BS: Should we care about Burmese?

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 06:28 AM

"Pressure from campaigns across the world has forced a long list of companies to withdraw from Burma. These include: British American Tobacco, Texaco, Levi Strauss,Triumph International, Premier Oil and many others.

However, companies like TOTAL Oil (of France) and Chevron (of the USA) are major investors in Burma. The Burma Campaign UK (BCUK) aims to pressure companies like these to withdraw from Burma and cease their support for the regime.

The United States has imposed tough economic sanctions on Burma. These include a ban on new investment, an asset freeze, a restriction on dollar transactions and a ban on most Burmese imports into the United States.

The UK government is a strong critic of the regime but despite supporting Aung San Suu Kyi's call for targeted economic sanctions in opposition, the government has failed to impose them. BCUK is lobbying the government to honour their pre-election position."

.....From The Burma Campaign UK site

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 06:12 AM

Burma (if I may use that name) has large gas reserves and exports them to (mostly) China which explains the reluctance of China to support international sanctions.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 05:41 AM

The Burma Campaign UK

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 04:54 AM

With you there Jock, though I definitely don't want to see the Shrub pushing the idea of military intervention..... Oh, hold on a minute. No danger of that. No oil.

Still, my heart goes out to those poor people who are being oppressed by a regime that couldn't exist but for the power of the gun.

In my experience, buddhists are the gentlest and most caring of people, and it is a measure of the oppressive nature of their government that they are taking this kind of action.

I have started on Bruce's list, and added one more voice to the protest.

Should we care?   OF COURSE WE BLOODY SHOULD! If we aren't ready to stand against evil, what was the use of our fathers' sacrifices through six years of WW2.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: redsnapper
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 04:50 AM

By the way refer to it as Burma, the legitimate opposition's preferred name for the country. Although also recognised by the UN and some countries, Myanmar is the name conferred by the military regime. The UK government and the BBC (and as far as I am aware, the US) still use the name Burma.

A small but nevertheless useful gesture.

Also BTW, in answer to the thread question, yes of course.

RS

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 04:32 AM

How little some people know or care about others.
Mark Alley you are talking crap. It's oppression and military rule that need to end in Burma, they have democratically elected leaders, which the army refused to accept and put under house arrest.
Aung San Suu Kyi was elcted in 1990 to be prime minister of Burma, since which she has been under almost permanent house arrest, even to the extent of not being allowed to attend her husband's funeral.
So don't give me crap about interfering with ancient civilisations, or forcing democracy on people who don't want it. Try reading about it, and more to the point try watching a news programme that realises there is life outside the USA.
You just MIGHT learn something.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 03:35 AM

Great links Peace, your suggestions are a bit more effective than wearing a red shirt.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 01:32 AM

Myanmar is what's now know formerly as Burma, here a link to the Wall Street Journal' story

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: GUEST,Bobbie
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 12:00 AM

BS huh? yeah yeah yeah, great white way, we have to eat hamburgers and drink coke. you know what, america is a great nation which help other countries in need. i strongly support america getting in other countries' business, especially those in needy. for your information, the government ruling this country, MY country, is much worse than Hitler. you know why? hitler may have killed millions of human beings, but you know what he never touched the churches. NEVER did he touch the churches, he may be a totalitarian brutal lunatic white man, he still knows his own religion. BURMA's faithful leaders shoot their own religions' messengers, Buddha's son. they beat and kicked them with military boots, arrested them, hit them with clubs,stab them with spears, some in their throats.. this government needs to be get ridden of. and america is one of the answers,later, the answer to freeing the 52 million Burmese people and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would be the whole world.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:45 PM

Just sent another. I'll post any responses. Don't hold yer breath.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:38 PM

Anyone gonna add their voice to this?

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:37 PM

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:32 PM

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:27 PM

"I am requesting that the Government of Canada cease immediately any and all trade dealings with your country until such time as you have stopped killing and jailing people who want human rights, something your repressive government seems to do so willingly and easily. I am requesting also that until such time as you release Aung San Suu Kyi, Canada no longer recognize your country."

Just sent that by e-mail ('signed' with my name and address) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Burma). I will be proceeding down the list.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:17 PM

Each web address has a contact link at the bottom of the page that comes up. Use your typing and thinking skills to let them know what you think of the government's actions. Beat shootin' the shit with each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:15 PM

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.mofa.gov.mm

The Ministry Of Religious Affairs
http://www.mora.gov.mm

Ministry of Commerce
http://www.commerce.gov.mm

Ministry of Construction
http://www.construction.gov.mm

Ministry of Livestock-Fisheries
http://www.livestock-fisheries.gov.mm

Ministry of Agriculature and Irrigation
http://www.moai.gov.mm/

Ministry of Co-Operatives
http://www.myancoop.gov.mm

Ministry of Hotels and Tourism
http://www.hotel-tourism.gov.mm/

Ministry of Home Affairs
http://www.moha.gov.mm/

Progress of order Areas and National Races and Development Affairs
http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/PBNRDA/

Ministry of Education
http://www.myanmar-education.edu.mm

Ministry of Health
http://www.moh.gov.mm

Ministry of Culture
http://www.myanmar.com/Ministry/culture/

Myanma Posts and Telecommunications
http://www.mpt.net.mm

Ministry of Finance and Revenue
http://www.myanmar.com/Ministry/finance/

Ministry of Forestry
http://www.myanmar.com/Ministry/Forest/

Ministry of Immigration & Population
http://www.myanmar.com/Ministry/imm&popu/

Ministry of Industry (1)
http://www.industry1myanmar.com/

Ministry of Industry (2)
http://www.industry2.gov.mm/

Ministry of Transport
http://www.mot.gov.mm

Ministry of Information Committee
http://www.myanmar-information.net

Social Welfare, Relife and Resettlement
http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/ministry/MSWRR/index.html

Ministry of Energy
http://www.energy.gov.mm

Ministry of Electric Power (1)
http://www.energy.gov.mm/MEP_1.htm

Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development
http://www.mnped.gov.mm/

Ministry of Mines
http://www.energy.gov.mm/MOM_1.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 09:05 PM

One man's opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:52 PM

A good plan, T. I take exception to your angry generalizations about people on this forum, but then for some strange reason, I don't butt heads with others here quite as often as you. Can't figger that out.

I hope you pass your idea along to the monks and they take it under serious advisement.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:47 PM

Yes...

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Alba
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:44 PM

There is an orgainisation in the UK, Link
My Son brought it to my attention a while back now and we both have been checking into the site pretty much daily.
There have been no updates there since the 24th of September. Very, very troubling situation.

Appreciate you posting what you have been able to find out so far Amos.

In the Spirit of Hope,
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:41 PM

According to most on this forum, and who is meant by "we", absolutely not. Nor should we care about anybody else. Because to most hear "caring" doesn't really amount to much and as such doesn't really translate into anything significant.

I have been asked to wear a red shirt today to show my solidarity. How completely useless a gesture is that?? Just excatly what does it achieve? Western window dressing to make a bunch of poseurs feel as though they are doing something. Utter crap, tell the Monks and the people of Burma literally, don't do a damn thing, total passive civil disobedience with regard to anything that affects your Government or those that rule you. As long as everybody sticks to it, the Government collapses in under two weeks, think about it.

Before anybody jumps in and says such a thing could never happen, the "Unionists" did exactly that in Northern Ireland and halted one of the first real peace initiatives in its track within four days.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:21 PM

From a correspondent:

"The pictures at Irrawaddy.org are riveting. Saddening, maddening.
Inspiring.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/

And there are a few video clips that have made their way as far as
YouTube. One (relatively peaceful) one is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIpraH81paY

The latest reports are 7:00p.m. Myanmar time, just an hour and a half
ago (it's two and a half hours behind Tokyo). Protests seem to be
stretching into the evening.

One report is that a Japanese person is among the ten or more that have
been killed.

Hundreds of monks have been rounded up by the army. A few people have
been shot, many beaten, after forty years of repression and isolation
and previous attempts to throw off dictatorship and install a fledgling
democracy.

The first time I met a particular man, in 2003, he had just stepped off
a redeye flight, returning from opening Burma's very first Internet
connection. The pictures you see and reports you read may very well be
traversing that line. Despite some reports, the Internet is apparently
not *completely* cut off from there, as of yet. The fact that
information leaks out through cell phones and the Internet no doubt
alarms the junta, and may be a factor in staying the junta's hand.

Are we looking at fifty-six million rising up and freeing themselves?
Or are we looking at the next Tiananmen (which itself may have been
worse if not for CNN)?

Information is fragmentary, conflicting and delayed. I can do nothing
from here, nothing more than encourage those outsiders who can pressure
the junta, and even they cannot ultimately decide; only the Burmese
people can. But I cannot look away.
"

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: GUEST,Mark Alley NC
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:15 PM

Personally no.

I am sick of Western nations attempting to bring the "Great White Way" to countries with cultures and traditions dating back thousands of years.

So the Iraqis need to drink coke and open burger bars to become acceptable.

Robert Mugabe is not a nice guy because his government isn't as open and transparent as Britain or America, Thank God it's not like either of them !

Understand that all of the governments of these counties are responsible for the welfare of their own people. For God's sake half of them aren't civilised, chopping up your opponents with machetes ?

We will never change their cultures.

Stay out of their affairs and don't be dipping into your pocket yet again when you see a well orchestrated tv ad campaign.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: John O'L
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:10 PM

Is there oil in Burma?

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 08:05 PM

Of course we should care. But I doubt if there is much we can actually do that makes things better. It is easy to imagine ways of making things even worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 07:49 PM

Washington Post:

Save Burma


Will China and Russia give a green light to a slaughter of the monks?
Thursday, September 27, 2007; Page A24


BURMA' S BRAVE monks and the thousands of people who support them have been chanting a simple demand to the country's military rulers: dialogue. Instead, the peaceful protesters in Rangoon were attacked yesterday with tear gas, water cannons and gunfire. By the regime's own account, at least one person was killed when troops fired on a crowd near the venerated Sule Pagoda; opposition accounts said as many as eight people died and hundreds of monks were beaten before being hauled onto trucks and driven away. The corrupt and paranoid generals in the ruling junta have clearly decided to face a popular uprising with the same methods used to put down a similar revolt in 1988. That means the world can expect mass bloodshed in Burma in the coming days -- unless something is done to stop it.

The United States and the European Union acted with admirable cohesion and aggressiveness yesterday, calling for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council and asking it to consider sanctions. The Western governments issued a blunt joint statement that condemned the violence and told the Burmese generals they would be held individually accountable for their actions. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was eloquent: "The whole world is now watching Burma, and its illegitimate and repressive regime should know that the whole world is going to hold it to account," he said. "The age of impunity in neglecting and overriding human rights is over."

The problem is that the "whole world" is not yet prepared to prevent a massacre of monks. Several countries that like to think of themselves as strategic partners of the West -- in particular, Russia and China -- are blocking concerted international action against the regime. China, which has taken advantage of Burma's pariah status to turn it into a virtual economic colony, came out against U.N. sanctions yesterday. Russia's foreign ministry issued a statement rejecting "interference in the domestic affairs" of Burma and predicting that "the situation will be back to normal soon" -- chilling words considering what the troops in Rangoon would have to do to return the situation to "normal."

Yesterday, Russia and China prevented the Security Council even from condemning the violence against protesters. In effect, they are giving the regime a green light for brutal repression. We can hope that the generals will be deterred by the warnings about the war crimes trials that could await them, or that their officers and conscripts will refuse to carry out their orders. If the repression proceeds, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao will have Burma's blood on their hands.

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 11:11 AM

Story here.

I have seen no protest from Canada as yet. (I just sent off an e-mail to our Prime Minister.)

Subject: RE: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 11:01 AM

Jim Carrey

Subject: BS: Should we care about Burmese?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 10:44 AM

From the Washington Post...

At least the UN is predictable and consistant...



Courage in Burma

Pro-democracy protesters dare to take to the streets. Will the world respond as bravely?
Thursday, August 30, 2007; Page A20


THE MOST STRIKING feature of the remarkable protests taking place across Burma for the past 10 days is that they are taking place at all. That Southeast Asian nation is ruled by one of the world's most repressive and brutal regimes, led by dictator Than Shwe. Those who dare speak out risk imprisonment and torture not only for themselves but for their relatives. Yet since Aug. 19, hundreds of men and women, students and Buddhist monks, have peaceably taken to the streets across Burma to protest economic mismanagement and political oppression. Scores have been swept into prison; many more have been beaten by government-sponsored thugs. Min Ko Naing, released in November 2004 after 15 years in prison for leading pro-democracy protests in 1988, took to the streets again -- and is once again in prison, facing a possible 20-year sentence for a nonviolent demonstration.

What response does such courage call for from the outside world? A lot more than we've seen so far, that much is certain. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's special envoy for Burma has been missing in action, and Mr. Ban himself belatedly issued a mealy-mouthed statement that "encourages all parties to avoid any provocative action." Meaning what? That 50 million Burmese citizens -- disenfranchised, impoverished and press-ganged into involuntary servitude -- should refrain from "provoking" the regime by exercising their inalienable right to assemble and speak out?

The U.N. Security Council should be at the forefront of global demands for an end to repression in Burma. The military junta has been responsible for a kind of slow-motion Darfur. More than 3,000 villages in eastern Karen state have been razed, more than 1.5 million people displaced. Soldiers routinely bayonet peasants' pots so that they cannot cook and will go hungry. If this isn't a fit subject for the Security Council, it's hard to know why the organization exists.

The Bush administration and first lady Laura Bush in her own right have been far more impassioned about Burma. Yet the United States, too, should have learned by now that rhetoric is not enough; a strategy is needed. Unlike so many dictatorships, Burma (called Myanmar by its junta) has a legitimate political authority waiting in the wings: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy won a landslide electoral victory in 1990. She has been under house arrest for most of the years since. Now the administration needs to make clear to other nations with influence in Burma -- China, India, Thailand and Singapore, to name a few -- that a democratic transition there is a U.S. policy priority and a prerequisite for peace and stability in Asia. As former South African archbishop Desmond Tutu told The Post, when "the courageous people of Burma, in spite of the viciousness of the military junta," are ready to come out by the thousands, "we in the free world cannot stand by."