the southeast side of the bridge at Lincoln St. Shuttles will be running across the bridge until 9:15am.

9:30 We will gather at North Vista Point on the Marin County side of the bridge in front of the flagpole. Parking here is free up to four hours, and there are public restrooms. This lot is accessible only from northbound US 101.

9:50 Move towards the Bridge.

10am Begin walking.

If you are eager to do more you can join fellow march participants who will go on to protest along the torch route - Click here to see the schedule.

Sponsored by the US Campaign for Burma (USCB), Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), Burmese American Democratic Alliance (BADA), International Burmese Monks Organization Inc. (Sasana Moli), Burmese Youth Association (BYA), 8-8-08 for Burma, BFUU Social Justice Committee and Global Exchange (GX).

Support 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and the struggle for freedom and democracy in Burma.

Junta’s Way Of Persuading Yes Voters

Original Source : Arzarni Blog
Comments by Goldie Shwe

It is not often that a minister of junta’s government is bothered to meet some people who are not going to be crucial in his promotion or prolonging of his dear post.

So when the owners and responsible personnel from the timber industry, Hlaing Tharyar, Rangoon were summoned to meet the Minister of Forestry on 1st April 2008, it is not so difficult to imagine the anxiety and curiosity they must be feeling. “Did we do something wrong?” “No, it can’t be. Any wrong doing with junta wouldn’t have the honour of meeting the local authority, let alone the minister.” “But then, why did he want to see us? Are we important to him ?

Yes, guys, you are quite important to him. Why ? Because he wants you, all your employees and staff from your factories to vote ‘yes’ in the forthcoming referendum.

The minister, most kindly, even explained why they should vote ‘yes’ :

-If you vote ‘yes’, then the ruling power will be handed over to the civilian government (what he meant was that the generals will remove their stiff military uniforms and put on the civilian outfits instead)

-If you vote ‘No’, then the present military junta will still rule the country (they will not discard their military uniforms)

-There is absolutely no intention of handing over the power to any other organization (now you are talking, minister!)

-The junta will be rewriting another brand new constitution again, no matter how long it takes (it took 18 years for the current one )

-If the public is unhappy and try to protest, the junta will use all possible methods to crush them (at last, the junta is telling the truth. Ban Ki Moon may want to have a look into this, before he sends Gambari to Burma again)

Finally, the minister concluded the meeting with this message, “By the way, I was ordered to tell you all this by my superiors” !

Olympic Torch Protest London 6th April

Dear friend

This Sunday protest against China’s support for the Burmese regime as the Olympic Torch comes to London:

Date: This Sunday - 6th April
Time: 12:30-1:30
Location: Opposite Downing Street, at junction of Whitehall and Richmond Terrace, Map: http://tinyurl.com/yv54pt
Nearest Tube: Westminster
See the location here
On Sunday the Burma Campaign UK and the Burmese community will be highlighting China’s continued support for Burma’s brutal regime by holding
a peaceful protest as the Olympic Torch comes to London.

Why China?
China arms the regime, supplying weapons, bullets and military vehicles to the brutal army.
China finances the regime , by signing deals in the oil, gas, hydro-electric and mining sectors china provides the regime with an economic lifeline.
China protects the regime by blocking UN Security Council action on Burma

By providing economic, political and logistical support China is helping to keep the brutal generals in power in Burma.

Join us this Sunday at 12:30. The torch only passes once so make sure you get there on time!
See the location here.

All the best and thanks for your support.

Anna Roberts
The Burma Campaign UK

Time To Reclaim “Blood Debt” – Vote “NO”

2 April 2008

Original Source : Golden Colour Revolution
Translation by Nay Chi U

In Rangoon, groups of young people were reported to be distributing leaflets containing an exhortation to vote “No” in the junta’s referendum in May.

Some areas in Rangoon, including Burma Pharmaceutical Institution, Institute of Technology, leisure parks and gardens saw the flyers appearing during the evenings and early mornings. “The Best Fertilizers”, a group, who claimed to be responsible for the action, said they managed to distribute an estimated 1000 leaflets.

The message on the leaflets reads, “You killed the monks who we deeply value and respect. You washed your feet with the blood of your own citizens. You also killed the students – the offspring of the citizens. We are going to show the world how intensely we hate and execrate you. ‘No’ vote is our weapon. We have 50 million people.”

“It is time for everyone to join hands.”

“Let us march to the polling station.”

“This is the chance for revenge”

“To reclaim our ‘blood debt’ – Vote NO”

U Ain Da, the spokesman for “The Best Fertilizers” said,” We are just exhorting the public to vote ‘No’. The reason? The junta’s draft constitution is just the reinforcement and confirmation of the long term future of the junta. It is nothing to do with the development of the country or improving the lives of the public. To expose this evil and transparent deception, the public must vote ‘No’. The world must recognise that they are nothing but a hated illegal government.”

According to the distributors, some people read them, some passed them on while some were too scared to read.

“The Best Fertilizers” organization, which consists of active youths, students, young monks and civilians, announces that they are resolute to make sacrifices on behalf of the public.

Beating And Arresting Won't Stop The Protesting - Happy New Year Burma!

By Goldie Shwe

One of the courageous members of the National League for Democracy Party, who gathered to protest on the 63rd Anniversary of the Anti-Fascist Revolution Day on 27th March had said, “They (the junta) may beat us or they may arrest us but we will keep on protesting.”

And the protests will go on.

The bad news for the junta is that instead of being intimidated, the NLD and other protesters are getting tougher and more resilient to the usual beatings and arrests. The timing also seems to be all wrong for the junta, who couldn’t have chosen the worst time for their much publicised referendum in May, too soon after “Thingyun”, the famous water festival.

Traditionally, Thingyun is the time when people expose and deliver their suppressed feelings, by performing topical antiphonal chants, in public. The Burmese, who are usually non-confrontational, get involved enthusiastically in the amusing satirical responses to the witty lead lines.

The mocking and ironically taunting chants are usually aimed at strict school headmasters, flamboyant movie stars, strangely behaved monks, greedy shop owners and mean mother-in laws. This year, every chant that has emerged is aimed at one target – the hated military junta.

It seems as though the people of Burma are unable to think of anything else but the torture and bullying they have suffered at the hands of the junta for the last 50 years. While the horrifying memories of last Septembers’ protests are still vivid in the minds of the people, the lies, the threats and the force used by the junta in preparation for their referendum in May, have made it all the more revolting and outrageous.

And what can you do when you feel revolted and outraged in Burma ? You protest, even though everyone knows that “protest” in Burma means violent beatings and arrests, certainly followed by long-term imprisonment. Fortunately for the protesters, the timing is just right for them.

Thingyan Festival , equivalent to the West’s Christmas and New Year rolled into one, is just around the corner. And during this important festival, people normally do what they like and jokes, humour and less inhibited behaviour are all-pervading. No one will be too surprised to see a normally restrained and reserved person, getting drunk and dancing all around the town, for example.

Everyone, alone, in pairs, or in small and bigger groups, walking, dancing, riding a trishaw or in a decorated cars, buses and coaches will be singing or chanting. The wittiest of the writers would have composed and prepared the antiphonal chants, which would be led by the most exuberant and spirited person, and echoed by a chorus of passionate and zealous followers.

Passers-by will stop to listen, admire and encourage the chanters. The Householders will open their doors and balconies to look at the performers before offering them drinks and snacks. More wealthy people will donate generously to the chanters.

The best thing about the antiphonal chants for the Water Festival is that the anti-government slogans could be all hidden amongst the traditional ones and could be passed off as mishearing, or a slip of a tongue. The clever writers would write ambiguously and or slightly obliquely so the chanters and the listeners will be giggling and laughing helplessly about the vitriolic and critical language but the junta will just have to watch impotently and take the ridicule. It is a protest, an outward and open protest, yet no one can arrest them because it is Thingyun and people are supposed to be chanting.

More importantly the chants will not only refresh the memories of the long-suffering people over the abuse to which they have been subjected by the ruthless and malicious junta, but also to remind them of their cunning and deviousness and their efforts to trick people into voting for the sham referendum in May.

Happy New Year Burma !

End.

Some Antiphonal Chants For The Water Festival

(Amusing and satirical – sung to the accompaniment of drums on festive occasions

The lead recites, lead lines to which a group respond , in chorus)


Lead : Is there any rain ..boys ?

Chorus: Is there any storm ..girls?

Lead: The Sun and the Moon are competing …

Chorus: Lord Sakka himself will be saving Daw Su (Aung San Su Kyi) .

Lead: The blood of the fighting peacock is so vividly red…

Chorus: Standing tall right in front of the public. (to protect or lead)

Lead : The military we inherit from our General (Aung San) …

Chorus: Is not to kill the people of Burma.

Lead: Aren’t you a tiny bit embarrassed …

Chorus : To bully the defenceless public ?

Lead: While Than Shwe’s daughter is covered in diamonds …

Chorus: The rest of the country is dying of starvation.

Lead: President of China Hu Jintao....

Chorus: Is the leader of the colonization.

Lead: Someone's sucking Burma’s blood …

Chorus: It is the Hu Jintao of China.

Lead: The PM of Thailand has shameless face…

Chorus: Who doesn’t flinch when telling fibs.

Lead : All the generals support the Olympics

Chorus: Which is certain to get bad reputation.

Lead: China’s got them by the balls…..

Chorus: Generals will do anything to please them all.

Lead: The UN and the Security Council …

Chorus: A million visits but nothing happens.

Lead: If we are afraid of the machine guns…

Chorus: There wouldn’t have been any protest.

Lead: Beating with the police batons…

Chorus: Make us laugh, make us laugh.

Lead: Su Su Nwe possesses tremendous courage…

Chorus: Who never stops smiling , even in prison.

Lead: Phu Phu Thin is the queen of hearts ….

Chorus: Who missed the funeral of her father.

Lead: Nilar Thein , the iron lady ..

Chorus: Who simply ignores the husband and the baby.

Interpretation by Nay Chi U
Original source : Democratic Voice of Burma

UN Must Reject Burma's False Constitution

Dear Friends

The military regime in Burma will be trying to pass a new constitution this May, one that only the military had a voice in creating and will essentially cement their hold of power. A new resolution has been introduced in the House of Representatives that will urge the United Nations Security Council to not recognize or accept this new constitution. Please let your Representative know today that he/she must co-sponsor this resolution.

Easily send an email through our website. It only takes a few minutes.

Why we need this resolution - UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari returned just a few short weeks ago from Burma. The military regime rejected each and every one of his proposals for a more inclusive and democratic process. Yet despite the complete failure of his mission, Gambari praised the military regime in his briefing to the Security Council. We must show the UN Security Council that Gambari is wrong, Burma's brutal military regime does not deserve praise but condemnation. Only through our strong support and advocacy for the people of Burma will we be able to overcome Gambari and the regime's biggest supporter, China at the Security Council. It is time the UN Security Council takes action to protect the people of Burma from another half century of oppressive military rule.

Representative Holt who introduced the resolution said in a press release "The Burmese people are determined to enjoy the same rights and freedoms that so many take for granted. The heroic efforts of opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and others have given hope to victims of terrible oppression, and they deserve our support. Passage of this resolution would send a strong signal to the people of Burma that we stand with them in their struggle for democracy."
To read more about why this constitution should not be supported, check out articles on our website in Burmese and English.


The resolution:
- Denounces the constitution drafting process and new referendum
- Insists that the miltary regime engages in tripartite dialogue with democracy forces led by Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic minorities
- Demands the unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners
- Urge President Bush to push the United Nations Security Council to not accept this new constitution and push for a binding resolution at the Security Council.

This is something that we can easily do to support the people of Burma who are determined to fight this new constitution. Please email now!

Aung Din, Jeremy, Jennifer, and Thelma

The United States Campaign for Burma


Support 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and the struggle for freedom and democracy in Burma.

Junta Spy Fake Monk on the Loose

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Source: Dr Lun Swe Blog site Translation By Pan Baydah

Junta Spy Fake monk named U Pyin Nya WunTha is on the way to US, left Bangkok on the Thai Airways Flight No. TG792 to New York on 19 March 2008 with Passport No. A015054, Name on Passport: U PANNA VAMSA

After the last year Saffron Revolution, the opportunist junta spy fake monk names U Pyinnya Wun Tha is on the way to United States.

Please visit Pan Bay Dah Blog for full report and photo of the spy monk.

Benefit single for Burma Campaign released - ³ Wake Up ² by Lo-Star

Dear Friends

Up and coming new indie band Lo-Star have just released their debut single in support of the Burma Campaign UK. Their new song 'Wake Up' was written by the band to tell the world that it’s time to take action on Burma. The profits from the single will be donated to the Burma Campaign UK to help us in our work for human rights and democracy in Burma.

The Daily Star has named it their single of the week, saying, “We should all still go out and buy it. Why? Because all the proceeds go to the Burma Campaign. Fortunately, it sounds quite lovely too. The lyrics "We gotta wake up, we've got to realise that something needs to be done" sound all the more poignant alongside the affecting video of the protesting Burmese people.”

Download the single now and help raise money for the Burma Campaign.
You can buy the single on iTunes: here...
Simply to sing a song about freedom and democracy in Burma is an arrestable offence, with a penalty of up to 20 years in jail. While the Burmese people are silenced, the rest of the world can speak out.

Watch the video at burmacampaign.

Buy the single on iTunes
phobos.apple

Wake Up is available in the shops from March 24th.

Thanks for your support.

Anna Roberts
The Burma Campaign UK

က်ိန္ စာ တိုက္ ၿခင္း

ေက်းဇူးႀကီးလွစြာေသာ ၿမတ္စြာဘု၇ားသခင္အား ဦးထိပ္ထားေ့ရြ ၊ မဟာပထဝီေၿမႀကီး ကို သက္ေသၿပ ုလ်က္ ၊
အကြ်န္ုပ္သည္ ဤမွန္ကန္ေသာ သစြာစကား ကို ဆိုအပ္ပါသည္။

မင္းဆိုးမင္းညစ္ နအဖ စစ္အစိုးရသည္္ ၄င္းတို့၏ ကိုယ္က်ိုးငွာ ၊ ရုိးသားေၿဖာင့္မတ္ေသာ ၿပည္သူမ်ား အေပၚ မတရား လိမ္ညာ လွည့္ၿဖားယုံသာမက ယုတ္မာ ညစ္ညမ္း စြာျဖင့္ ေစာ္ကား ညွင္းဆဲ သတ္ျဖတ္ လ်က္ရွိပါသည္။

ဤမွန္ကန္ေသာ သစြာစကားေႀကာင့္ ၊ မင္းဆိုးမင္းညစ္ စစ္အစိုးရ နွင့္ တကြ ၄င္းတို့၏ အေပါင္းပါ မ်ား၊ မိသားစုဝင္ မ်ားအားလံုးတို့သည္ စိတ္ဆင္းရဲ ကိုယ္ဆင္းရဲ ျခင္း ဒုကၡအဖုံဖုံကို ခံစားျပီးမွသာလ်င္ ေသျခင္းဆိုးျဖင့္ ေသႀကပါေစကုန ္သတည္း။

၄င္းတို့ေသေသာ အခါတြင္လည္း အဝီစိငရဲတြင္ အထပ္ထပ္ အဖန္ဖန္ ခံစားႀကပါေစကုန္ သတည္း။

Walk For Freedom

Athein, 35 and Zaw, 27 have embarked into a Walk for Freedom campaign. Please visit here to support them.

Free Burma's Political Prisoners Now ! - FBPPN

About Free Burma’s Political Prisoners Now! - FBPPN

BULLETS IN THE ALMS BOWL

An Analysis of the Brutal SPDC Suppression of the September 2007 Saffron Revolution

Human Rights Documentations Unit

NATIONAL COALITION OF THE UNION OF BURMA

March 2008


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This report is dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives for their part in the September 2007 pro-democracy protests in the struggle for justice and democracy in Burma.

May that memory not fade

May your death not be in vain

May your voices never be silenced


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For full reports please visit NCGUB site. Thank you.

20th Anniversay of Burma’s Human Rights Day

Twenty years ago, on 13th March 1988, the peaceful demonstration of Rangoon Institute of Technology (RIT) students was brutally cracked down by the ruling authorities, Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) government led by General Ne Win who took the power by armed might on 2nd March, 1962.

The deaths of RIT students Maung Phone Maw (inside the campus on that day) and Maung Soe Naing (on March 15 in hospital) by gunshots were followed by a mass demonstration on the street led by students of higher education on 16th March 1988. The demonstration was again brutally cracked down by government’s troops, resulting in the deaths of innocent students and hundreds of students in prison .

The student blood was shed on the streets and around the White-Bridge - about 500 meters away from the Rangoon University (main campus) - beside the Inya Lake. (Later then the White-Bridge is called as the Red-Bridge). Another demonstration on 17th March 1988 culminated in the deaths of many students, mainly in closed conveyances used to truck the arrested students to the Insein prison. since then, March 13 has been commemorated as Burma’s Human Rights Day.

(Original source : Burma Digest)

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Invitation to 20th Anniversary of Burma Human Rights Day

13th March 2008 is 20th Anniversary of Burma's Human Rights Day. We, Burmese Democratic Movement Association – UK (BDMA-UK) is holding a commemoration with the program below. Therefore we would like to invite you to come and show your solidarity with us.

(1) Offering food and alms to monks dedicating Phone Maw and to those who sacrificed their lives in the struggle for Burma's freedom.
AND
- Brief Presentation about Signature Campaign for all political prisoners in Burma.

Date - Thursday 13th March 2008
Time - Between 10:00 - 12:00
Venue - London Vihara (Wembley)
1 Old Church Lane
London NW9 8TG
Map………...
Tel: 02082006898

(NB - If you would like to bring your own prepared food, it will be helpful to feed all the participants)

(2) Masked Demonstration (Mask of Phone Maw will be provided)

Date - Thursday 13th March 2008

Time - 15:00 to 16:00

Place - In front of the Burmese Military Regime Embassy
19A Charles Street, London, W1J 5DX

Map................

For more info: 07762094562

We look forward to seeing you.

BDMA

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Please click for an invitation for residents in Thailand, Singapore and the USA.

Urgent action ­ Ban Ki-moon ­ Go To Burma!

Ban Ki-moon – Go To Burma!

Email UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon now calling on him to go to Burma.

On Monday 10th March the UN Envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, left Burma empty handed after the regime rejected every proposal he made for restoring democracy in Burma.

It was the 35th visit to Burma by a UN envoy in the past 18 years, and there has not been a single reform to show for any of them. In fact, the human rights situation has got much worse.

We can’t have another 18 years of suffering in Burma, another 18 years of torture, rape and ethnic cleansing.

It is time the UN woke up to the fact that this regime has been lying to UN envoys for almost two decades. It does not want reform and it is not interested in democracy.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should take over the process. He should have the backing of a binding Security Council resolution, which under international law will force the regime to reform.

Take action here.

Thank you.

Anna Roberts
The Burma Campaign UK

Aung San Suu Kyi Meets UN Envoy, What Happened

Dear Friend,

We typically use this email list to distribute calls for action on how you can help the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma.

However, many of you have been asking us what happened in Burma over the past weekend, so we wanted to send a special note.

Aung San Suu Kyi was seen in public when the United Nations Secretary General's envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, traveled to Burma.

His trip was the 35th trip by a UN envoy to Burma since 1990, but his mission was the same: to convince Burma's generals to participate in peaceful negotiations with Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's ethnic groups. In one form or another, 31 consecutive UN resolutions have called for these "talks" to start for nearly two decades. The goal of the "talks" is to create a framework for a transition to democracy.

Like previous trips by UN envoys, the military regime rejected all the UN proposals. The UN trip failed.

Frankly, we expected this to happen. We have watched how the military regime defies the UN at every turn for quite some time, and this trip was no different.

The main reason the regime is able to refuse to honor UN calls for change is that they know there will be no consequences from the UN. The only body at the UN that is capable of enforcing resolutions is the UN Security Council, but China has completely paralyzed the Security Council with its veto power. 10 Nobel Peace Prize recipients have called for the UN Security Council to impose a ban on all arms sales to Burma, but because of China's threat of a veto, the Council has only issued a non-binding, weak statement. Meanwhile, China has provided the military regime with billions of dollars in weapons and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.

As a result, the UN is making the same mistakes the world made on Rwanda, Darfur, and elsewhere. In the meantime, the regime has carried out awful human rights abuses against the people of Burma, which you know about. It is shameful that in todays' world one single country can hobble the entire United Nations, but that is exactly what is happening.

What You Can Do

Clearly, we need to be doing more to focus attention and pressure on China. That is one reason why we are asking people to turn off their televisions and not watch the Beijing Olympics. China very much cares about the Olympics and its reputation, and it appears that the only way we can get China's attention is to call for everyday American people (and others throughout the world) to signal our frustration by refusing to watch the Olympics. You can sign up here today to pledge to become one of 1 million people that will turn off your televisions and do something instead of watching the Olympics. We have an easy online tool that allows you to ask your friends and family to refuse to endorse the Beijing Olympics as well.

Feel free to write to us with any questions or ideas you have. We have to do a lot more to convince China to support peace instead of underwriting tyranny in Burma. If we work together, we can make it happen.

Aung Din, Jeremy Woodrum, Jennifer Quigley, Thelma Young

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Please support 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi and the struggle for freedom and democracy in Burma.

Free Burmese Journalists Petition

Dear Reader

Two Burmese journalists, chief editor Thet Zin and manager Sein Win Maung, from the Rangoon-based weekly publication "Myanmar Nation" were arrested on 15 February 2008, without any justification being offered. They are now in Insein jail, facing 10 years imprisonment.

Burmese Bloggers are appealing to United Nations mediator Ibrahim Gambari to condemn the arrest of these two journalists which could be linked to the presence in the newspaper's office of a copy of a report by his UN colleague, Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.

If you would like to act for the immediate release of Thet Zin and Sein Win Maung, as well as author Lay Lay Mun (alias Phu Ngong) of "Teenage Magazine", blogger and author Nay Phone Latt, and poets Min Han, Nay Htet Naing and Ko Ko Maung (alias Zaw Lu Sein), who were also arrested in 2008 please click here.

Links to the report : DVB and Ma Thadar's Blog

Who Can Save The Three Boatwomen, And How?

On February 4th, Dr Aung Moe Nyo, an MP for Pwint Phyu and 5 of his National League for Democracy Party members travelled to attend a Buddhist ordination ceremony in Ye Nan Chaung where they encountered intimidation and harassment from the juntas local representatives and police. The NLD group had to stay overnight in Ywa Dan Shay village as no boatmen would agree to take them across the river to the ceremony. It was learned that Kone Saung police chief Sein Win, and assistants Myint Thu and San Wai had been to the jetty earlier to force every boatman to sign an agreement promising not to take NLD members across the river.

The next day a boatwoman and 2 female family members from Ywa Dan Shay, decided to take Dr Aung Moe Nyo and group to Ye Nan Chaung, knowing the authorities could punish them for doing so. On February 6 the three ladies fears were realised when they were detained overnight for interrogation at Salin police station. The ladies were released on the following day only to find that their licence to take passengers across the River Irrawaddy, and their only source of income, had been withdrawn.

By February 10 the local residents and NLD members learnt about the situation of the boatwomen and started public collections to help support the 3 ladies with food and other assistance. However, as soon as the juntas’ representatives found out about the depth of public support for the ladies, they mounted guards outside their house to prevent any delivery of food or any other support.

Ten days later,(February 20th) DVB, the Democratic Voice of Burma reported the situation of the 3 ladies of Ywa Dan Shay, Salin, Magwe. Dr Aung Moe Nyo announced that material help for the ladies is all ready to deliver as early as possible.

These tactics are new, even in the junta’s despicable record. Since the military took over power by force in 1962 they have committed so many crimes – murders, rapes, imprisonment and torture, mostly behind the scenes. Sometimes, such is their absolute contempt for the Burmese people, that these beatings and even shootings, were carried out in broad daylight, in front of witnesses and cameras.

However, deliberately banning the three women from work, then also stopping them receiving any donations from the sympathetic public is one of the boldest non-covert actions the junta has perpetrated, as bold and brazen as the appalling public murder of a foreign journalist in the streets of Rangoon.

It has now been about 20 days since the ladies’ work permit was revoked and they were imprisoned in their own home, with their house under 24 hour surveillance. It is difficult to understand what the so called authorities are trying to achieve by their action.

• Do they think they can endear themselves with the Burmese public by forcing the three boatwomen to slowly starve to death, as a punishment for treating NLD members as normal citizens?

• Do they also think the members of the NLD party will show regret, change their minds and pervert themselves to join the junta instead? Or

• Do they simply want the general public to learn yet another harsh lesson that if they don’t listen solely to the junta and instead try to support the opposition party, NLD , they will also have to suffer?

What ever the reason, it is more important for the general public to think and plan how to support these three poor, honest and courageous ladies who earned their living ferrying passengers across the vast Irrawaddy river, in competition with their male colleagues.

The authorities who are camping outside the ladies’ house must be shamed. If the local residents are in unity and solidarity, in the belief that this is one of the most shameful and embarrassing event that could happen to Burma, they must unite in facing down the local followers of the junta. According to the report, the local NLD party members have collected food and other supporting items for the ladies and are waiting for a chance to deliver them. The public and the monks and nuns, must now support the NLD’s action because this is a very clear ‘make or break’ opportunity for everyone, who wants to test and examine their own humanitarian and moral beliefs. If all of the public do not unite and support the NLD in this most ugly event, and check the junta’s shameless bullying, then they must know that they have just determined their own fate too at the hands of all of the military juntas bullies and murderers.

The public must gather around the home of the ladies to see what the juntas followers are doing, making sure that all their cowardly actions are observed and recorded, in the eyes, ears and in the memories of all the people. They must find out the individual names of the police criminals and junta representatives and persons involved, and spread this information across the Division, to all the Districts, towns and villages. The families of the all the junta and followers across the land must be made to known that their men’s actions are noted as cowardly, shameful and repugnant to all normal human society.

The NLD and general public must also report the way the 3 imprisoned ladies are being treated, to ILO officials in Rangoon, while the exiled Burmese groups must report the event to Human Rights organizations and ILO offices, and anything else they can do to help the event gains increased local and international public awareness.

End

Time to Start Radio Campaign for Free Burma

BURMA SITMONE Weblog

This blogger has posted variety and numerous posts in this web-log. Almost all were telling readers how bad was the Military Junta of Burma, how Burmese people suffers under the Dictatorial regime, and statements of the pro democracy movements and news of ongoing campaign against the Military Junta.

However, this blogger feels that it would be very lucky if these posts are read by one percent of Burmese people staying inside the country. This blogger who is a Burmese, however unable to type in Burmese language fast enough to create a post.So, What are the numbers of my own countrymen received this blogger’s message? It will be very insignificant.

There are wonderful young and energetic Burmese bloggers who have been posting very relevant and interesting opinion in Burmese language .

Military Junta has effectively blocked the work of most famous Burmese bloggers (blogger.com). Arrest of Burmese blogger Nay Phone Latt, Burmese poet Ko Saw Way and recent arrest of Myanmar Nation’s journalists were systematic attack to Free Press and Internet Blogs by terror and fear.

At the same time Junta has declared referendum to be started by May,2008. This is also well planned and calculated attack to pro democracy movement. All of us out here understand that “this referendum” is going to be a sham. However Burmese people are at gun point, and it will be very difficult for them not to follow Junta’s orders as their utmost priority will be to survive the every single harsh day.

For them, Rambo is easy to understand than referendum. Constitution of Burma, which is so vital for future Burma may be something difficult to understand. ( I am well aware of existence of awakened Burmese in rural area) Majority of Burmese are farmers and from rural areas with so much difficulty for day to day survival.

Only way this blogger could think of is that the information relating referendum and constitution to be spread among the Burmese people through radios. The recent news of Burmese from Korea donated radios to Burmese people at border is a very significant move for freedom of Burma.

Now, DVB, RFA, which are run by exile Burmese groups should increase the radio campaign, with simple and straight forward news and programs about importance of referendum and constitution. These program should be started as soon as possible.

We should seek help from VOA,BBC, Aljazeera and CNN to get more news coverage of Burma and more slot of live discussions about freedom of Burma. These program should be able to download from Internet locally and must be able to distribute with Burmese subtitle in pirated VCDs. ( If Burmese can put Korean Movie with Burmese sub title there is no reason that we are unable to add subtitle to these useful discussions which is for urban population)

This blogger feels that this is the high time to start radio campaign for free Burma, as radios are cheap, easily available for majority of Burmese staying in rural area of Burma.

Let us start the Radio campaign for Free Burma.

Sit Mone

Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan

Dear Friend

I am writing today with very sad news. On Thursday 14th February Padoh Mahn
Sha, the father of one of our staff members, Zoya Phan, was assassinated by
agents of the military regime in Burma. Two gunmen came to his house and
shot him in the chest.

Padoh Mahn Sha was General Secretary of the Karen National Union, which
represents the Karen ethnic group in Burma in their struggle for democracy
and human rights.

He was a greatly respected leader who had dedicated his life for the
struggle for freedom. He was killed because of his effective and principled
stand against the regime.

His assassination is yet more evidence, as if it were needed, that the
regime is determined to cling on to power, no matter what. They see leaders,
such as Padoh Mahn Sha, who speak out for freedom and justice, as a threat
to their survival.

Many of you will have seen Zoya Phan speak at events and on television news
or seen her articles in our magazine. You can view some of her speeches on
our website at http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/pm/videos.php

Zoya and her brothers and sister have set up a fund in memory of their
father. Donations can be made online at http://www.zoyaphan.com. The fund
will be used to tackle poverty and provide education in Karen state, two
issues very close to Padoh Mahn Sha¹s heart. Please visit
http://www.zoyaphan.com. You can donate by credit card from any country or
you can send a cheque made out to ŒBurma Campaign UK¹ and post it to Padoh
Mahn Sha Fund, care of Burma Campaign UK, 28 Charles Square, London N1 6HT,
UK.

A statement from the children of Padoh Mahn Sha, released on the day of his
death, follows below.

Anna Roberts
Director, The Burma Campaign UK


Statement from the children of Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan

We are very sad to lose a great father and a great leader.

We were lucky to have a father who was caring and full of love. He gave us
guidance and support, and taught us tolerance and to stand against
injustice. He could not give us wealth or luxury, but ensured that we had an
education and the opportunity to fulfill our potential

He was always humble, yet a strong and brave leader. He dedicated his life
to the struggle, and always put the welfare of his people and his country
before himself. His example of determination and self-sacrifice to win our
freedom won him the love and respect of not just the Karen people, but also
the Burmese democracy movement and of freedom loving people around the
world.

He will be remembered by many not only as an inspirational leader, but also
on a personal level for the many acts of kindness he performed for those who
needed help.

We are proud to be his children, as all Karen people and all people who long
for freedom in Burma are proud of him.

Our father may be dead, but we will remember him. He taught us that it was
our duty to work for the Karen people, and as his children we will continue
his dedicated work towards true freedom for our people and peace in our
country.

His determination for freedom and democracy lives on within us and within
the Karen people. He did not live to see freedom for our people, but his
dream will be fulfilled. The Karen, and all the people of Burma, will be
free.

We will be establishing a foundation in memory of our father. Donations can
be made online at www.zoyaphan.com

Saw Say Say
Nant Bwa Bwa Phan
Nant Zoya Phan
Slone Phan


A brief biography of Padoh Mahn Sha

Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan was born in Rangoon on 5th July 1943.
He graduated from Rangoon University in 1966 with a degree in history.

He joined the Karen National Union (KNU) in 1963. In 1964 he became a member
of the KNU Central Committee, and was elected Joint General Secretary in
1995. He was elected General Secretary in 2000, and is also a member of the
Secretariat of the National Council of the Union of Burma, the umbrella
organisation representing organisations in the Burmese democracy movement.

Padoh Mahn Sha married Nant Kyin Shwe in 1976. She passed away on 31st July
2004. He is survived by four children, two sons and two daughters; Saw Say
Say, Nant Bwa Bwa Phan, Nant Zoya Phan, Slone Phan


To make a donation to the Padoh Mahn Sha fund, please visit
http://www.zoyaphan.com

Businesses Owned And Run By The Military Junta

Original post : Ko Htike's blog
Translation by Nay Chi U

BOYCOTT THE JUNTA, MONK KILLERS

A list of businesses owned and run by military junta’s top generals, their families and sycophants.

Reference : 2/2008, Appendix A

Date : 18 01 2008


1) Aung Barlay Lottery, owned by the Junta

2) Htoo Trading Company’s Businesses, owned by Tay Za, Than Shwe’s Finance Adviser

3) Hlyat Tapyet Journal, owned by Myat Khine

4) Mandalay Nan Myint Journal, owned by USDA , Mandalay

5) London Cigarette, owned by U Pine Co Ltd

6) Myanmar Beer & Dagon Beer, owned by U Pine Co Ltd

7) Samsung Electronic, AA Pharmac and Sunday Mart all owned by General Ye Myint’s son Aung Zaw Ye Myint and family

8) Queen Star Computer Company, owned by General Maung Aye’s daughter Nanda Aye

9) J Doughnut, owned by Supreme General Than Shwe’s son Kyaing Than Shwe and group

10) Shwe Man Thu and Taw Win, Long Distance Coaches and Cars, owned by U Pine, Bandoo La Company


11) Korea Daewoo Products, owned by Daewoo Company which buit a Weapons Factory for the junta

12) Luxury Products from China (China is selling weapons and other intelligence technique to junta, interfering in the UN Security Council’s decision to help the people of Burma and politically supporting the military junta that brutally crushes any democratic and human rights movement.)


Notification To General Public

A) The citizens of Burma have been intimidated and repressed by the junta’s generals and their sycophants, who have total control of the country’s economic and humanitarian situation. To help restore some power to the public and help restore democracy to our country, we must start by boycotting the businesses owned and run by the military junta group and its followers.

B) Please be a responsible citizen and inform the public of any other businesses owned and run by the military group to the nearest media so that we are all aware.

The Public Movement Organizing Committee

BOYCOTT THE JUNTA, MONK KILLERS

Original post : Ko Htike's Blog
Translated by Nay Chi U

An Appeal By The Public Movement Organizing Committee

Reference : 2/2008 SCMM

Date : 18-02-2008

To The General Public

Under the military rulers we, the general public are getting poorer everyday and the poverty net that surrounds us is just bigger and wider. By contrast, a handful of the military generals, and their families and friends, are getting extremely wealthy, that they can hardly find enough banks to keep all the money they have extorted from the people of Burma.

While repeatedly shouting out loud that they are encouraging a market economy system, the military group are in practice using the Burmese economy as their own market and selling of the counties’ resources for their own benefit. As a result the public, from individual road sellers to small and medium business owners and all other employed workers have to struggle to survive while it is impossible to live and work in a straightforward way as they are forced to pay huge taxes, forced donations and contributions, fines and penalty payments.

Our country’s important businesses and all natural resources are under the control of the military group, where they can sign contracts, permit or license at will, allowing them to steal the nations wealth that is they almost choke on it. Meanwhile we, the public, have to work from dawn till dusk, simply to survive.


Our country’s health, education and social services are also some of the worst in the world. Virtually none of the money stolen from the public, and none of the vast income from the sale of our country’s natural resources are spent on public services. The money goes either to the small ruling junta, family and followers, or to buy more lethal weapons which they can use to intimidate, repress and kill its own monks and citizens. Any public services built with the minimal funds used are for cosmetic effect only, for duping the international media, but what benefit do we actually get? Aren’t we all paying ourselves for health, education, social and all other services? We are like captive zoo animals, used by the junta to gain international aid, through our poverty and suffering, from which the corrupt authorities cut all the flesh for their own consumption, and laugh in the face of the public as they throw them the bones.

Whenever the country’s suffering and poverty is referred to the junta always blame it on the international economic sanctions. The international community has repeatedly offered immediate help and support if they start to make changes in the political and economical situation of the country which the junta repeatedly refuses at the cost of continued public starvation.

Their one real policy is to maintain their control over everything in the country. In such a situation, every investment, all support and aid, pumps money into the junta’s own bank accounts, while the public remains poor.

Intimidation and bullying of vulnerable civilians has become a casual regular practice all the way down from the central to the lower level authorities, where we are being controlled by fear– ludicrously unreasonable laws, arbitrary orders and the grossly punitive prison sentences.

If we continue to put up with the abuse, bullying and repression, our off-springs will also become the slaves to the junta’s obnoxious offspring. We must work to improve our own children’s future. Our reply to the junta must be directed at replacing their violent and grossly evil selfishness with fairness and peace. We must defend ourselves from the lethal power of the juntas’ endless weaponry through the power of the people.

We must now boycott the junta’s own businesses.

That way

• We are systematically helping to reclaim our own rights and economy which has been stolen from us.

• We are protecting and defending our own rights and benefits,

• We are peacefully and lawfully answering the bullies instead of just tamely complying and suffering,

• We are staging the silent mass protest and demonstration, which reflects public solidarity,

• We are helping to stop the arrest, torture and killing of the monks, nuns, students, civilians and ethnic groups.

……..We must all participate …….

• This is an obligation for all of us Burmese who are denied all human rights,
• This is to secure the continued existence of our society into the future,
• This is our National movement.

To start to resolve all the issues and problems which beset our country, including poverty, the SPDC military junta must engage in meetings with public leaders including the ethnic groups and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. This is the only way that the country will be able to find peace and in time, to develop.

We will be maintaining these economic sanctions and boycotts until genuine discussions begin to find a clear resolution to our daily struggle with the problems of basic subsistence, maintaining health and gaining an education.

In solidarity and union, we will march forward together until we achieve these absolutely essential goals.

The Public Movement Organizing Committee

1 All Burma Monks Alliance (ABMA)

2 United Groups of Ethnic Youths

3 All Burma Federation of Students Union

4 8888 Generation Students

5 Peace loving Muslim Organization

6 Generation Wave (New Blood Youth Organization)

7 Lawyers Union

8 Poets Union

9 New Generation Journalists Union

10 Public Activities Development Committee (Mandalay)

11 Public Activities Development Committee (Rangoon)

12 Writers and Artists Group

The Junta's What-Fruit Tree

14 February 2008

Once upon a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta came to life as the leader of a caravan. Once when journeying with five hundred carts from East to West, he came to the outskirts of a forest. Assembling his men, he said to them:--"In this forest grow trees that bear poisonous fruit. Let no man eat any unfamiliar fruit without first asking me." When they had traversed the forest, they came at the other border on a What-fruit tree with its boughs bending low with their burthen of fruit. In form, smell and taste, its trunk, boughs, leaves and fruit resembled a mango. Taking the tree, from its misleading appearance and so forth, to be a mango, some plucked the fruit and ate; but others said, "Let us speak to our leader before we eat." And these latter, plucking the fruit, waited for him to come up. When he came, he ordered them to fling away the fruit they had plucked, and had an emetic administered to those who had already eaten. Of these latter, some recovered; but such as had been the first to eat, died. The Bodhisatta reached his destination in safety, and sold his wares at a profit, after which he travelled home again. After a life spent in charity and other good works, he passed away to fare according to his deserts.

_____________________________

It was when he had told this story, that the Master, as Buddha, uttered this stanza:--

As they who ate the What-fruit died, so Lusts,
When ripe, slay him who knowing not the woe
They breed hereafter, stoops to lustful deeds.

Having thus shewn that the Lusts, which are so sweet in the hour of fruition, end by slaying their votaries, the Master preached the Four Truths, at the close whereof the concupiscent Brother was converted and won the Fruit of the First Path. Of the rest of the Buddha's following some won the First, some the Second, and some the Third Path, whilst others again became Arahats.

His lesson ended, the Master identified the Birth by saying, "My disciples were the people of the caravan in those days, and I their leader."

________________________


(To the fifty million people in Burma, who will be forced to vote in a constitutional referendum in May and general elections in 2010. The sadistic junta who shamelessly refused to hand over the power to the National League for Democracy Party, which won the landslide victory in the election in 1990, has been drafting a new constitution in closed meetings without any input from opposition leaders or ethnic groups. I personally see the proposed referendum as poisonous fruits of a What-fruit tree and hope that the citizens of Burma do exactly the same.

Yours faithfully

Goldie Shwe)

To read the full story please click here.

Elation Over A Murder?

10 February 2008
By Goldie Shwe

I was just skimming through the DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) for Burma’s daily news when I saw that report of the murder of a member of USDA (Union Solidarity and Development Association) - junta's paramilitary wing of 'social welfare' organization. I had hardly finished reading the summary before I started smacking my own arms; the Burmese style war dance and challenge, similar to Maori Haka. My own reaction surprised me and made me think why I naturally reacted with elation and triumph.

Not only was I brought up as a Buddhist, it was also my choice of religion and I have great and fundamental respect for Buddha's teaching. I learnt the 'Five Precepts', the most important basic rules of Buddhism, at an early age. The first of those was not to kill, and have respect for all life. The Buddha said, "Life is precious to all beings. They have the right to live the same as we do." We should respect all life and not kill anything. Killing ants and mosquitoes is also breaking this precept. We should have an attitude of loving-kindness towards all beings, wishing them to be happy and free from harm.

Although I cannot boast that I am one of the most religious and decent of people, I try my best to follow the Five Precepts, most of all not to kill. So why then was I so jubilant, why did I jump up and down in celebration over a horrible murder case?

I have been angry. I have been extremely angry since September 2007. When all the protests and the crackdown of them happening I was unhappy, sad, frightened for people who would be tortured and killed. Eventually my feelings have changed. Everywhere I turned I saw reports of bullies, torturing and killings that junta is doing to innocent and vulnerable civilians in Burma.

I was angry that 400 children die everyday in Burma, either through hunger or diseases related to malnourishment.

I was angry that a monk was tortured, killed and his body thrown into a river.

I was angry that monasteries were raided at night, monks killed, or locked up in prisons.

I was angry that so many elected politicians are locked up in prisons long-term, and denied access to basic medical treatment.

I was angry that many poor unknown people were locked up in prisons and tortured while their families made to travel many miles to visit them.

I was angry that Nilar Thein is on the run, while her husband is in jail and their baby separated from her.

I was angry that United Nations could do nothing to protect innocent people of Burma.

I was angry that the junta's thugs bully and blackmail local people so that they cannot support the members of National League for Democracy Party, which won the landslide election victory in 1990.

I was angry that Aids (HIV) sufferers are denied treatment in hospitals, the monastery which provided their free accommodation was stripped and sealed off, the monks chased away from the place, and their care manager Phyu Phyu Thin is also on the run, and was unable to be with her dying father or at his funeral.

I was angry that street children have been abducted by the junta's thugs and sold to serve in the military and for the girls become prostitutes.

I was angry that the junta's generals and their sycophants are robbing all the country's natural resources, to stuff their own over-full bank accounts.

I was angry that so many ethnic groups have been wiped out by the junta.

I was angry that human rights abuse and forced labour records and reports are so long and depressing that I was too upset to continue reading.

Every item of news and report that I find about Burma has been nothing but intimidation, bullying, torture and the killing of the people by cowardly junta. I have become unable to feel anything other than cold anger, indignation, outrage at the appalling record of the junta.

The feeling of revenge and some satisfaction therefore seemed quite natural when I read about the killing of one of the junta's thugs.The DVB reported that the man, a member of the USDA of Hlaing Tharyar, one of the poorest and most repressed areas of the capital Rangoon, was notorious for his arrogant and threatening behaviour towards the residents. His head was left on public display by unknown assailants in a primitive display for the losers of the fighting or a war. His headless body found nearby was lacerated all over, each cut reflecting the people’s long pent-up hatred for the junta and its minions.

The fact that neither head nor the mutilated body were hidden but left on public display has sent a very clear and loud message to junta and their thug followers that the people will not, and cannot, forget or forgive their treatment for so many long decades. The chilling nature of the murder must have sent shockwaves across the country - the first clear response indicating that the breaking point of the people may be near.

The repugnant Than Shwe and his shameless group of cowardly generals and their families might be residing in huge heavily-guarded estates in Pyin Manar Nay Pyi Daw, enjoying the wealth they have robbed from the country and giving orders to their thugs on how to repress the public and still keeping the most revolting grins on their faces but even they must have seen the first batch of dark clouds that is now beginning to loom over their heads.

For junta's thugs, who were given a share of power and equipped with weapons to control the public, life has been very easy and pleasant. Apart from intimidating and threatening people with their junta-backed power, and occasional arrests and tortures, life has been easy. On top of the benefits of delegated power and weapons, these men have been well paid, with performance bonuses and rewards, and exclusive access to gadgets like mobile phones and video cameras not available to the public. This has all been icing on a very nourishing cake for those official members of junta's many paramilitary organizations.

The report also stated that, following the chilling murder of one of their number, the teams of junta thugs seem to have been rather quiet. More interestingly, the public found that gone is the hitherto haughty and pompous behaviour, to be replaced by a slightly more considerate attitude. The most obvious outcome, immediately after the murder, has been that the thugs have abruptly abandoned their habit of intimidating and harrassing the general public.

The rewards and bribes they receive from the junta for carrying out the practicalities of repressing the public have been good, especially when they can have real power over the lives of many poor and struggling people. Suddenly they are under threat themselves and have to think about the possible price of their activities to themselves and possibly their relatives? At least locally, their demeanour has changed dramatically in the face of these life- threatening issue of a popular fight-back spreading more widely.

Every action provokes its own reaction. The people of Burma have been suffering for too long. Their suffering and distress have been too great that they have been left with no option but to take the law into their own hands.

Yes, we are Buddhist. And yes, the Lord Buddha told us not to kill. And yet, I applauded the cruel murder. My own reaction has shocked me so I had to decide to give myself some time to reflect. After a sleepless night, thinking through every aspect, I still feel exactly the same. I still strongly believe that the murdered junta thug thoroughly deserved his fate. It seems to be the only way that people of Burma can get some form of justice. The ordinary people of Burma are at war with the cruel bullies, torturers and killers of the junta, and this murder somehow seems a fair response to the decades of abuse and robbery. The fight-back may have begun.

And for my own peace of mind, I decided to record my satisfaction and triumph over this horrible murder to be very honest with myself and others, because if I don't, I will only be breaking another of Buddha's Five Precepts - No Lying.

End.

Preparing For The Worst : To Understand How Bad It Is

7 February 2008
By Goldie Shwe

Burma's opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has sent a message, "Prepare for the worst!", after her meeting with senior members of the National League for Democracy Party on 30 January.

First, the people of Burma need to understand how terrible their common enemy really is. How the Army has become over many decades, a putrifying cancer, draining the life out of the nation it was set up to defend, by intimidation, endemic corruption, and a determination to exclude the people of Burma from any role in governing their country.

Military power has become an addictive drug, the use of which allows them to drain the nation and its people of their resources, and to bank the proceeds. One half of the nations’ income is spent on the military junta; the people of Burma are increasingly seen by the junta as a slave nation, born to work for them. If you understand this, you are already able to understand how difficult making any change is going to be. Our weakest point in the past was not being able to see how bad the enemy was.

We didn't see junta as so bad because they were Burmese. Under the British and Japanese, it was much easier as they were foreigners who looked much different from us. We did not want them to rule our country because we could not believe that they would have our best interests at heart.

Against this background, we were unwilling to believe that the Burmese military, drawn from our very own people, could be that bad, just as a child cannot believe its own parents could hurt him, let alone intimidate, violate and even kill him. We always had naïve belief and hoped that the junta could change and be good and kind to us, because they are just like us - Burmese and Buddhists - after all. How can they possibly be so evil?

The sad truth which has taken too long to believe is that the junta is a group of the most ruthless terrorists, who breed and train thugs to rule the country and they will do anything to protect their ruling power, including killing of the monks.

If you still believe, after the September 2007, that the junta's killing, torturing, bullying and raping of the people of Burma and robbing of the natural resources of the country is still nothing to do with you, then the country will be under the heel of the military junta for another 100 years, with your complicity.

End