Burmese generals: $5bn profit from Total pipeline deal

Aung San Suu Kyi denied access to appeal
Published by Burma VJ
on September 18, 2009, in Latest news on Burma and aung san suu kyi.




Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed to appear in court in person during the appeal against her 18-month house arrest extension. Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention was extended after she was convicted of breaching security laws by allowing an uninvited US man into her home.

Ms Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention. The latest sentence has drawn international condemnation, and means she cannot take part in elections next year.

Meanwhile, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report states that the number of political prisoners in Burma’s notorious jails has doubled in the two years, since the 2007 ‘Saffron Uprisings’ dramtically captured in the footage of Burma VJ.

According to HRW there are more than 2,200 people jailed for their beliefs in 43 jails, often held in solitary confinement in small, dark cells.

To find out more about the conditions faced by political prisoners in Burma, read our guest-blog post “Burmese hell holes”.

Read the full BBC news article here.



"...Singapore (where the Burmese Generals have their bank accounts), Thailand Russia and both Koreas are also involved in doing "business" with the junta. The international community (including U2 :) should be aware of these geo/political/economic facts
I wish that all the people of Burma (and the world!) can live in peace, dignity and freedom..."

"...The more the West isolates Burma the more it becomes a Chinese "colony". The Chinese are building a gas pipeline across Burma and port facilities on the West coast of Burma, because they have a strategic military interest in controlling access to the Bay Bengal. They use their veto power in the UN security council and supply most of the weapons for the Burmese military. Without the support of China, the military junta could never have lasted this long..."

"...YES! Get involved and HELP FREE BURMA!"

Still looking for the western feminists

Page last updated at 17:44 GMT, Friday, 22 May 2009 18:44 UK

A POINT OF VIEW Women who believe liberal values exploit their sexuality have something much greater to fear- the jackboot of dictatorship, says Clive James. In a week when the troubled parliament of Britain continued to swamp the front pages with tales of fiddle, fraud and the incredible disappearing Speaker, there wasn't much room for news about the parliaments of other countries, but there was one story in the middle pages that might have been calculated to remind us of why democracy really matters. The parliament in Kuwait has just acquired its first four women MPs. The price might have seemed too high, but at least now it is no longer official policy to rape a woman in front of her family. Listen to Clive James' Point of View Kuwait is by no means, a perfectly constituted democracy. As far as I can figure out, there is a ruling family whose Emir chooses the government and calls elections for parliament. But women have now been elected to the parliament, by popular vote. It should hardly need saying that this would have been unlikely to happen if Saddam Hussein had been allowed to continue to rule the country by terror, but let's leave his awful memory aside for a moment if we can, and dare to put forward a general reflection. Democracy is the best chance for women. Or if that sounds too naive, too pro-western perhaps, then let's put it this way. The absence of democracy is seldom good news for women. Or, to get down to bedrock, if women can't vote for women, then they haven't got many weapons to fight with, when they seek justice. My own view which I'm ready to hear contested, is that this is the main reason why some feminists in the west have been so slow to get behind those women in the world's all too numerous tyrannies, who have to risk their lives to say anything. It's just too clear a proof that men have a natural advantage when it comes to the application of violence. When you say that women have little chance against men if it comes to a physical battle, you are conceding that there really might be an intractable difference between the genders after all. One of Kuwait's four elected female MPs - Salwa al-Jassar Ideological feminists in the West were for a long time reluctant to concede this, because they preferred to believe that there was no real difference, and that all female handicaps were imposed by social stereotyping that could be reversed by argument. But this belief was really possible only in a society where the powers of argument had a preponderance over the powers of violence. And since many western feminists are still convinced that the social stereotyping of the West is the product of fundamental flaws within liberal democracy itself, they have a tendency to believe that undemocratic societies are somehow valuable in the opposition they offer to the free countries, which the feminists are so keen to characterise as not free enough. I have to pick my words carefully here, because this is the touchiest theme I have ever tackled in these broadcasts_ but I do think it's high time to say that if feminist ideologists find liberal democracy unfriendly, they might consider that the absence of liberal democracy is a lot less friendly still. Helping to give me courage, here, finally, is that quite a lot of women are already saying it. But they tend not to be western pundits. They tend to be women out there, in the thick of a real battle not just an argument. Why their bravery doesn't shame more of our feminist pundits I hesitate to say. It certainly shames me. This importance of democracy, or at any rate of an amelioration of tyranny, should have become clear when, after Saddam Hussein was deposed, the first provisional government in Iraq included women members. But it didn't become clear, because too many of our commentators wanted to call the provisional government a puppet government, under the control of the US. Vote best hope Even as it became steadily more clear that nothing in Iraq was under the control of the US, feminists in the West continued to do a stunning job of ignoring the risks that women in Iraqi public life were running. An Iraqi female MP could get murdered and it was held to be a natural result of US imperialism, almost as if she had been murdered by George W Bush in person. But she hadn't been. She had been murdered by local men who were making an example of her. They feared what she would bring: the spectre of women claiming an importance equal to that of men. The late Pamela Bone holds aloft a Women's Day special issue Last year the excellent Australian feminist journalist Pamela Bone finally died of cancer, but while she was still fighting it she published, in 2005, in response to what she regarded as the thunderous silence that had greeted the stand taken by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an article called "Where are the western feminists?" What Pamela Bone meant was, that she was amazed why so many of her colleagues couldn't see, or didn't want to see, that democracy was the best hope for women. Pamela Bone was well aware that there is a necessary quarrel about how democracy can be brought about in countries that don't have it, and I hasten to concede that of the two possible main views about the invasion of Iraq, for example, my own view, in favour, soon became the minority view. But Pamela Bone couldn't see how there could be any doubt that women in the countries without democracy were in a battle that they were bound to lose if the men could prevail by force. Men will always monopolise the means of violence if they can. Women can learn to shoot guns, but there are no all-female armies, and even the Amazons were probably a myth. Women, on the whole, would naturally like to do something else, whereas an army, for too many men, is a home away from home, and often their only home. It's the only home for the junta in Burma. The junta is in the news again this week because it found a pretext for locking Aung San Suu Kyi into prison, instead of just leaving her helpless under house arrest. The terms of Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest were that she should receive no visitors, and some poor demented American. Slow martyrdom Vietnam veteran made sure that the terms were violated by swimming to her front door. Despair heaped on despair - activists ready to march for Aung San Suu Kyi Like many a head-case he probably just wanted to discuss his theories about how aliens control everything, but the all-male military junta in Burma really does control everything and here was their chance to dump Aung San Suu Kyi into jail until the next election is over. Aung San Suu Kyi not only has the stature, she has the right, to lead the government of her county. If the public got a chance to say so, she would do so, and bring immeasurable improvement not only to Burma but the whole area. I say all this because in some moment of optimism I allowed my name to get put on the masthead of the organisation in this country that campaigns for her release, the Burma Campaign, but I have done nothing else for her before today, mainly because I don't believe that my going to dinner with like-minded humanitarians is likely to help much. What she needs is an invading army, but even if there were one available, armed intervention, since the Iraq incursion, has been out of fashion: no doubt with good reason, but those appalled by the moral cost of toppling a tyrannical regime are still stuck with counting the moral cost incurred by leaving it alone. The regime in Burma will most likely go on being left alone. Aung San Suu Kyi's slow martyrdom makes the cost obvious. The current best plan for getting her sprung is to bring persuasion to bear on India so that India will bring pressure to bear on the junta, and so on until she grows old and grey. A better world Being who she is, she grows old slowly, and at the age of 63 she looks like her own daughter, but time is still against her. If time is all you've got going for you, it isn't much. What justice needs, when it is ranged against naked force, is a contrary force, and the fact that there isn't one is enough to reduce the onlooker to despair. 'Merry face, exultantly elevated thumb' - Kuwaiti MP Aseel al Awadhi Despair can coarsen one's judgment. I knew enough about what Saddam Hussein and his talented son Uday were doing to women to want that regime toppled. The price of doing so might have seemed too high, but at least now, six years later, it is no longer official policy to rape a woman in front of her family. There may be unofficial forces still on the loose in Iraq who would like to do that, but the government no longer does it. Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan still seems worth it when you have read about what the Taliban want to do with any woman who seeks an education, but it's easy to despair when you think of how hard it is to stop them. Sometimes despair overwhelms us when we read of just a single so-called honour crime in which the men of a family have ruined the life of a daughter for what seems no reason at all, and the men walk free because that's the culture, and the culture runs the government. I felt despair when Aung San Suu Kyi got taken off to jail, and for her I thought I had no despair left. But heartbreak feels out of place when we see this news story about the four women MPs in Kuwait, and there's a photo of one of them, rejoicing with her friends. I'm looking at the photo right now. Her name is Aseel al Awadhi. She has a merry face and an exultantly elevated thumb. It will be a better world for all of us if women like her are free to do well, and if she could hear us it would be our simple duty to say good luck to you. And another duty, alas, to say: mind how you go.

Helping Provide Relief for Burma

Three of Burma's homeless find refuge in a shelter set up at a school in the village of the Irrawaddy Delta, the region hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis. The storm left more than 133,000 people dead or missing.
Photograph by : Getty Images

I keep repeating that one of the greatest acts of Political Solidarity anyone outside of this country can do, is to verbally, and in writing recognize it's historical identity: the name of the country is, BURMA. The name the junta now in its falsely seized state of power has co-opted has named the country "Myanmar." This is adamantly NOT correct!

Yet found in the miracle of Mother Nature, the great equalizer here on this wondrous planet, when too many of her earthly children become too engrossed in states of overwhelming power struggles, one of her powerful responses is to flood open the doors of possibility for: inquiry, investigation and opportunity. Possibility, for restoration of balance in human consciousness, as we collectively struggle to wake up to our true nature. A true nature we are each here to learn to consciously recognize while we are in human form in this earthly garden, life experience. Hello, without judgment or attachment_ wake-up...

For those who can make monetary donations, in order to aid those who are directly providing physical aid for the country of Burma and her people's recovery, you can become aware of this site and simultaneously contact: Bill Proudman and Pam Shelly, 2943 NE 13th Ave, Portland, OR 97212

This information was emailed to me through my local Buddhist sangha and I pass it on, in my capacity to help widen the net of support for aid needed by the Burmese people NOW.

***Don't forget Darfur in the Sudan as well.


Blessings for us all, all over the world!

Namasté

This morning's news held two distinct considerations

I am not a news let alone a television watcher. However, I am staying with a friend at the moment who is. While I am here he wears headphones so the space is not dominated sound-wise, by the TV. Now I am a visual person so, as I came downstairs this morning, here is what I "saw" on the news. First there were the scenes of the cyclone that devastated Burma on Sunday. Now one cannot go very far concerning the emergency condition of this country, without including its political reality in every response. In a pertinent side note, the most politically pro-active thing one can do is refer to this country' by its historical and original name_ Burma.
"Myanmar" is the co-opted name overlaid by the current occupying military junta in its intolerably egregious violence. People who represent that misinformed, small definition of power over others. This junta seems to embody only a consciousness of intent to wipe out the beautiful people who are the country that is Burma.

DO NOT EVER FORGET

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Now in the news, nature has provided opportunity from the perspective of the soil, the human-made infrastructure that sits on top of the soil, and the human life that toils and struggles to live, raise families safely and work abundantly on this land_ This cyclone has provided Burma and the world, opportunities for conscious attention and conscious action today!
Consider that the occupying junta must now work with the population in order to save life, land, property...
What lessening of violence might this natural disaster actually produce? Slow as the progress is in New Orleans, individual, civic and religious groups are not waiting on an inactive government to clean up after Katrina and help people restore their homes, communities, their neighborhoods. This moment in our own history will inform the future here and in the southern United States in powerful ways for some time to come. Consider then, how difficult it can be even for a military dictator to remain in power where there are no resources; i.e, food, shelter, utilities, medical, etc.
Natural disaster, like love really knows no boundaries!
How might this apparent catastrophe put pressure on the junta in the greatest possible opportunities, for the release of the legally, officially elected leader of Burma, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi?! Do you realize that she is the only Nobel Peace Prize Winner who is imprisoned?! Only her liberated presence can help escalate restoration and support for her country now!

Think about what all of this means right now and respond for the ease and rescue of Burma in every way that you are able, keeping what I have told you about the political reality of this country in the forefront of your mind. Do not withhold support, simply be empowered in your discernment where, your citizen dollars of support may be integrated into Burma, for her own relief along with the official support that will come in response to this natural disaster, disguised as, robust potential political opportunity! Keep your letters coming, and make your voices clearly heard without relief, until Burma is restored to its own legitimate will for democratic determination through the unconditional release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
I cannot emphasize enough to people everywhere in the world, do not hesitate to integrate this truth and reality into the immediate need for rescue and rehabilitation, support and response, for the liberation of the people of Burma!

The second consideration I "saw" in the news this morning, perhaps because the sound was muted: who in this country should be in the media proclaiming the official U. S. response to the tragedy in Burma? Yes! None other than the second Lady Bush, h-u-u-m-m-m. The image of a U.S. female leadership presence... very interesting indeed.
I saw it as an official signal from the White House as to who will be the next U. S. president in November... between prayers and conscious attention and conscious action_ stay tuned folks!
MAKE SURE YOU VOTE in the primaries and in the national election, precisely because it is not who your candidate of choice is, but that you do have the choice.
MAKE SURE THAT YOUR VOTE IS COUNTED!
Don't just mail in your ballot, or go to the polls to do your civic and national duty. Volunteer to woman and man the poles. Help with the actual count! Bear witness to this precious national right and process! Voting is your responsibility. There is no voting service one pays for_ that would be called fascism.
Our rights are only as valuable as our presence and active responses to protect them. This is the nature of democracy people, it takes us. No one will do democracy for you!

I "saw" all this in about 7 minutes of the news with no sound on this morning! What do you see?

Redirecting our energies now!

Burma needs our help, and our national contemporary insularity only continues to be egregious!

Want this badge?

May All Beings Have Happiness...

...and the causes of happiness.
May all beings be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow.
May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrow-less.
May all live in equanimity without attachment or aversion
Believing in the equality of all that lives.



Our hearts, prayers and actions are with those in Burma, and the capitol city, Rangoon.

World-wide Burma Events