“Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.”
Tuesday, August 11
Suu Kyi, Orwell, and O’Brien
In the Orwellian country that is Myanmar, the former Burma, a woman who has committed no crime can be tried and judged guilty. And that is what happened last month.
This month, in fact this week, the sentence was declared. It was originally to have been three years, but was commuted to only one and a half years.
Let’s take a minute and consider what she actually did.
When an American named John Yettaw swam across the Inya Lake to her house, she did not immediately throw him out. This assumes, of course, that she knew about his presence in the first place.
Why was he not allowed to swim to her house? Well, it turns out she was under “house arrest” for fourteen of the last twenty years. What crime had she committed that she would be under arrest for that length of time? She won an election in 1990.
No, those are not unconnected thoughts. Her crime was that she won an election in 1990. So what do the madmen who run Myanmar want? In the words of O’Brien:
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
Tuesday, August 4
Su Su Nway in Solitary Confinement in Kale Prison
A prominent Burmese labor rights activist, Su Su Nway, was placed in solitary confinement for three days after participating in a ceremony to mark the 62nd anniversary of Martyrs’ Day on June 19 in Kale Prison, in Sagaing Division, according to her sister.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy Newspaper on Tuesday August 4th, her sister, Htay Htay Kyi, said, “She was put in solitary confinement because she stood up and sang an independence anthem composed by Min Ko Naing to mark Martyrs’ Day.”
Htay Htay Kyi said she visited her sister on July 21 when she delivered medicine to Su Su Nway who said she had been denied medical care by the prison authorities.
Su Su Nway, 37, suffers from hypertension [high blood pressure] and heart disease.
In 2006, she won the John Humphrey Freedom Award for promoting human rights.
She was arrested together with two colleagues after they pasted anti-government posters on a billboard in downtown Rangoon during the monk-led uprising of 2007. She was sentenced to twelve and a half years in prison.
Su Su Nway is among 2,100 other political prisoners who are currently being detained by the Burmese military authorities.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in July called on the Burmese junta to release all political prisoners before the national elections in 2010.
Burmese permanent representative at the UN, Than Swe reportedly told Ban that Burma will release prisoners before the election; however, he did not specify if political dissidents would be among the prisoners released.
Sunday, July 19
Dengue Fever in Kalemyo
At least 10 children have died and several are ill after being afflicted by Dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease, in Kalemyo a town near the Indo-Burma border in Sagaing Division, north-western Burma, an official at a private clinic said.
“As far as I know at least 10 children have died. A lot of other children are admitted in the hospital, which is crowded with patients,” the official in Thapyaynyo clinic in Kalemyo said.
When contacted, an official at the Kalemyo General Hospital on Friday said, the ‘Patient Ward’ of the hospital is full of children being treated for Dengue haemorrhagic fever.
The outbreak of Dengue was noticed in Kalemyo in the beginning of June and has been continuing since.
A local resident of Kalemyo told Mizzima that most of the children in her neighborhood are suffering from the disease. While many have been taken to hospital several others are depending on private clinics.
Dengue in Kalemyo, a town located on the border of Chin state in western Burma, is common during the monsoons.
Local residents said, despite being a curable disease, Malaria and Typhoid continue to claim several lives every year.
Monday, June 8
Pagoda Collapse in Myanmar
BANGKOK — It cannot have pleased Myanmar’s ruling family: the collapse of a 2,300-year-old gold-domed pagoda into a pile of timbers just three weeks after the wife of the junta’s top general had helped reconsecrate it with a diamond orb and a sacred golden umbrella.
A rescue worker looks through the rubble of the ancient Danok pagoda, which collapsed last Saturday as workmen were completing its renovation — killing at least 20 people, according to émigré reports.
There is no country in Asia more superstitious than Myanmar, and the collapse of the temple was widely seen as something more portentous than shoddy construction work.
It comes at a moment when the junta has put on trial the country’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, after an American intruder swam across a lake and spent a night at the villa where she has been under house arrest for most of the past 19 years.
After two weeks of testimony, the trial is on hold as the junta apparently tries to decide how to manage what seems to have been a major blunder, drawing condemnation from around the world.
The superstitious generals may be consulting astrologers as well as political tacticians as they decide how to proceed. That would not be unusual for many people in Myanmar.
Currency denominations and traffic rules have been changed in the past, the nation’s capital has been moved and the timing of events has been selected — even the dates of popular uprisings — with astrological dictates in mind.
“Astrology has as significant a role in policies, leadership and decision making in the feudal Naypyidaw as rational calculations, geopolitics and resource economics,” said Zarni, a Burmese exile analyst and researcher who goes by one name. He was referring to the country’s new capital, which was opened in 2005.
And so it seemed only natural to read a darker meaning into the temple collapse.
The Danok pagoda, on the outskirts of Myanmar’s main city, Yangon, was blessed May 7 in the presence of Daw Kyaing Kyaing, the wife of the country’s supreme leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. The event received major coverage in the government-controlled press.
In a solemn ceremony, the worshipers fixed the diamond orb to the top of the pagoda along with a pennant-shaped vane and sprinkled scented water onto the tiers of a holy umbrella, according to the government mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar.
Like the rest of the heavily censored press, the newspaper was silent, a week ago, when it all came crashing down. But word of mouth — and foreign radio broadcasts — spread fast in Myanmar.
“O.K., she thinks she is so great, but even the gods don’t like her, people believe like that,” a senior astrologer said on condition of anonymity because of the danger of speaking to the media.
The ceremony was part of a decades-long campaign by the senior general to legitimize military rule on a foundation of Buddhist fealty, dedicating and re-gilding temples, attending religious ceremonies and making donations to monks.
That campaign was undermined, and perhaps fatally discredited, in September 2007 when soldiers beat and shot protesting monks in the streets, invaded monasteries without removing their boots and imprisoned hundreds of monks.
“No matter how many pagodas they build, no matter how much charity they give to monks, it is still they who murdered the monks,” said Josef Silverstein, a Myanmar specialist and emeritus professor at Rutgers University, at the time of the protests.
So when the Danok pagoda suddenly collapsed last Saturday as workmen were completing its renovation — killing at least 20 people, according to émigré reports — many people saw it as the latest of a series of bad omens for the junta that included a devastating cyclone early last year.
Its sacred umbrella tumbled to the ground and its diamond orb was lost in the rubble, according to those reports.
“The fact that the umbrella did not stay was a sign that more bad things are to come, according to astrologers,” said Ingrid Jordt, an anthropology professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and a specialist on Burma.
“It is also a sign that Than Shwe does not have the spiritual power any longer to be able to undertake or reap the benefit from good acts such as this,” she said in an e-mail message. “In a sense, the pagoda repudiated Than Shwe’s right to remain ruler.”
As laborers began trying to put the pagoda back together, local residents were quoted in émigré publications with vivid accounts of supernatural happenings.
“The temple collapsed about 3:10 p.m. while I was loading bricks on a platform around the pagoda,” a 24-year-old construction worker told The Irrawaddy, a magazine based in Thailand.
“The weather suddenly turned very dark,” he was quoted as saying. “Then we saw a bright red light rising from the northern end of the pagoda. Then, suddenly, the temple collapsed. I also heard a strange haunting voice coming from the direction of the light.”
Indeed, the Danok pagoda may have been a poor choice for the junta’s ruling family to seek religious affirmation.
According to The Irrawaddy: “Several elderly locals from Danok Model Village said that they believed that the pagoda never welcomed cruel or unkind donors, and always shook when such persons made offerings.”
Thursday, May 21
Secretary of State Speaks Out
Myanmar's military regime is allowing reporters and diplomats into the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi.
But allowing access to the trial isn't halting accusations that the hearing is a ploy to keep the pro-democracy leader behind bars through next year's election.
Suu Kyi is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest after an American stayed at her home without official permission. The offense is punishable by up to five years' imprisonment.
The Nobel Peace laureate has been in detention without trial for more than 13 of the past 19 years. She was due to be released next week.
Meantime U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says it's "outrageous" that Myanmar's military-led government is still holding Suu Kyi in detention.
Clinton told lawmakers Wednesday at a Capitol Hill hearing that the junta is holding Suu Kyi merely because she is politically popular.
Clinton says elections scheduled in Myanmar for next year are "illegitimate" even before they begin because of the way the junta has treated the Nobel Peace laureate.
Suu Kyi has been in detention without trial for more than 13 of the past 19 years. She is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest after an American man stayed at her home without official permission.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday it is "outrageous" that Myanmar had put pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on trial but hoped it would end soon and she would be released.
Clinton, speaking to a Senate subcommittee overseeing State Department funding, said the Obama administration was trying to see if third countries could pressure the military junta in Yangon to obtain her release.
"Clearly China, India and others are major players," Clinton said, suggesting these countries would be approached.
"We're going to try (to push for her release), and I don't think I can make any kind of assurance because we don't know whether we will have any success in convincing them otherwise," Clinton told the senators.
"But it is outrageous that they are trying her and that they continue to hold her because of her political popularity and they intend to hold elections in 2010," the chief US diplomat said.
These elections from the beginning "will be illegitimate because of the way that they have treated her," she continued.
"So it is our hope that this baseless trial will end with a quick release of her and then a return to some political involvement eventually by her and her party," she added.
Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial on Monday on the charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest over a bizarre incident in which an American swam to her lakeside house.
The charges carry a jail term of up to five years and would stretch her detention past its supposed expiry date this month and through controversial elections due in 2010.
John Yettaw, 53, who was held for sneaking into Suu Kyi's house and staying there for two days before he was caught, was also put on trial on charges of breaking the security law and immigration conditions.
Yettaw, 53, apparently used a pair of homemade flippers to swim across a lake to her crumbling residence in an apparent show of solidarity, but Aung San Suu Kyi's main lawyer Kyi Win said they had asked him to leave.
Monday, March 16
Orphanages Closed, Buildings Seized
The Burmese military regime has shut down at least 50 Chin orphanages in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma leading to problems for children.
According to a report said the regime closed down about 50 Chin orphanages on March 6, 2009 as their licenses expired. The regime has seized all the buildings
“We had registered for a period of five years. I don’t know others’ cases. Actually, we had registered in 2003 and its validity is up to 2008. Now we have to register for 2009 to 2013, but just before doing so the authorities stopped renewing the license,” said a local Chin from Rangoon .
It means 50 out of 100 Chin orphanage schools in Rangoon city have now been shut down by the government. Similarly, 13 out of 16 schools in Hleku townships also closed including Victoria Childcare Centre (VCC) which looks after 54 orphanages.
Kanpalet Township , Southern Chin state, which looks after 99% of the children in VCC has sent them back to their relatives as per the rule of government that allows a person can adopt not more than five children in his life time.
“The children’s future will be totally dependant on the adopters. Some will be adopted well and some might be adopted as house keepers or servants. It’s very hard to figure out their fortune,” said a victim at one of orphanage schools.
At the same time, some schools are searching for people to adopt the children.. It is difficult to know where other schools are located and who are taking responsibility regarding this matter as the government has restricted them and they are afraid to used telephone for their security.
“Once we had used telephone for conversation about our work, the authorities immediately arrived and they inquired about it. We don’t want to use the phone anymore after facing this thrice as we’ve afraid,” he added.
He continued that the care takers at the orphanage schools have been given an appointment on 17 March. It needs to be watched how it will turn out, but the schools cannot be opened again.
Chin orphanage schools started to open in 2003 in Yangon city and there are about 140 of Chin orphanage schools in Burma.
Friday, March 6
More From Tim Patterson
“My generation thinks there will be a war,” says a 22-year-old cadet in the Kachin Independence Army, one of several armed groups that struggle for political autonomy on the frontiers of Myanmar.
His AK-47 slung loosely over his shoulder, the cadet qualifies his prediction, perhaps in deference to the officers who listen as he speaks.
“We don´t know what the leadership will decide,” he says. “We will follow their orders.”
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, encompasses the homelands of several distinct ethnic groups that resent the totalitarian rule of ethnic Burmese, who form a majority in this impoverished Southeast Asian nation.
Burmese dominate the powerful armed forces, which prop up the military junta that governs Myanmar, widely recognized as one of world’s most corrupt and repressive governments.
The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) is the military wing of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), among the largest and most powerful of the armed groups that challenge the junta´s rule.
Founded in the early 1960s, the KIO represents ethnic Kachins, themselves a loose coalition of predominantly Christian tribes whose historic territory encompasses the Himalayan foothills of northernmost Myanmar, bordered by southern Tibet, far-eastern India and the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan.
For more than 30 years, the KIA has waged a guerrilla campaign against the military from its jungle bases along the Chinese border. Other armed groups were active in the region during this period, including the Communist Party and various warlords, many of whom financed their armies through opium smuggling, intensive logging and mining for gold, rubies and jade.
In 1994 the KIO leadership signed a cease-fire with the military, an agreement many Kachins saw as a betrayal of their aspirations for political autonomy.
The cease-fire brought a measure of stability to Kachin state and enriched some powerful individuals who were willing to cooperate with Burmese authorities, but it did little to alleviate the suffering of Kachin civilians.
In the 15 years since the truce, Kachins say there has been no genuine attempt at reconciliation, and many expect a renewed outbreak of armed hostilities.
During the war years, Kachin state developed a reputation as one of the most lawless places in the world.
Only a handful of foreign observers managed to sneak inside to document reports of human rights abuses by Myanmar’s military in its efforts to defeat the resistance groups and consolidate control over Kachin state.
One journalist, Outside Magazine editor Mark Jenkins, was drugged, beaten and dumped in an alley with a death threat written on his hand after interviewing Kachin villagers near the state capital of Myitkyina in 1996.
The Kachins hope for more exposure to the outside world, one KIA soldier explained. “Here in Kachin, it´s been 15 years since the cease-fire, but nothing has changed.”
“I have a degree in economics, but there is no job for me,” added another soldier. “There are no good positions for Kachin people. There is oppression and exploitation everywhere.”
Like others quoted in this article, the soldiers asked not to be named, fearing retribution from the government.
The KIA military academy is located off a rough mountain road that links the wartime army headquarters, a windswept base called Pajau, with more comfortable and modern peacetime headquarters outside the bustling border town of Laiza.
Recruits rise before dawn to practice karate and repeat the pledges of the army: “We will always obey the orders of the Kachin Independence Organization,” they shout. “We will never give up our arms.”
These two pledges may come into conflict if the KIO leadership decides to participate in nationwide elections scheduled for 2010.
The elections are the culmination of a constitutional process introduced by the junta last year. Few observers expect the elections to be free or fair.
Both within Myanmar and abroad, the elections are widely seen as an attempt by the junta to legitimize iron-fisted military rule.
A clause in the new constitution states that all rebel groups must disarm and submit to the central control of the Myanmar military.
Although the KIO initially signaled its intent to participate in the election, officials now claim the KIO itself will stay on the sidelines, although KIO members may form a party to contest the elections.
Whether the Kachins decide to participate, the government that emerges will no doubt be heavily influenced by the leaders of the current military junta.
If the government attempts to forcibly disarm the KIA and other armed ethnic groups, the Kachins may retreat from their peacetime headquarters and retrench in the rugged hills along the Chinese frontier.
Bombs Explode in Two Historic Areas
Note: the following story is from BurmaNet. The two locations where the bombs exploded were sites of massive government retaliations against the student-led protests in 1988. The "Whole Burma United Revolutionary Front" (WBURF) has claimed responsibility for the bombings.
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Authorities in Myanmar have warned people to be on alert after two small bombs exploded in the commercial hub Yangon, causing minor damage but no injuries, junta-run media reported Thursday.
The explosions hit hours apart Tuesday evening at a Yangon park and bus stop, and police and soldiers immediately sealed off the scene.
“Authorities concerned have reminded the people to provide information to those responsible in time if there is something or someone (suspected) of committing destructive acts,” the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
The paper said an investigation was ongoing and gave no indication about who might be behind the blasts, but the military regime has in the past blamed similar attacks on ethnic rebel insurgents battling junta rule.
The first explosion blew a hole in a fence and smashed the windscreen of a truck, the paper said, while the bus stop bomb near a busy intersection blew a small crater in the ground and damaged the shelter.
Myanmar was rocked by a series of similar small blasts late last year, with one man killed in Yangon in October and two people killed in a township outside the main city in a video cafe bombing.
Although the junta usually blames armed exile groups or ethnic rebels, it has also pointed the finger at democracy activists.
State-run media in September accused two members of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) of bombing pro-government offices in July last year.
The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed it to take office. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest almost constantly since.
The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by claiming the need to fend off ethnic rebellions which have plagued remote border areas for decades.
No Hugs For Thugs
Opinion by Jean Geran:
Secretary of State Clinton should not go wobbly on the junta. In the midst of her recent Asia trip, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated that the United States is reviewing its policy toward Burma. As the Obama administration assesses its options, it would be wise to remember it is dealing with one of the world’s most brutal tyrannies, which has held power for decades through terror and totalitarian control. Fear and force are the two things that the ruling junta most understands—and are the only two factors that have ever succeeded in altering its behavior over the years. Any policy review must be mindful of that history.
In recent months, the Burmese generals stepped up their imprisonment of dissidents. The number of political prisoners has swelled to over 2,000. Horrific attacks and displacement of civilians in ethnic minority regions continue unabated. The legitimate leaders of the Burmese people such as Aung San Suu Kyi and Min Ko Naing, along with representatives of the tormented ethnic minority groups such as the Karen and Shan, continue to seek more support from the international community and more pressure on the regime. Now is not the time to abandon them.
It is especially disturbing to think that a review of U.S. policy may cede important ground gained under the Bush administration. In addition to President Bush’s forceful advocacy on the issue, First Lady Laura Bush took a personal interest in Burma’s plight and, among other initiatives, helped bring the issue of the tyrannical Burmese government for the first time before the U.N. Security Council. Any policy change that goes the other direction and eases pressure would be disastrous for the Burmese people.
The most important thing that the West can do is to apply more and smarter pressure on the generals to force them to the negotiating table—not with us, but with the legitimate leaders of their own people. We can also press Burma’s neighbors—specifically India, Thailand, and China—to end their support for the regime.
Frustration over the lack of progress has revived longstanding debates over sanctions and humanitarian aid. On the surface the arguments for easing sanctions and allowing more aid strike sympathetic chords with those unfamiliar with the peculiar and psychotic nature of Than Shwe and the rest of the junta. It is easy to think that aid will ease the suffering of the people. But only the most carefully channelled assistance can avoid cooptation by the regime, and even these channels are extremely rare and limited to flows across the border from Thailand and small subtle efforts that work under the radar of the regime. Large-scale aid flowing through Rangoon, especially through larger U.N. agencies, inevitably is controlled by the regime or its cronies and strengthens their grip on power.
The generals have repeatedly shown their contempt for the welfare of their own people. This contempt was most tragically seen in their appalling response to Cyclone Nargis. The disaster led to over a hundred thousand deaths, many unnecessary, due to restrictions or even denial of aid. One need only remember the ships, planes, and tarmacs full of supplies that were not distributed because the regime denied access to the victims; or the plight of courageous Burmese citizens like 23-year-old student Kay Thi Aung, who was imprisoned in September 2008 for her efforts to provide aid to cyclone victims, and who recently suffered a miscarriage due to the deplorable jail conditions; and comedian Zarganar, sentenced to 59 years imprisonment for criticizing the regime’s failures. In most other countries the actions of these two would not be considered political activity, but to the lawless Burmese regime all things—even humanitarian gestures—are “political.”
The current sanctions have not yet brought freedom, but that is no reason to abandon them. They must be intensified and coordinated multilaterally.
The people of this fertile, resource rich, and once well-educated country are suffering under the economic malevolence and ignorance of their oppressors, not the effects of economic sanctions. A policy review of sanctions would be helpful only if it leads to better targeting and expanded coordination with allies in the region and beyond. But any backtracking or easing of pressure would be a huge mistake and would play right into the hands of the generals.
Likewise, a policy review that leads to a renewed diplomatic push in Washington and at the United Nations might have a chance of overcoming the Russian and Chinese veto threat. A strong U.N. Security Council resolution, especially one with sharp multilateral teeth such as an arms embargo or targeted global sanctions, would quickly get the attention of the generals. The case for Security Council action is clear. Ongoing military offensives against civilians that include rape as a weapon of war, as well as refugee displacement, disease spreading across borders, and trafficking in drugs and people, make the situation in Burma as much a security issue as a human rights or humanitarian one.
Concern for Burma has long attracted strong bipartisan interest and support in the United States, and Secretary Clinton herself has previously made a priority of supporting female leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi. If this review goes forward and new tactics are considered, U.S. policymakers should remember the nature and history of this brutal regime and pay heed to the vital voices of the Burmese democracy movement over those tired voices of Western academics, the United Nations, or aid agencies. We in the West have failed the people of Burma time and again with our weak statements and our short memories, and yet they persevere with an honor and steadfastness that should put us all to shame. They are the ones who know what is best for their country. We must continue to stand beside them against tyranny and terror until freedom and prosperity are once again theirs.
Jean Geran is a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute. She served as the director for democracy and human rights on the National Security Council and as an abuse prevention officer on the U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team in southern Iraq.
