After hearing about the situation in Burma, I am at wits end trying to figure out what the fuck one is to do in a violent military dictatorship climate. Monks, who are highly revered in the region, led protests in rebellion and for the most part, the government had restraint about using military force to crush the protests. There was huge support for the protests by the civilians and a giant party of protesters were able to peacefully march into the capital.
This protest at the very least attracted global attention to the region. In fact, you can show your support by signing a petition here: www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with…
But today, BBC reported that overnight, the military broke into monasteries and beat and arrested several hundred (?) monks. It is obvious that the junta is just trying to remove the monks from the crowds of protesters so that they can open fire on the civilians. That will allow them to remain in power without the global community intervening as urgently as they would if monks were being fired upon as well.
Here are 2 good BBC reports:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7009825.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7015751.stm
The region is traditionally unstable. The military dictators don’t recognize the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi as anything and have arrested her repeatedly for trying to establish a democratic environment. The US and Europe have imposed sanctions on trade in the region except for a few loopholes. One loophole allowed a Burmese-Thai gas pipeline to be run by a union of French oil company Total S.A. and their American counterpart Chevron. This pipeline is the cause of many human rights abuses in the area.
I am not pro-terrorist, but I can see why someone might look at becoming a military dictator as a very viable option in a climate like that. I mean, it’s a get-rich-quick scheme definitely. But what are your other options? Come up with a chain of low-cost department stores that take over the nation and then the world? Sorry, Wal-Mart’s got that cornered. Maybe come up with an operating system for personal computers that becomes the go-to OS and gets distributed with any standard build across electronics retailers all over the world? You’ll have to squash Bill Gates first and it’s tough to start down that path if your family is too poor to even afford a computer.
But what DOES happen in the region as a source of income that is in some way competitive to the minimum wage of the rest of the world is drug smuggling, which also funds the underground terrorist network. Drug smuggling in Burma also fuels China’s addiction problem.
So yeah. Where do we look as a solution to this clusterfuck? One man says China is the key: www.ksg.harvard.edu/news/op…
He’s a harvard professor and all, but you know what I would do? Go over there and get a pet python — those things are freakin huge.
