Free Burma!

Burma death toll, now and future?
In the week since the Burmese junta's use of force to quell the country's popular uprising, hard news from within Burma is proving hard to get. The Internet is rife with rumours of what's happening, but what seems to be undeniable is that monks have been targeted by the military and forcibly removed from monasteries. Where they have gone, what they have endured and how long they will be detained, or indeed remain alive, is unclear. Rest assured they aren't being given Darjeeling and tea cakes.

Unsubstantiated reports (here for example) suggest a systematic and organised massacre of monks. I wouldn't be surprised.

It also seems that the military is looking to arrest instigators and participants in the anti-government demonstrations from the public at large. Again, no surprise there.

The death toll from the street clashes is still officially stated as 10 and yet US diplomatic staff themselves said they witnessed dead in numbers that were multiples of that figure. The Democratic Voice of Burma, an exiles' media group based in Oslo, states that in the aftermath of the protests, they have the names of 138 citizens that they cannot account for or locate.

World action needed
What has and is happening will only become apparent, long after the event. What we do know without doubt is that people have suffered, are suffering and will continue to suffer, probably on a scale that will prove shocking. The evidence is there. The likelihood of orchestrated mass killings is too great and obvious to ignore. The world needs to act not stand around looking at its shoes rather embarrassed.

Desmond Tutu summed it up better than I could ever do:

"Protracted hand-wringing, the counter economic interests of some countries, and an absence of courage and vision over the years, have meant that there has been no coherent international government strategy on how to tackle Burma's intransigent rulers." (August 2006)

More true now than ever. Forget half-hearted visits from a UN Special Envoy (Ibrahim Gambari), and frankly he was made to look like the military junta's bitch. There needs to be some hard approaches from those countries that have economic interests within Burma and that doesn't just mean China, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan. There are BIG Western interests in Burma, not least and not surprisingly - oil giants: Chevron & Total. (By the way, Chevron own Texaco if you want to do the right thing at the petrol pumps...then again, what petrol pump can you 'do the right thing' by using?)

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice (ex-board member of Chevron) said at a recent meeting of the Association of South East Asians Nations, "The United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place." Bullshit. Chevron oil flows out of Burma and money flows into the pockets of the junta's generals. Everyone is happy apart from the starving Burmese population who funnily enough don't benefit at all...apart from maybe getting labouring work on the oil projects...that is work as a forced labourer i.e. a slave.

China - Big Brother's big brother
China needs to be pulled into line to exert a pressure for change on Burma and stop adopting a development before democracy attitude. And what better way than a threat on the success of the 2008 Olympics? The Western partners of Beijing 2008, Adidas, Atos Origin, Johnson & Johnson and VW need to withdraw or at least threaten to withdraw support for the Olympics. See how quickly China will come around. And if it doesn't, those companies shouldn't be there anyway.

If the new world powers are actually the massive multinational companies that wield power over the politicians or are simply run by politicians with vested interests, then they need to be brought into account and forced to act responsibly and ethically. The only people that can force that are those that make them so powerful through buying their products...so that'll be you and me then?

UN resolution
Russia and China need to stop vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on Burma. Again, pressure must come to bear on them to do the right thing. Russia and China argue that human rights is outside the council's agenda of upholding international peace and security. International. Hmmm. So the thousands upon thousands of Karen tribe refugees in borderland refugee camps in Thailand isn't an international issue? This is only going to get worse with the latest crack-down and brutality towards Burmese freedom protesters.

There needs to be a UN Human Rights Council condemnation of the military junta's action against the country's people and a complete UN arms embargo, supported by China, Russia & India. What valid reason can anyone give to refuse a UN embargo on arms trade with Burma? It's deplorable. Why does international support have to be so reactionary and after the event?

In addition, there needs to be targeted sanctions by all EU members cutting off financial, trade and military relations with Burma including freezing any assets and bank accounts traceable to the State Peace and Development Council regime. (What a joke of a name.) Germany and Austria are the guilty parties here.

What's the world watching now? MTV?
1955, Montgomery, Alabama, USA. Rosa Parks ignited the Civil Rights Movement by refusing to give her seat up to a white man on a segregated bus. One woman in a small southern US backwater changed the shape of the most powerful nation on earth. Burma is about thousands of people calling for change and basic human rights, at great personal risk and under the scrutiny and awareness of the world. How can we ignore it?

In the days during the demonstrations, the phrase 'The world is watching you' was bandied about, a warning to the Burmese dictatorship that anything like the repeat of the 1988 massacre of over 3000 democracy protesters would be internationally unacceptable. A statement that any similar brutal reaction to peaceful demonstration would provoke massive international outrage and punitive action. But then the plug is pulled on the media news feed from Burma.

The world is watching you...until you prevent the world seeing what's going on and we all get bored of the 'Apologies for the interruption in transmission' message, shrug en masse and switch over to MTV. Just because we can't see or hear the Burmese people shouting, doesn't mean to say they aren't shouting. Stay tuned people!

[BTW, normal Spratticus flippancy, banality and nonsense will resume shortly.]

March for Burma, LONDON UK
Sat 6 October, 2007, 11:00am, Tate Britain, Pimlico - Trafalgar Square (c.12:45pm). Wear red. I'm going in a full Diablo devil suit complete with horns, tail and trident. (See what I mean about the flippancy!)

And here's a fascinating photo blog with rare (perhaps the only) images of the Burmese military rulers' new jungle capital at Naypyidaw. Incredible folly. Naypyidaw: Abode of Kings in a Derelict Kingdom