Human Rights: Burma (Update)

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s special envoy on human rights in Myanmar (Burma) visited Myanmar's notorious Insein prison today as part of his probe into rights abuses and the actual death toll from the junta's suppression of pro-democracy protests.

Now there's a man with guts. I'd like to see the Chimperor visit any country without full security detail.

Pinheiro will try to meet political detainees and investigate claims of abuses against ethnic minority groups. He leaves Burma on Thursday. He visited the notorious Insein jail outside Yangon for about two hours, according to Myanmar's state television. He was accompanied by UN and government officials, and escorted by police, witnesses said.

That would be Burmese police, of course. Think the Chimperor would dare visit Iraq with an Iraqi police escort? He takes his own security detail to friendly countries, where they foul up the traffic and irritate thousands of ordinary citizens who need to get things done, but must sit in their cars instead as the Lord God High Panjandrum Monkeyface and his minions drive by.

Pinheiro also held talks with senior Buddhist monks on Monday, the UN said, but did not reveal any details.

A Myanmar official confirmed that earlier Monday the envoy visited the Ngwekyaryan monastery in South Okkalapa, a satellite town of Yangon.

According to the Raw Story report on the visit,

Political analysts say the generals have allowed the UN visits to reduce pressure on them ahead of the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which opens in Singapore on Sunday.

Daw Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma, deserves your energies and activism on her behalf and the behalf of her brutally repressed people.


Talk to your political representatives and urge them to do something. The Chimperor is an ineffective and worthless loser, and no one is listening to him. Congress, or your equivalent parliamentary body, needs to do something. Instead of meddling in Iraq where we don't belong, and which we've now set on fire like a careless child with a box of matches, we should have been concentrating all along on Afghanistan and Burma and other such countries. But, no. The chimperor preferred killing your children and other people's children.

It's time to impeach the son-of-a-marsh sponge.

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Human Rights: Burma

In response to my post on the abysmal junta in Burma, commenter bourgeois nievete takes me to task, and deservedly:

Bourgeois Nievete said...

Thanks for the idea that Mr. Pinheiro loan one of his testicle to our Democratic Party. I think he could get a few from the Republicans since they aren't using any of theirs on Burma either. Perhaps congress could use a bit more ova too? Any donors?
BTW the Dems are the only ones putting forth any legislation on Burma.
Please check out the Burma News Ladder.

Sir or Madam, you're quite correct. The Republicans ain't even talking about Burma. It's just that I expect Democrats, as the party of something other than frothing mad people, to do more. The Burma News Ladder is a good site to visit if you want to update yourself on the horrors of Burma today.

We must fight this monster. At home and abroad. The Misadministration's abrogation of human rights has shown our allies and enemies, from Israel to Burma, that they can do what we do with impunity. After all, who are we to take them to task? They're doing nothing more or less than what the madmen in power in this country are doing.

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Human Rights: Burma

Pic courtesty of Auntie Beeb

The International Herald Tribune tells us that Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s special envoy on human rights in Myanmar (Burma) has been invited to that country by the military junta for a discussion next week.

The junta, which seized power in 1988, refused to hand over power to Aung San Suu Kyi's National Democracy League when it won a landslide victory in 1990. Aung has spent 10 of the past 17 years under house arrest.

Things heated up again this year when Buddhist monks led protests against the junta, and the brutal military response caused worldwide reaction. Although the reaction so far has been limited to apparent fainting spells followed by enthusiastic application of fans and smelling salts, one can only hope that eventually governments everywhere will do the right thing (we're looking at you, India, China, Singapore, Malaysia), and let the junta know that its actions are beyond the pale.

According to The Independent, the scale of the protests have the military worried. Major General Hla Htay Win was "permitted to retire," as the junta euphemistically expresses it, for being "too lenient" with protestors in Rangoon. Given that this is the same general who ordered bloody predawn raids on monasteries resulting in the arrest, imprisonment, torture, and beating deaths of many monks, and firing into unarmed crowds of peaceful protestors, one wonders what General Than Shwe, the despotic monster of the dungheap that constitutes the military junta, had in mind.

According to rumours, that worthy (Than Shwe)

... was worried enough as the street protests grew, that he sent his family to safety in Dubai.

"The stories are that he is isolated and that his staff are afraid to give him bad news but we do believe that he is the one to give the orders to crack down, so he is not totally out of touch,'' said Shari Villarosa, the US charge d'affaires in Rangoon.

Meanwhile, Pinheiro, who has been barred from Burma since 2003, had this to say:

... he "welcomes" the invitation to visit Nov. 11-15.

The statement, issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, said Pinheiro noted that the invitation "sends a positive indication of the desire of the authorities to cooperate with his mandate" to investigate human rights in Myanmar.

After getting initial permission last month for the visit, Pinheiro said he would demand access to prisons and try to determine the number of people killed and detained by the military government in September's crackdown on peaceful protesters.

"If they don't give me full cooperation, I'll go to the plane, and I'll go out," Pinheiro said.

Mr. Pinheiro, could you lend one of your testicles to our Democratic party? They seem sadly lacking in that respect.

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Human Rights - Mutiny in Myanmar?

Via Raw Story comes a report from Newsdesk Special that the army in Myanmar is mutinying, refusing to shoot protestors and turning their guns against each other. If this is true, it is good news for this small, troubled, isolated country. The article states, in part:

The organisation Helfen ohne Grenzen (Help without Frontiers) is reporting that "Soldiers from the 66th LID (Light Infantry Divison) have turned their weapons against other government troops and possibly police in North Okkalappa township in Rangoon and are defending the protesters. At present unsure how many soldiers involved."

Soldiers in Mandalay, where unrest has spread to as we reported this morning, are also reported to have refused orders to act against protesters.

It is long past time that this repressive military regime were gone. Let us hope that the Burmese people can resolve their problems in a peaceful way, that the military junta is disempowered permanently, and that Aung San Suu Kyi regains her rightful position as the elected leader of Burma.

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Myanmar: Freedom from Fear

photo from thedifferencemagazine.blogspot

Our prayers are out to the people in Myanmar. The military is closing cyber and internet cafes - which is a really bad development. Freedom of communication is greatly restricted there. No free press. Citizens of Myanmar sometimes don't know what's going on there if they do not have access to the internet. Cell phones are also being caught off.

There are reported deaths. It was reported today that the military just shot into crowds of people like they did in 1988. Only 9 deaths have been officially reported. I'm surprised the number is so low.

And, this has not been confirmed yet, but Aung San Suu Kyi - Nobel Peace Prize winner and pro-democracy leader is said to have been transferred to the notorious Insein prison. She had been under house arrest but it was said that military officials were afraid that she would get involved in the demonstrations. The road leading to the Nobel Peace Prize-winner's house has been blocked with barbed wire and sandbags.

Heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, Aung San Suu Kyi entered politics to work for democratization, helped found the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988, and was put under house arrest on 20 July 1989. She was offered freedom if she would leave the country, but she refused.

One of her most famous speeches is the "Freedom From Fear" speech, which begins:

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

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