helen-louise's Burma blog

More things YOU can do.

Sign the petition at http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/. Below the petition is an enormous list of events taking place internationally, many of them this weekend.

In London, you have a veritable choice of protests to join. The demonstration outside the Burmese Embassy continues every day from 12-1pm, and is supported by Amnesty International and the TUC. Apparently there were 300 people outside the Embassy on 27th, and they then marched through central London to the Chinese Embassy.

Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
19 A CHARLES STREET
LONDON W1J 5DX
Nearest tube: Green Park

Burma Campaign UK are holding a 24 hour permanent Vigil at Parliament Square, opposite the House of Commons in London.
Nearest tube: Westminster

There is a third protest outside the Foreign Office on Whitehall. This is where most Burmese people are protesting, since the protest at the Embassy is being filmed. I myself don't particularly care about that, because I won't be going to Burma until there is a change in government, but it is an issue for people who need to get home.

There will also be a protest march on Sunday 30th September. Participants are asked to meet at Trafalgar Square at 11.30am for a 12 noon start. More details are on Facebook, but you can't view that page unless you have a Facebook account. I'd appreciate it if someone who's signed up for Facebook could copy & paste all the details for me.

Friday 28th September news roundup

News continues uncheerily. Both the British and Australian ambassadors in Burma, and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown agree with me that if the official death toll is 9, the actual loss of life must be "far greater". On Thursday and Friday, the protestors have started to return the military's violence, which is a slippery slope. As an ordinary human being I can't blame them - I am not sure that I could face down a tank. But it is easy for the governments of other countries to denounce the violence when it's one-sided, and perhaps harder if the protestors are actually fighting the military.

Spectacularly on Friday, security forces fired on school pupils. As in children. This alarms me for many reasons, most of which I can't articulate. If Burmese soldiers are brainwashed to the point where they can be ordered to fire their weapons at children, they have clearly lost touch with their own humanity and reason. Were I in the military, I'd consider that a criminal order - I cannot see how it is acceptable to fire a gun at unarmed children. It may show that the soldiers are considering themselves as "better" than other people. So it may be very hard to point out the lack of morality of the regime and ask them to join forces with the people.

There were several stories that I consider inspiring nonetheless. After the raids on monasteries on Wednesday & Thursday mornings, local residents decided to take action. When the Army came to raid monasteries on Thursday night, they were forced to withdraw due to people armed with sticks and slingshots. This inspires me, despite the threat of violence, because of the ingenuity shown: "We set up an alert system of banging pots and pans when anyone saw soldiers approaching the monastery, and we prepared ourselves with any available weapons to stop these unholy people from harassing the monks," said a Mandalay resident. And also the way that people of different cultures are coming together against the regime: "There were not only Buddhist people but also Muslims, Christians and Hindus defending the monasteries," said a resident of Tharkayta township.

Meanwhile, many Burmese newspapers have decided to stop publication rather than be forced to print state lies. Again, you see the cleverness of the Burmese people - for rather than telling the government the real reason for their decision, they are blaming the situation for preventing journalists being able to report.

More links:

BBC News: Where the world stands on Burma 2007-09-28. More detail & more up-to-date than my post from yesterday.

Guardian Unlimited: Junta tries to shut down internet and phone links. Features extracts from a Rangoon citizen's blog. 2007-09-27

Guardian Unlimited: Paranoid, insular and inept, the junta has no plan B. 2007-09-28

The Nations: Family of Burma’s super boss are in Laos. Reports suggest that junta leader General Than Shwe has shipped his family out of Burma. 2007-09-28

Guardian Unlimited: A 39-year-old Burmese man who has taken part in this week's protests in Rangoon spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity. 2007-09-29

Search Results from BBC Audio & Video on Burma. Contains lots of videos & Radio 4 recordings.

You can't stop YouTube.

The Burmese military junta is continuing to disrupt communications in the hope of stopping information getting to the outside world. Continuing with the theme of that nauseating official statement, the government is continuing to blame foreign influences for inciting the trouble. Apparently, the BBC and the Voice of America are broadcasting "a sky-full of lies".

However much the military tries, you can't kill the internet. Clever Burmese hackers are sneaking on regardless through web proxies and foreign embassy connections. A YouTube user called JUVENILEBIRDS has uploaded many videos recorded over the past few days, including one of Thursday's demonstration at Sule Pagoda. This video is particularly moving: entitled "MONKS PRAYING SOLDIERS SHOOTING IN BURMA", the prayer and peaceful demonstration occupies almost a full 6 minutes. You see hundreds of people cooperating in a peaceful demonstration - moving slowly through the streets, linking hands, chanting and singing. At 3 minutes and 12 seconds into the video, you can see two fighting peacock flags: one homemade, with red ink on a white background; the other more professional, yellow on red. The fighting peacock flag symbolises the Burmese people's struggle. It is only in the last 20 seconds of the video that the situation deteriorates. The picture disappears as the cameraman runs for his life, with gunshots heard over the audio. Another of his videos, entitled Riot at Shwe Dagon Pagoda East gate in Burma mostly shows people taking care of one another. You see ordinary people kneeling to greet monks, people sharing food with each other, and people helping to wash each other's injuries.

I think these videos show something very important. It's easy to talk about the peacefulness of the monks, but they show true strength. It's clear from the video that many of the younger protestors are physically very strong and could easily use physical force against the military, but for the most part they have chosen not to. It occurs to me that the Burmese generals could kill every single one of the protestors, and yet they still wouldn't win. Because how can you win by killing those who are not afraid to die?

Response of the international community (part 2).

Something I've been finding rather interesting is how the response of other countries to the Burmese conflict has been changing over the past few days. The US and UK were swift to denounce the Burmese regime, calling for immediate escalation of sanctions and a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Australia however, said initially that they would not impose economic sanctions on Myanmar because doing so "would have absolutely no impact". But it seems that the Australian Government badly underestimated the situation - only on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said he did not expect to see the Burmese military sending tanks into the streets. Following the escalation in violence, Prime Minister John Howard said that Australia would further tighten visa restrictions on Burmese officials, with targeted financial sanctions being announced later in the afternoon. While Government U-turns are often frustrating for that country's citizens, in situations such as this I am pleased to see a Government changing its mind.

Singapore and Thailand, neighbours of Burma and members of the ASEAN economic group, have expressed dire concerns about the situation from the beginning. Reuters reports the Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont urged the military rulers of neighbouring Myanmar on Wednesday to avoid violence. He also admitted "Thailand does not have the power or the resources to solve Burma's problems, and we must work together with countries including China and India". In an unusually harsh criticism, the ASEAN members expressed "revulsion" at the events.

China and India are Burma's biggest investors and therefore have the most potential influence, but both countries have been unwilling to say much publicly, despite pressure from the US, UK and UN. Indian newspapers report that India is in "the middle of the Myanmar muddle", while India's policy has been criticised by its own MPs. It has been suggested that the 2008 Beijing Olympics is the "only real lever we have to make China act". Those who were already suggesting a boycott of the Olympics over human rights issues believe that China's tacit support of the violence in Burma adds fuel to their arguments.

Further links:
There is a very comprehensive article at The Scotsman giving all of the Burmese news from today.

Monasteries raided, nine dead in Rangoon.

The latest news from Burma is, once again, worse. The BBC Burmese service reports that security services raided several monasteries in Rangoon on Thursday morning. At least three monasteries were attacked and about 700 monks and civilians were arrested. These included the Abbot and four senior monks of Maggin monastery, which has become a refuge for HIV & AIDS patients since the uprising started. Two of these senior monks were over 80 years old. The extent of the violence at the Ngway Kyar Yan monastery in South Okkalapa township was so severe that later in the day, hundreds of thousands of local people surrounded the security forces, demanding the release of the monks.

But the people of Rangoon continued to protest, despite these arrests. Security forces attempted to disperse as many as 70,000 people who were gathered near Sule Pagoda on Thursday afternoon. As a result, nine people were killed in Rangoon according to official state media. (If those are the official figures, you have to wonder how much worse the true death toll might be.) One of the dead is reported to be a Japanese journalist, which may make for an interesting diplomatic incident. The soldiers in Rangoon are, by the way, Light Infantry Division 77 - remember, the ones I told you about yesterday, who have been ordered to shave their heads and wear monks' robes? Appalling.

There is still hope. The Guardian reports that Burmese exiles in Thailand said some soldiers had formed a group called the Public Patriotic Army Association to declare their support for the monks and opposition to the military junta. If true, soldiers are being asked to stand alongside the people rather than against them. This... could make the conflict rather different.

Syndication!

While this blog is hosted at GreatestJournal, it should be viewable on other journalling sites too. GJ supports RSS 2.0 feeds, and the URL for the syndicated RSS feed is http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/burmablog/data/rss. You can create an RSS feed at your own journalling site.

To see my posts at livejournal, visit http://syndicated.livejournal.com/hlburmablog/profile & click on the link to add the feed to your friends list. Note that viewing my syndicated feed does not give me access to your friends-only entries.

The Burma situation: What YOU can do.

There are several things that a concerned person in the West can do to help the situation in Burma.

If you are a praying sort of person, pray for the situation. Pray for a peaceful stepping down of the military regime and restoration of a fair and democratic government. The Burmese monks themselves have asked for prayers. If you aren't a praying sort of person, send healing energy or positive thoughts. And above all, tell other people what is happening. Link to the BBC or Wikipedia or other relatively unbiased news sources, or even to this blog.

UK people have a number of options for action:

Sign an official petition to the Prime Minister to continue his personal engagement on Burma.

Contact your MP to register your concern for the situation and request they support the Government in speaking out against the military junta. Find out who your MP is & get their email address.

Email the EU President. Portugal currently holds the EU Presidency and you can send email via the Portugese embassy in London.

Write to the Foreign Secretary to request UK investment sanctions.

Consider joining the demonstration outside the Burmese Embassy in London every day from 12-1pm.

Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
19 A CHARLES STREET
LONDON W1J 5DX

Nearest tube: Green Park.

US people should write to your senators or state representatives to let them know you are pleased with the decision for sanctions. (This will work especially well if both you & your state representative are non-Bush supporters normally.) Also look at the suggestions from the US Campaign for Burma.

As far as I know, there is still no safe way to send aid into the country. If you send money, it gets taken by the government to fund their projects, like randomly building a new state capital. All we can send is hope and strength for the people, and urge our politicians to act.

Comparisons to 1988.

The last time the Burmese government faced nationwide protests was in August 1988. However, there is one important difference between the events of 19 years ago and today: the increase in technology. Modern technology such as the internet and mobile phones have reached Burma, allowing ordinary people to overcome the appalling state censorship and get their news to the outside world. While less than 1% of the Burmese people have access to the internet, those that do are making use of it. I don't know if you've noticed how many of the photos and videos that have reached mainstream news reports were shot on mobile phone cameras. However, it appears that the military junta are now trying to crack down on this unofficial reporting - bandwidth is being severely restricted and phone lines are being cut. Access to popular Burmese blogs and YouTube has been removed. The police are destroying any cameras that they find on demonstrations.

Links:

BBC News review of the 1988 protests.

Wikipedia: 8888 Uprising.

Reuters: Myanmar 1988 veterans watch nervously from exile (from burmanet.org)

Accounts from inside Burma, emailed to the BBC.

Reporters Without Borders/Reporters sans frontières account of Burmese government internet restrictions.

BBC News 24 report: Videos that have been emailed to the BBC

Response from the international community.

The USA responded rapidly to news of the Burmese government's hardening stance. Though I am not generally a supporter of President George W. Bush, I applaud his immediate response. He said that the US is "outraged" by Burma's human rights record and announced further sanctions.

Sanctions from the US are, however, unlikely to have much influence without China and India, Burma's main trading partners getting involved. China has remained largely silent about the current protests. However, with next year's Olympics taking place in Beijing, the Chinese government has something of a dilemma. It does not want to be seen as supporting an oppressive regime.

Today, the UK's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, took time away from the Labour Party Conference to call for immediate EU and UN talks. He requested three actions: firstly, European Union sanctions; secondly, an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council; and thirdly, for the UN Envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, to travel to Burma. In his speech Mr Brown constantly used the words "illegitimate and oppressive regime", to underline the undemocratic and unelected nature of the Burmese government. Agence France Presse reports the EU is ready to reinforce its sanctions.

The UN Security Council met tonight to discuss the worsening crisis in Burma. Meanwhile UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he is sending his Special Envoy to the region, in response to international pressures and a letter from the All Burma Buddhist Monks Union.

Australia reported they have no plans for sanctions at this time. Japan, one of the few countries who will supply aid to Burma, reminded the Burmese government of this fact and urged for calm. Russia, however, warned the UN against exerting pressure on the Burmese military government.

Links:

This launches a media player to watch President Bush speak on the subject of Burma (about 5 1/2 minutes in).

Transcript of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaking about Burma. Watch the BBC news video. Associated Press report.

Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement (from burmanet.org).

Message from His Holiness the Dalai Lama (from burmanet.org)

BBC News: Key quotes from international statesmen.

BBC News: Regional media split on Burma protests.

Timeline of the current situation.

Initial reports were surprisingly good. Considering the Burmese government is a military dictatorship, it would be expected to respond in force to any protests. However, the government did not respond to last week's protests. On Saturday 22nd September, monks were allowed to visit Aung San Suu Kyi. The march on Sunday 23rd September was the largest in 20 years. I'd hoped this would become the first ever completely peaceful overthrow of government. (There's something to be said about Buddhist monks leading a non-violent revolution.)

But on Monday Burma's military junta warned it was ready to "take action" against the monks and other protesters. On Tuesday, the government imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the main cities Rangoon and Mandalay. As well as the night-time curfew, there is also a ban on "gatherings of more than 5 people". Armed troops were deployed. Stern warnings were broadcast on the state-controlled television station (Watch the video). The Burmese Government's official statement is nauseating to me, as a free person in the Western world. It reads like something from 1984, blaming "a group of internal and external destructive elements - who are envious of Myanmar that is peaceful, tranquil, and developing [for] creating the above-mentioned situation". Uh, no. I do not believe the monks changed the fuel prices and caused people to go into severe economic hardship.

Today, Wednesday 26th September, riot police attacked the monks with gunfire and tear gas. The New York Times reported the violence in detail. One death and several serious injuries have been confirmed by the government, with rumours of up to 5 deaths and at least 17 injuries.

Perhaps most despicably of all, reports from Rangoon suggest that the Burmese military has ordered soldiers to shave their heads to infiltrate protests. With shaven heads and dressed in monks' robes, these soldiers will then start rioting or attacking police - giving the military an excuse to be violent in return. How disgusting is that - to disguise soldiers in the clothing of the non-violent Buddhists and have them start violence?

See the changes in the mood of the demonstrations:

Weekend photos of a peaceful march with no military presence.

Tuesday's photos of protestors defying the government's ban. Also a video.

Wednesday's photos of the darkening mood and military violence towards the peaceful protestors. Video showing police & military brutality.

New York Times report of the violence (from burmanet.org)

Transcript of Britain's ambassador in Rangoon, Mark Canning, speaking to BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, Wednesday 26th September. With eyewitness accounts.
BBC News chronology of key events from 1057 to the present day.

BBC News Q&A: Protests in Burma.

Why a blog about Burma?

Prior to this week's news reports, I doubt many of you knew much about Burma at all. It's a moderately-sized Asian country, sandwiched between India and Thailand, with a population of 50-55 million. The reason you won't know much about it is that it's governed by a military junta, essentially a dictatorship. Like North Korea, the government controls the media and restricts its citizens' access to the outside world. Like North Korea, it is a completely undemocratic, unelected government.

The current Burmese government seized power in a military coup in 1962. Only one election has been held in the intervening years - and the government refused to yield power to the winners of that free and fair election in 1990. There has not been another election since, because the government knows that the people do not want it in charge. The woman who should be President of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under house arrest despite being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She was unable to visit her husband as he was dying in the UK, for fear that she would not be allowed back into the country.

The official name of the country, by the way, has been Myanmar since 1989, but Burmese peace activists refuse to use that name as it was chosen by the military government. There are complicated issues and ethnic tensions surrounding the name, as there are numerous distinct "tribes" of people, of whom the principal are the Burmese, the Shan and the Karen. If you're at all familiar with the difficult politics in Eastern Europe following the collapse of Communism, the way that ethnic groups with different cultures and religions had been lumped together into one country - that's not entirely unlike the situation in Burma.

Daily life in Burma is atrocious - the BBC ran a series of articles about life Inside Burma last year. Ordinary people dare not speak out - the prize for doing so is "disappearance". The only people who can safely organise any sort of protest are the Buddhist monks. Monks are greatly revered within Burma so cannot easily be made to "disappear" - though they may face arrest and beatings from the military police.

The current wave of protests started when the government increased the price of fuel in August. The price of petrol and diesel doubled, while the price of compressed gas - used to power buses - increased five times. Transport is necessary to take people to work and school and to carry staple food products around the country. When ordinary people can barely afford to live as it is, an increase in the cost of transport will leave people in desperate straits.

Why am I bothering to write a journal about this? Because the situation in Burma makes all the trivial day-to-day crap of my life seem entirely unimportant.