It is quite common these days to find people fight for lower prices, improved healthcare, quality education and better utility services. But it is no longer common in Burama where the Burmese military junta detain people who do such fights. Demonstrations of any such types may be staged provided the parties get prior official permission.The above scenario has come about when a group of 10 civilized Myamarese thought it right to seriously fight for their basic rights.
Carrying placards and chanting slogans, they staged the protest in Yangon’s Thingangyun township, calling for lower prices and improved healthcare, quality education and better utility services. The protest ended peacefully in an hour so, but plainclothes police took away eight demonstrators as some 100 onlookers watched.
That protest was one of the first such demonstrations in recent years to challenge the junta’s economic mismanagement rather than its legal right to rule. The protesters detained in the February rally were released after signing an acknowledgment of police orders that ‘they should not hold any future public demonstrations without first obtaining official permission’.
Then the Burmese military government stated its intention to crack down on these human rights activists in the country’s official press. The announcement, that comprised a full page of the official newspaper, followed calls by human rights advocacy groups, including London-based Amnesty International, for Burmese authorities to investigate recent violent attacks on rights activists in the country.
Anti-government protests in Myanmar
Anti-government protests have been going on in Burma since mid August 2007, and on September 18 thousands of Buddhist monks took out protest demonstrations, and they were later given solidarity by Buddhist nuns on September 23. On September 24, 20,000 monks and nuns led 30,000 people in a protest march from the golden Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, past the offices of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. On September 22, monks marched to greet Aung San Suu Kyi. But things took a serious turn on September 25, when 2,000 people defied threats from Burma's junta and marched to Shwedagon Pagoda amid army trucks and warning of Brigadier-General Thura Myint Maung not to violate Buddhist "rules and regulations." What followed was a series of arrests of prominent protesters, and matters went to the extent of troops barricading Shwedagon Pagoda and attacking the 700 people within.
Notwithstaning all these developments, 5,000 monks continued to protest in Yangon. Security forces began raiding monasteries and arresting monks throughout the country. The security forces resorted to even firing, killing nine people including Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai.
The junta’s cover up exercise, inteneded to keep things away from the international community, witnessed the blocking of Internet access to the country. If that was the case with international coverup, there were even arrests of people who carried mobile-bourne cameras. But the junta’s efforts to keep things under the carpet did neither succeed nor last for long. The violent way with which they treated the peaceful protesters invited strongly worded international condemnation leading to calls for an immediate halt to the violence.
The international comtemnation also took another dimension when Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fakuda demanded an explanation for killing their photojouranlist Nagai.
Despite increasingly strong calls for peace, the junta continued to attack monks and raid monasteries down the days. Now things have come to such a pass that thousands of monks are unaccounted for and their whereabouts unknown and more and more monasteries are being put under the military scanner. To cap it all, there are cases in which people testifying eyewitness accounts of injured protesters being burned alive by the military regime in a crematorium on the outskirts of Rangoon. And the story goes on and on.
Where do things stand internationally? When UN security council experts went for a Western-sponsored statement condemning the bloody military crackdown in Burma, China pressed for a softer and appeasing language and its Deputy UN Ambassador Liu Zhenmin prefered ‘consultations’ for a friendly and persuaive tone of language instead of the ones used in the draft submitted by the United States, Britain and France. The draft condemns "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" and urges the junta to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees and political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
When Italy's UN Ambassador Marcello Spatafora stressed that it was urgent for the council to send a "strong, unified' message to Burma's ruling junta, the United States, finally, has threatened to push for UN sanctions against the military regime, including an arms embargo, if it refuses to halt its crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
How do the world powers look at Burma and its internal problem? Are things likely to come under the controle of these so-called military powers when it comes to another military will, Junta or whatever? Lucky you poor Myanmars, your oppressive junta fortunately does not have any Weapons of Mass Destruction in their reserves.
So, you revered monks, you may keep on fighting till you succeed. Meanwhile, your spiritual intelligence should come to have the reason to fabricate some evidence to show the internatinal community that the Junta possesses some WMD in their military reserves. It would surely attract interntaional intervension. If you succeed at this, the big powers would reinstate peace and even democracy in Myanmar in the following months.
You all should understand that fighting for lower prices, improved healthcare, quality education, better utility services and the like are passe in these days of ‘war for peace’. jaypeesukham@yahoo.com
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