Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Myitsone Dam and other Dams in N Burma - International Rivers Report

http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/6876

Important conversation between Aung San Suu Kyi and Veteran Kachin Leader

Daw Inhpangyar-yar (spelled phonetically) met ASSK for dinner, and in response to ASSK's 2 Qs 1. on origins of KIO 2. why there is no reconciliation - related how Aung San came to Kachin first for historic Panglong Treaty and how other major ethnic groups signed because they signed - with guarantee given by AS that they could secede in 10 years. - however AS was assassinated and U Nu sold off Kachin territory to China (in 50s) - as for 17 year ceasefire, which is not "peace" yet, it was violated by SPDC. This is an informal summary - if you need more ask your (other) Burmese speakers to translate - to read the Burmese you need Zawgyi or other Burmese font. Daw Inhpangyaryar said they spoke for two hours, and ASSK listened so intently - as if it was all new to her, that "her neck seemed to be bent to one side." Daw Inhpangyaryar said she told Daw Suu, "Well, you were very young then and so you didn't know all this, and then you went overseas with your mother --" --- Those of you in the Burmese language media etc should have this translated and should follow up on this some more. As Stiglitz said, "National Reconciliation" has to come first. Kyi May Kaung --- On Tue, 2/28/12, xxx wrote: From: Subject: [8888peoplepower] Fwd: ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုကုိ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ(ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖြဲ ့နာယက)ေျပာခဲ့ေသာစကားမ်ား [1 Attachment] To: Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 4:43 AM [Attachment(s) from xxx included below] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Date: Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 4:36 PM Subject: Fwd: ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုကုိ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ(ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖြဲ ့နာယက)ေျပာခဲ့ေသာစကားမ်ား To: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Date: 2012/2/28 Subject: ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုကုိ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ(ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖြဲ ့နာယက)ေျပာခဲ့ေသာစကားမ်ား To: YPI – ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ကို ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့စကားေတြ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ကို ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့စကားေတြ by Yangon Press International on Saturday, 25 February 2012 at 08:25 · ျမစ္ႀကီးနား၊ ေဖေဖၚ၀ါရီ ၂၅၊ ၂၀၁၂ (YPI) (ဆိုင္းဆြတ္) ေဖေဖၚ၀ါရီလ ၂၃ ရက္ေန႔ ည ၈နာရီ ျမစ္ႀကီးနားၿမိဳ႕ မေနာကြင္း မဂ်ြယ္ခန္းမမွာ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္သို႔ စည္းရုံးေရး ခရီးစဥ္အျဖစ္ ေရာက္ရွိေနတဲ့ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္နဲ႔ တိုင္းရင္သား ေခါင္းေဆာင္းမ်ား၊ ဘာသာေရး ေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားနဲ႔ ညစာအတူစားခဲ့ၾကပါတယ္။ ထိုစဥ္က ကခ်င္အတုိင္ပင္ခံအဖဲြ႔ နာယက ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ နဲ႔ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္တို႔ ေျပာဆိုၾကတဲ့အေၾကာင္းကို YPI သတင္းေထာက္က ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာကို ေမးျမန္းထားပါတယ္။ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ။ ။ ည ၈နာရီ ကေန စျပီး ၁၀ နာရီ ေလာက္အထိ စကားေျပာျဖစ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္ သူက အဖြားကို ေမးခြန္း ႏွစ္ခုပဲေမးပါတယ္။ အဲဒါေတြက ၁- KIA က ဘာလို႔ျဖစ္လာတာလဲ ၂ – ဒီေန႔အထိ ဘာေႀကာင့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး ေဆြးေႏြးလို႔ မရေသးတာလဲ ဆိုတာကို ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုႀကည္က ေမးခဲ့ပါတယ္။ အရမ္းအေရးႀကီးတဲ့ ေမးခြန္ေတြကို သူေမးခဲ့ပါတယ္။ ကြ်န္မ ျပန္ေျပာျပလိုက္ပါတယ္၊ အရင္ကတည္းက ကခ်င္ႏိုင္ငံဆိုျပီးရွိခဲ့တာပါ ဘယ္ဘုရင္ကမွ ဒီေနရာက ကခ်င္ေတြအတြက္ဆိုျပီး ေပးထားတာမဟုတ္ပါဘူး၊ ကခ်င္ေတြက ကိုယ္ေနရာ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံ ကိုယ့္ေဒသနဲ႔ ကိုယ္ ေနထိုင္ခဲ့ႀကတဲ့သူေတြျဖစ္တယ္၊ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံ ကိုယ့္ေနရာနဲ႔ကိုယ္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ျပီး ျငိမ္ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းခ်မ္း ေနထိုင္ခဲ့ ႀကတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြဟ ျမန္မာျပည္ဘက္ကိုလည္း မသြားဘူး ျမန္မာလူမ်ိဳးေတြကလည္း ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြကို ေတာသား လူရုိင္းေတြဆို ျပီး အရမ္းေႀကာက္ခဲ့တာ။ ျဗိတိသွ် အုပ္ခ်ဴပ္တုန္းက ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြဟာ စစ္ေရးစစ္ရာ တိုက္ခိုက္တဲ့ေနရာမွာ ကြ်မ္းက်င္တဲ့ လူမ်ိဴးေတြျဖစ္တယ္၊ ပထမ ကမၻာစစ္နဲ႔ ဒုတိယ ကမၻာစစ္ ဂ်ပန္ေခတ္ ေတြမွာ ကခ်င္လူမ်ိဴးေတြ ေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ား ပါ၀င္ တိုက္ခိုက္ပါ၀င္ခဲ့ႀကတယ္၊ ဒီလိုနဲ႔ ၁၉၄၇ ခုႏွစ္မွာ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဴပ္ေအာင္ဆန္း ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ကိုတက္လာတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ကြ်န္မ က အဲဒီအခ်ိန္ ၁၅ ၊ ၁၆ ႏွစ္ဘဲရွိေသးတယ္၊ အဲဒီတုန္းက ကြ်န္မ ႀကိဳဆိုဧည့္ခံေရး အဖဲြ႔မွာပါ၀င္ခဲ့တယ္၊ အခုက်ြန္မ အသက္ ၈၀ ေက်ာ္ျပီေလ၊ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဴပ္ေအာင္ဆန္းက ျဗိတိသွ် ေတြဆီက လြတ္လပ္ေရးရေအာင္ဆိုျပီး တျခားလူမ်ိဳးေတြဆီ မသြားပဲ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ကို အရင္လာတာျဖစ္တယ္။ ကခ်င္ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ဆံုေဆြးေႏြးခဲ့ႀကတယ္၊ အစကေတာ့ လြတ္လပ္ေရးမွာ မပါ၀င္ခ်င္ဘူး၊ ဒါေပမဲ့ ေအာင္ဆန္းက ကခ်င္တစ္က်ပ္ ဆို ျမန္မာတစ္က်ပ္ဆိုတဲ့ အခြင့္အေရးေပးမယ္ဆိုျပီး ျပည္ေထာင္စုမူ အရ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို႔ယူႀကမွပါ ခင္ဗ်ားတို႔ မႀကိဳက္ရင္လည္း ေနာက္ ၁၀ႏွစ္ေလာက္ဆို ျပန္ခဲြထြက္လို႔ ရတယ္ဆိုလို႕ ကခ်င္ေတြ ပင္လံုစာခ်ဳပ္မွာ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးခဲ့ႀကတာပါ။ ကခ်င္ေတြ ပင္လံုစာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္ဖို႔ သေဘာတူလို႔ ရွမ္းျပည္ကိုေရာက္တယ္ ရွမ္းေတြလည္း လြတ္လပ္ေရးကို မလိုခ်င္ႀကဘူး ဒါေပမဲ့ ကခ်င္ေနာင္ေတာ္ႀကီးေတြေတာင္ သေဘာတူတယ္ဆိုေတာ့ ဆိုျပီး ရွမ္းေတြလည္းသေဘာတူ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးခဲ့ႀကတယ္။ ျပီးေတာ့ ခ်င္းေတြ ျပန္ေရာက္လာတယ္ ခ်င္းေတြေရာ ဒီအတိုင္းဘဲ သေဘာမတူဘူး လြတ္လပ္ေရးကို မလိုခ်င္ႀကဘူး၊ ဒါေပမဲ့ ကခ်င္နဲ႔ ရွမ္းေတာင္ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးတယ္ဆိုျပီးသူလည္း သေဘာတူခဲ့တယ္၊ ပင္လံုမွာလက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးတာက ဗမာ ကိုယ္စား ေအာင္ဆန္း (ဖဆပလ) ေခါင္းေဆာင္ လက္မွတ္ထိုးတယ္ ကခ်င္၊ ရွမ္း၊ ခ်င္း ေလးဦး သေဘာတူျပီး ပင္လံုမွာ စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ုဳပ္ခဲ့တာျဖစ္ပါတယ္၊ ၁၉၄၈ ဇန္န၀ါရီ ၄ မွာ လြတ္လပ္ေရး ရတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ဒါေပမဲ့ ရွင့္အေဖ ေပးထားတဲ့ ကတိစကားကို ကြ်န္မတို႔ အရမ္းအားကိုးနားေထာင္ျပီး လက္ခံထားတာကို ေအာင္ဆန္းမရွိေတာ့လို႔ ကၽြန္မတို႔ အရမ္း၀မ္းနည္းျပီး စိတ္ပ်က္သြားတယ္၊ အဲဒီအခ်ိန္က စျပီး ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္ေတြက ဘာ အခြင့္အေရးမွ မရေတာ့တာပါ၊ ဦးႏုက ဖဆပလ (ဥကၠ႒) တက္လာေတာ့ ကခ်င္ေတြကို ဘာမွ မဟုတ္သလို ဆက္ဆံခဲ့တာပါ၊ ဒီလိုနဲ ့ကြ်န္မတို႔ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ တရုတ္ျပည္နယ္စပ္က ဖီေမာ္၊ လံကိုင္ နယ္ေျမကို ဘယ္သူ႕ကိုမွ မတိုင္ပင္ဘဲ တရုတ္ေတြကို ေရာင္းစားလိုက္တာဟုတ္တယ္။ ဒါေႀကာင့္ အရမ္း၀မ္းနည္းတယ္ အခုထိလည္း ၀မ္းနည္းေနတုန္းပါဘဲ။ ၁၉၆၂ မွာ ကၽြန္မတို႕ ကခ်င္ေတြ သူပုန္ထလာတာျဖစ္တယ္၊ ဒါဘာျဖစ္လို႕လဲဆိုေတာ့ ႏိုင္ငံေတာ္ဘာသာ ဆိုတာကို ဘယ္သူ႕ကိုမွ တိုင္ပင္တာမရွိပဲ ဦးႏု သူ႕ဟာသူ စီစဥ္လုပ္ခဲ့တယ္ ႏုိင္ငံေတာ္ဘာသာမွာ ဆိုရင္ (တစ္ႏိုင္ငံလံုး ဗုဒၶဘာသာ ျဖစ္ရမယ္ဆိုတဲ့ ဦးတည္ခ်က္နဲ႔သြားရမယ္) က်န္တဲ့ ခရစ္ယာန္ ၊နတ္စား ၊ စတဲ့ ဘာသာေတြကို ႏိွမ္သလိုျဖစ္လာျပီး ဒါေႀကာင့္ KIO ေတာ္လွန္ေရးစလာတာပါ၊ ကခ်င္ေတာ္လွန္ေရးကိုစခဲ့တာ ေနာ္ဆိုင္းဟုတ္ပါတယ္ ေနာ္ဆိုင္းက ရွမ္းျပည္ကေန ကခ်င္ဖက္ကိုတက္လာေတာ့ သူ႕ကို ဘယ္သူမွ ႀကိဳဆိုေထာက္ခံမဲ့သူ မရွိလို႔ ေနာ္ဆိုင္းက တရုတ္ကြန္ျမဴနစ္ေတြနဲ႔ ေပါင္းသြားတာျဖစ္တယ္။ ကၽြန္မတို႕ ကခ်င္ေတြက ျမန္မာေတြကို သတ္မယ္ျဖတ္မယ္ဆိုတဲ့ စိတ္ဓာတ္လံုး၀ မရွိပါဘူး ဗမာကို မုန္းရေအာင္ေနာ္ဆိုတဲ့ စိတ္လည္းမရွိပါဘူး၊ ဒါေပမယ့္ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံကိုယ့္ျပည္ကို ကိုယ္ပိုင္ဆိုင္ခြင့္ အရင္က ပိုင္ဆိုင္သလို ပိုင္ဆိုင္ခြင့္ ကိုယ့္ႏိုင္ငံႀကီးပြားတိုးတက္ဖို႔ ကိုယ့္ေျခေထာက္ကိုယ္ ရပ္တည္သြားမယ္ ဆုိျပီး ေျပာႀကည့္ရင္လည္း မျဖစ္လို႔ ေတာ္လွန္ေရး KIO ဆိုတာ ျဖစ္လာတာဟုတ္တယ္၊ ဒီေန႔ အထိလည္း ဒါပါပဲ တျခားေတာ့ ဘာမွမဟုတ္ဘူး အပစ္ေခတ္ရပ္စဲေရးကို ၁၇ ႏွစ္ႀကာေအာင္ ျပန္လုပ္ခဲ့ျပီးျပီး က်ြန္မတို႔ အရမ္းေပ်ာ္ရြင္ခဲ့ပါတယ္၊ ဒီအပစ္ခတ္ရပ္စဲေရး လုပ္ျပီး ေတာ့ ေနာက္တစ္ဆင့္အေနနဲ႔ ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရး လုပ္ဖို႔ လိုအပ္လာတယ္၊ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္စဲေရးက ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးမဟုတ္ဘူး..ျငိမ္းခ်မး္ေရး ဆိုတာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအရ စားပဲြေပၚမွာ ျပဳလုပ္ဖို႔ျဖစ္တာ ဒါကို လုပ္ခြင့္မေပးဘူး KIO အေနနဲ႔ ခဏခဏေတာင္းဆိုတယ္ မလုပ္ေပးခဲ့ဘူး “ျပည္သူ႕အစိုးရေပၚလာေတာ့မယ္ မင္းတို႔ သိပ္မေလာႀကနဲ႔ ဆိုျပီးျပန္ေျပာတယ္” ျပည္သူ႕အစိုးရ ေပၚလာျပီး အစည္းအေ၀းေတာင္ မလုပ္ေသးဘူး သူတို႔ အရင္ပစ္တယ္ ၂၀၁၂ ဇြန္ ၉ မွာ စစ္စျဖစ္တယ္။ အခု ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္မွ ျမန္မာစစ္သား ၁သိန္းေက်ာ္ျပီး သိလား.. ဒံုးက်ည္ ၂ေသာင္း ေရာက္ေနတယ္.. အေျမာက္ေတြလည္း အမ်ားႀကီးေရာက္ေနတယ္ ကခ်င္နဲ႔ခရစ္ယာန္ေတြကို အျမစ္ျပတ္သြားေအာင္ လုပ္သြားမွာျဖစ္တယ္။ ဘာျဖစ္လို႕လဲဆိုေတာ့ အျပင္က ေလာဘ စိတ္ေႀကာင့္ဟုတ္တယ္ ကြ်န္မတို႔ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္မွာ သံယဇာတေပါမ်ားတယ္ ဒါေႀကာင့္နယ္ေျမကို လုယူပိုင္ဆိုင္ခ်င္လို႔ျဖစ္တယ္ လို႕ ကြ်န္မတို႕ ကေတာ့ ဒီလိုပဲ ထင္ႀကပါတယ္။ ကခ်င္လြတ္လပ္ေရးအဖဲြ႔ ကေတာင္းဆိုထားတာကက (၁) ပင္လံုစာခ်ဳပ္ ပင္လံုစိတ္ဓာတ္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးကို ႏုိင္ငံေရးလို စားပဲြေပၚမွာ ပင္လံု အေျခခံျပီး ေဆြးေႏြးမယ္ (၂ ) ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ ေရာက္ေနတဲ့ တပ္မေတာ္သားေတြ ကို ကိုယ့္ေနရာကိုယ္ျပန္ဆုတ္ခိုင္း ဒါဆိုရင္ အပစ္အခတ္ရပ္မယ္ စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္မယ္ဆိုရင္ႏိုင္ငံတကာက လူေတြကိုေခၚျပီး စာခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္မယ္ဆိုျပီးေတာင္းဆိုထားတာ အခုထိေတာ့ဘာမွ အေႀကာင္းျပန္လာတာ မရွိေသးဘူး၊ ေဒၚစုက အံႀသစြာနဲ႔ လည္ပင္းေတာင္ ေစာင္းတယ္ ကၽြန္မေျပာတာကို နားေထာင္ေနတာ သူက ဘာမွမသိတဲ့ပံုပဲ မင္းကအဲဒီတုန္းက ငယ္ေသးတယ္ေလ ျပီးေတာ့ မင္းအေမေနာက္လိုက္သြားရေတာ့ ငါတို႕ဒီက သမိုင္းေႀကာင္းကို ဘာမွ မသိလိုက္ဘူးေပါ့ လို႕ကၽြန္မေျပာခဲ့တယ္။ အထက္က ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သည္မ်ားမွာ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အား ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာက ေျပာဆိုခဲ့သည့္ စကားမ်ားကို ၎ကိုယ္တိုင္ ျပန္လည္ေျပာျပတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ထိုေန႔ညက ရွင္းျပအၿပီး ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အား သူေျပာခ်င္တဲ့ စကားတစ္ခြန္းျဖစ္သည့္ “ျမန္မာ့နည္းျမန္မာ့ဟန္ ဆိုရွယ္လစ္ အခုလည္း ျမန္မာ့နည္းျမန္မာ့ဟန္ ဒီမိုကေရစီ မလုပ္ရင္ေကာင္းတယ္” ဆိုတာကို မီးပ်က္သြားတာေၾကာင့္ မေျပာလိုက္ရဘူးလို႔ ေဒၚအင္ဖန္ဂ်ာရာ က YPI ကိုျပန္ေျပာျပပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ့ေနာက္ YPI သတင္းေထာက္က ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ဘာေၾကာင့္ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္သို႔ လာသည္ထင္သလဲ ဟုေမးရာ “ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ပါတီစည္းရံုးေရး ထြက္လာတယ္ ထင္တာပဲ” လို႔ေျဖဆိုပါတယ္။ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္ လာတဲ့အေပၚ ဘာေမွ်ာ္လင့္ထားလဲ ဆိုတဲ့ ေမးခြန္းကိုေတာ့ “ ဘာမွ ထူးထူးျခားျခား မေမွ်ာ္လင့္ပါဘူး၊ ပါတီစည္းရံုးေရး သက္သက္ပဲ ထြက္လာတယ္၊ တကယ္လို႔ သူေရြးေကာက္ပြဲမွာ ႏိုင္လို႔ လႊတ္ေတာ္မွာ ၀င္ထိုင္ျဖစ္ရင္ေတာ့ ကခ်င္ျပည္နယ္အတြက္ ေမွ်ာ္လင့္ခ်က္ အေတာ္မ်ားမ်ား ရွိတယ္ ” လို႔ေျဖသြားပါတယ္။

Monday, February 27, 2012

Martin Klimas - paint sculptures made from sound waves

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/martin-klimas-paints-with-sound_n_1290756.html?ref=arts

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Scammed for $17m etc -New York Times Arts and Design page

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/design/index.html pl read - especially on fake Pollocks etc - I don't see how people got scammed - they are obviously fakes to me. Barnes Foundation Cindy Sherman Ramellzee Rembrant and Degas etc kmk
Kyi May Kaung - found collage - not a fake - art and photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

Mostly rose colored - but nice pics

http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/02/26/all-roads-lead-to-yangon/

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Upcoming Burma "by-election" already not "F and F"

Peace Rose, photograph Copyright Kyi May Kaung Upcoming Burma election already not free or fair Saturday, February 25, 2012 11:47 AM --- On Sat, 2/25/12, free burma wrote: From: free burma Subject: Upcoming Burma election already not free or fair To: Date: Saturday, February 25, 2012, 11:35 AM DICTATOR WATCH (www.dictatorwatch.org) Contact: Roland Watson, roland@dictatorwatch.org UPCOMING BURMA ELECTION ALREADY NOT FREE OR FAIR February 25, 2012 Please forward. Burma is holding a by-election on April 1st for forty-eight seats in Parliament (just over 10%). International observers view this as a significant benchmark in the country’s supposed reform to democracy. Both the U.S. and the E.U. have ended some of their sanctions, with the promise that more will be eliminated if the election is free and fair. The judgment of free and fair, however, does not apply only to what happens on election day. It is the entire process that must be appraised, starting with the freedom of the candidates to campaign and to speak their mind. Considering the steps that the military-backed regime has thus far taken, the upcoming election is already fatally flawed. Election-specific actions Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been campaigning throughout Burma. On a number of occasions she has been denied permission to use sports stadiums to hold rallies, with the result that she could not speak freely to local constituencies. Much more importantly, though, and which few commentators have noticed, the regime continues to enforce the requirement (Union Election Committee notification No. 91/2010, imposed in advance of the fraudulent 2010 national election) that speeches by candidates must be pre-approved, and that they cannot “criticize the constitution, tarnish the image of the state or the military, or harm security.” Among other provisions, candidates have to anticipate the size of the crowds to which they will speak, and take responsibility for them. It is not permitted to shout slogans. (Notification No. 91/2010 has also just been reinforced by an election commission statement on February 17, which applies the same provisions to radio and TV broadcasts.) In late January Daw Suu did in fact criticize the 2008 Constitution, and it was just after this that reminders of the requirement began to appear in pro-regime media. A careful read of this notice makes it clear that candidates cannot criticize or even comment upon, without fear of arrest or being banned from the election, the most important issues facing the country. It is notable that Daw Suu ceased talking about the Constitution after the notification was publicized. (She changed her focus to “jobs.”) It appears that she is censoring herself: Bending over backward so as not to anger the regime. Alternatively, she may have made a tactical retreat, and will speak strongly on these subjects once in Parliament. Only time will tell. (It is difficult to see, though, why the regime will become more tolerant.) Regardless of what Daw Suu ultimately ends up doing, if the candidates do not have freedom of speech, or freedom of assembly with voters, then the election is neither free nor fair. It doers not matter what happens on April 1st. The election is already discredited. This is not the only condemnation that can be made. Even though there is still a month to go, the regime has taken the following dishonest actions: After free speech and freedom of assembly, probably the most important factor for an election is freedom of the press. Notwithstanding some minor changes in the application of current press laws, e.g., images of Daw Suu can be shown, nothing material has changed. (Consideration of a new press law has been postponed until after the election.) Burma has an extremely repressive press environment. Journalists, like the candidates, are forbidden from discussing the country’s most important problems, including the Constitution, the on-going civil war and Burma Army atrocities, theft of land from villagers and bribery and corruption in development projects, etc. And, along with the refusal to allow the use of sports stadiums, there is a growing list of other types of “dirty tricks.” Pro-regime militia in Shan State have ordered villagers to vote for the military party, the USDP. In the Irrawaddy region, local officials have been warned that they will be forced to resign if the USDP does not win. There are also reports of similar threats in the Dawei area, as well as demands by government officials there that the polls themselves be manipulated, i.e., rigged. Considering all of this, and again with the proviso that there is still one month to go, we can already conclude that the vote will not be free or fair. While it might not be as openly fraudulent as the 2010 general election, and while most if not all NLD candidates will probably win their seats, the process by which this occurs will fail to meet democratic standards. However, the anti-sanctions crowd, starting with the E.U., will no doubt ignore this and instead argue that since the NLD won that is all that is required. The end is important, not the means. It is interesting that the E.U. has said election monitors are not necessary. This, though, is not linked to a belief that there will be no problems at the polls. Rather, Europe, which is determined that sanctions end and massive development proceed, is itself trying to censor news of poll irregularities that would force it to delay or even terminate its anti-sanctions drive. Other repression in Burma The idea that free elections justify ending the sanctions is based on an implied assumption that other conditions in the country are satisfactory. As the following list makes clear, other than ingratiating itself with Daw Suu and the International Community, Burma’s military regime is still as tyrannical as ever. The first issue here is not only freedom of speech for candidates, but for ordinary people as well. The monk Ashin Gambira was detained and is now being charged, reportedly for entering a locked monastery. But U Gambira has been outspoken about the lack of real democracy in Burma, how many monks are still being held as political prisoners, and how monasteries remain closed, now some four and a half years after the Saffron uprising. Similarly, another prominent monk, Ashin Pyinnyar Thiha, has been banned from preaching. Moreover, all of this has been accepted by the elders of Burma’s Buddhist council, the Maha Nayaka, who are blocking the re-ordination of the monks who have been released, and who seem determined to continue their long-standing support of the military regime. Of course, even though many prominent political prisoners have been released, one thousand or more prisoners of conscience remain. Indeed, it is astonishing that the NLD has disputed the assessed totals of political prisoners tracked by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), which has assiduously worked to identify and help them and their families since 2000. Not every political prisoner is a recognized dissident. Villagers who stand up for their rights and are then arrested are political prisoners as well, as are any individuals who are detained by the regime for any reason other than overt criminal activity. The fact that Burma has so many political prisoners destroys the argument that the NLD winning a few seats in Parliament will signal that democracy is truly on its way. The most pressing problem, though, is the continued Civil War. It is impossible to accept that the by-election has positive significance when the regime continues to attack the ethnic minorities of the country. Thein Sein ordered the Tatmadaw to cease and desist, but the commanders have refused. Some commentators blame rogue generals - hardliners - saying that a power struggle is underway. More seasoned analysts, though, argue that the entire presentation is a charade. Thein Sein is a hardliner as well: Everyone in the regime, including in the Tatmadaw and Parliament, is a hardliner. All that is occurring is a sophisticated good cop/bad cop presentation, orchestrated by the only person in Burma who has real power, Senior General Than Shwe. The puppet theater is being used to mollify regime opponents, and to provide support to regime apologists including Asean, the E.U., international corporations, biased academics and retired diplomats, and business press such as the Financial Times. The surface objective is to get the U.S. to end its sanctions, but the deeper goal is to create a drawn-out pseudo-democratic transition - commercial development before political change - that ensures that the generals and their cronies own all of the significant business interests in Burma, that such interests can never be seized, and, most critically, that they will never be tried for war crimes and other human rights abuses. Right now the regime is fighting the Kachin Independence Army in Kachin State and northern Shan State, the Shan State Army in southern Shan State, the Karenni Army in Karenni State, and both the Karen National Union and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army in Karen State and Tenassarim Division. (Even though the conflict has died down in a few areas, it can re-ignite at any time. The word out of Karen State is that Tatmadaw troops are acting like conquerers, and preparing for future offensives.) All of this fighting has been accompanied by Burma Army-perpetrated human rights violations. Villages have been bombed and women have been raped, for the latter most recently at the Kachin front and in Karenni State. Many ethnic villagers have been detained. Returning to an earlier point, they are all political prisoners, as is KNU leader Mahn Nyein Maung. Indeed, the women who are known to be being held as sex slaves by Burma Army units at the Kachin front, and forced to undergo gang rapes every night, are the most persecuted individuals in the entire country. I would argue that their freedom is actually the most important issue in Burma. It is intolerable that anyone would be subjected to such unspeakable torture. The by-election should not even be held until their whereabouts are determined and they are freed, using whatever level of force is required. The regime has responded to this by saying that it will not allow an inquiry into its atrocities in the ethnic areas, and further that its war with the Kachin may last three more years. The former is deplorable (as is the U.N.’s refusal to investigate), and the latter is ridiculous, considering that it is the Tatmadaw itself which is wholly responsible for the conflict. The generals are basically saying, we will continue to attack the Kachin for at least the next three years, or, more practically, until we defeat the KIA and our Chinese allies can restart the Myitsone Dam. The only acceptable response is that the Tatmadaw immediately cease its offensives and dismantle all its camps in the ethnic areas. To local villagers these camps are terrorist outposts, akin to al-Qaeda camps. There is no solution to the conflict other than their complete removal. Earlier this month, Daw Suu said that Europe and the U.S. should delay their decisions about the sanctions until after the by-election. She should in no way certify the regime’s fraud. Even more, she should stick to the position that the sanctions not be eliminated, or even reduced, until the Tatmadaw stops its war of aggression against Burma’s ethnic minorities, and frees all the political prisoners.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Burma soldier and Burmese-born US Marine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EknTt3aCDKc&feature=relmfu VOA interview by U Ronnie Nyein summary: The first interviewee compares what little he got from the Burmese government (about $6 lump sum payment and about $1 per month in pension, which was cut off when he joined the National League for Democracy, with the Disability pension he receives from the US Government in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he lives.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Burmese Puppet - almost bent over backwards but still looking up

Bent backwards Burmese puppet - photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

Found on Facebook - How to get away with murder - step by step guide from Burma junta

"How to get away with murder, a step by step guide book by Naypyidaw regime 1. First hire a PR firm from NY to give your SLORC a kinder softer name SPDC. 2. Be so mean and nasty that when you release a person, or allow UN emergency aid to dying victims of the Cyclone, it is applauded. 3. Who cares about the rest. Because you are working on it. 4. Own a country with natural resources as if it were your stepfather's whorehouse. 5. Sell them to highest bidder after meeting in golden presidential palace. 6. Make sure you and your buddies make more money this way. 7. Use flattery and stroke bloated egos and delusional patriotism. 8. Bring along locals to run your show but not to have control over it. 9. Allow former enemies of your state, or whorehouse, to come back and bring their foreign development funds to make them feel better and make you look good. 10. Some of them might even pimp for you: They will repeat how open your regime is, or there is nothing to complain, or there is ground for "cautious optimism" while the minorities are slaughtered. 11. Allow some wealthy to give charity to humanitarian causes because you do not have enough money to support the citizens of Burma, what with all the private things you and your families need. 12. Make sure that all the past is forgotten and ensure that your constitution makes this possible. 13. Just move on to a better place, and leave the population with massive foreign debt by the tune of billions. 14. And hold by-elections, throw crumbs at the desperate opposition and let the West have the bones."
Datura - a flower poisonous in all its parts - photo Copyright Kyi May Kaung

Some fantastic phtographs of a badly scarred earth

http://magazine.saatchionline.com/articles/artnews/jhenryfair

Time magazine email interview of Garielle Gifford

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2102334,00.html

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Beautiful & brilliant Burmese comedian Zarganar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlTTD0kwCcg&feature=related 3 part interview from DVB. I did not however like what he said about having campaigned 30 years ago so "Chinese" i.e. those holding FRCs or Foreigners' Registration Cards could not go to medical school. I think that is racist. Kyi May Kaung

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Performance "Tomorrow" in honor of Victms of Northern Massacre

http://www.8888peopletoday.net/ On 12th Feb 1992, in Pajau on Burma-China Border, 15 people were accused of being SLORC spies and tortured and executed by ABSDF (Northern Burma). ABSDF is an armed student group set up in 1988 by university students who fled Burma after the clampdown on 18th Sept. Some alleged perpetrators and several survivors are still alive. This performance was staged by artist Soo Myint Thein (spelled phonetically) at the recent merit sharing ceremony in Rangoon, Burma. *
Ashes from burned paper - photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Nien Cheng, author of Life and Death in Shanghai, died in Nov 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nien_Cheng I met her at a friend's house and interviewed her in 1998. Kyi May Kaung

Chinese diaspora writing - costs and benefits

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,409644,00.html
Multicultural Christmas still life - photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

"Burmese waterboarding" Kyi May Kaung's translation of Naing Win Swe's

Moe Makha Plant in http://www.fpif.org/articles/moe_ma_kha_plant This happened in jungle among rebels, I am unsure which. Naing Win Swe died in battle, his comrades having no time to bury him, "just covered him with wild flowers". It was the first poem I introduced and produced/broadcast on my Poems of Those who Love their Country, in 1997. Weekly program went on for 3 years. It has also appeared on another international poetry website (not available now). Kyi May Kaung
Tamarind pods soaking in water - photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Nancy Hudson-Rodd in DVB - Trouble brews as Burma turns to world markets

http://www.dvb.no/analysis/trouble-brews-as-burma-turns-to-world-markets/20116#comment-48580
How to prep coffee beans - in Thai cafe - photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Born a Criminal (in Burma) by Francis Wade

http://asiancorrespondent.com/54660/born-a-criminal-in-burma%E2%80%99s-prison-hospitals/

Memorial Poem for Astronaut Dr Janice Voss

Dear Linda please feel free to use this on the Memorial Cards and to read at the Service. So long as my name is on the bottom in small print it is fine. I don't know why the email is typing like this. I did not change to Plain Text as formatting would be lost. Sincere Condolences Kyi May http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/voss-jan.html A veteran of five space flights, Dr. Voss has logged over 49 days in space, traveling 18.8 million miles in 779 Earth orbits. Dr. Voss first flew on STS-57 (June 21 to July 1, 1993). Mission highlights included retrieval of the European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) with the Shuttle’s robotic arm, a spacewalk, and the first flight of the Spacehab module. She next flew on STS-63 (February 3-11, 1995). Mission highlights included the rendezvous with the Russian Space Station, Mir, the deployment and retrieval of Spartan 204, and the third flight of Spacehab. She also flew as payload commander on STS-83 (Apr 4-8, 1997).
Moon Flower and Blood Grass - photo - copyright Kyi May Kaung/ Janice, I wish I had met you/ before the cancer got you./ I only ever met two other/ Astronauts in my life. One man and one woman/ about five feet tall./ You loved science fiction and square dancing./ Look down on us from your last/ Circling of the Earth./ Know, we miss you./ Copyright Kyi May Kaung

Dead whale shark in Karachi

http://videos.geo.tv/VideoGallery.aspx?ID=3438 I wonder what the did with it did they stuff it? Kyi May Kaung

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

A partial Burmese economic history through its banknotes

http://banknotesofburma.blogspot.com/ Banknotes of Burma Blog by Min Sun Min U Kaung in the early banknotes was my father who was at one time Chairman of the Burma Currency Board. In the early 50s. Kyi May Kaung

Dickens vs lawyers from New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/opinion/dickens-v-lawyers.html?_r=1

Monday, February 06, 2012

Military rule mars hopes for democracy in Burma

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/military-backed-rule-blurs-hopes-for-democracy-in-burma-184814-page-2.html
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs scratches his eyebrow frame grab

Kyi May Kaung's article - Burma's Economy: Can World Class Advisors Make a Difference? -- in Asian Correspondent

http://asiancorrespondent.com/75403/burmas-economy-can-world-class-advisors-make-a-difference/
Badly split banana leaf - photo copyright Kyi May kaung

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Wislawa Symborska's The Joy of Writing and other poems on her Nobel Prize page

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1996/szymborska-poems-5-e.html
Young bamboo that will become invasive Photo copyright Kyi May Kaung.

An Iranian Vote - from an Iranian dissident

MY VOTE! ای دشمن آزادگان، ای جمهوری اسلامی ایران ، ما بی شمارانیم 33 years of Torture, imprisonment, injustice, rape and stoning, taking out eyes from the socket, amputations, over 100.000 executions, oppression, suppression, 8 years of forced Iran-Iraq war with 1/2 millions death, drug addictions, poverty, lack of jobs and security... And more. After all these, is there anyone in favour of the ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN?
Image provided by Iranian Dissident posted with permission. Note: It says in Persian: Islamic Republic of Iran, you are the enemy of freedom fighters but we are so many and in abundance.

Burmese-born poet Ko Ko Thett translates Symborska

Yahoo! Mail true love: a tribute to Szymborska (1923-1212) Saturday, February 4, 2012 4:03 PM Just noticed Szymborska died on 1 Feb! I was oblivious to her passing when I gave her poem 'true love' in translation to kaungkin the other day, for Valentine's. I am just passing through, it’s a five-minute stop. I won’t catch what is distant: what’s too close, I’ll mix up. While trying to plumb what the void's inner sense is, I'm bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies. What a loss when you think how much effort was spent perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent for the one-time appearance, which is all they're allowed, so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud. from 'Birthday' translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh She has passed through. Her one-time appearance is intransient. -- KKt ko ko thett အခ်စ္စစ္ အခ်စ္စစ္တဲ့၊ ပံုမွန္မွဟုတ္ရဲ့လား အေလးအနက္လား၊ လက္ေတြ႕ေရာက်ရဲ႕လား ႏွစ္ေယာက္တည္းတစ္ကမၻာလုပ္ေနတဲ့ လူႏွစ္ေယာက္က ဒီကမၻာႀကီးကို ဘာေပးႏိုင္မွာတဲ့တုန္း။ အေၾကာင္းျပခ်က္ ေျခေျချမစ္ျမစ္ မရွိဘဲ မ႑ပ္တိုင္ထူလိုက္ၾက သန္းေပါင္းမ်ားစြာထဲက တစ္ေယာတ္ကို စုံလုံးကန္း ေရြးလိုက္ၿပီးမွ ဒါဟာ ဒီလိုပဲျဖစ္ရမယ္လို႕ ယံုၾကည္လိုက္ၾက ဘာအတြက္လဲ - သဲထဲေရသြန္။ ရုတ္တရက္ သက္ဆင္း လာတဲ့ အလင္းတန္း။ ဘာေၾကာင့္ တျခားသူေတြေပၚ မက်ဘဲ ဒင္းတို႕ ႏွစ္ေယာက္ေပၚက် ဒါဟာ တရားမွ်တမႈကို ပါးခ်တာမဟုတ္လား - ဟုတ္ပါ့။ ဒါဟာ က်ားကုတ္က်ားခဲ ထူေထာင္ခဲ့ရတဲ့ စည္းမ်ည္းေတြကို ခ်ိဳးေဖာက္တာ၊ အထြဋ္အထိပ္ ေရာက္ၿပီးသား က်င့္ဝတ္ေတြကို လႊင့္ပစ္တာ - ဒါေတြအားလံုးဟုတ္။ အဲဒီစုံတြဲ သဲေနပံုကိုၾကည့္။ သိုသိုသိပ္သိပ္မေနႏိုင္ၾကဘူးလား သူငယ္ခ်င္းေတြကို စာနာစိတ္နဲ႕ စိတ္ဓာတ္က်ခ်င္ေယာင္ေဆာင္ မေနသင့္ဘူးလား။ နားေထာင္ၾကည့္ ဒင္းတို႕ရယ္သံကိုက- ေစာ္ကားေမာ္ကား။ ဒင္းတို႕ေျပာတဲ့စကားေတြက ရိုးလြန္းလို႕ယံုႏိုင္စရာမရွိ။ ဒင္းတို႕ရဲ႕ အေသးအမႊားေပ်ာ္ပြဲေတြ၊ အပရိက ထံုးတမ္းစဥ္လာေတြ၊ အပိုဆာလား အျပန္အလွန္ နိစၥဓူဝေတြ - ေသခ်ာတာက အခ်စ္စစ္ဆိုတာ လူသားမ်ိဳးႏြယ္ရဲ႕ ေနာက္ေၾကာက ကလိန္ျခဳံမႈ။ လူတုိင္းသာ သူတို႕လို အတုျမင္အတတ္သင္ျဖစ္ကုန္ရင္ ဒုကၡ ေတြးေတာင္မေတြးရဲ။ ဘာသာတရားနဲ႕ ကဗ်ာကို ဘယ္ေပၚသြားထားမလဲ။ ဘာေတြကိုတသ၊ ဘာေတြကိုစြန္႕ပစ္ရမွာလဲ၊ ဘယ္သူေတြကမ်ား အေႏွာင္အဖြဲ႕ေတြၾကား ေနခ်င္ပါေတာ့မလဲ။ အခ်စ္စစ္တဲ့၊ တကယ္ လိုအပ္လို႕လား။ အရွက္ကြဲမႈတစ္ခု ဘဝရဲ႕အျမင့္ဆံုး အသိုင္းအဝိုင္းေတြထဲ လူသူမသိ ေက်ာ္ျဖတ္သြားပံုမ်ိဳး လိမၼာေရးျခားရွိမႈနဲ႕၊ လူပိန္းေတြးေတြးမႈက အခ်စ္စစ္ကို ျဖတ္ေက်ာ္ဖို႕ ငါတို႕ကို ေျပာတယ္။ ေျခာက္ျပစ္ကင္း သားသမီးရတနာေလးေတြေမြးဖို႕ အခ်စ္စစ္မလို။ အခ်စ္စစ္ ဆိုတာ ဒုလႅဘမို႕ သူ႕အားကိုးေနရင္ ေနာင္ႏွစ္တစ္သန္းလည္း ကမၻာ့လူဦးေရ တိုးတက္မွာမဟုတ္။ အခ်စ္စစ္ကို မႀကံဳဖူးတဲ့လူေတြ အခ်စ္စစ္ဆိုတာ ေလာကမွာမရွိဘူးလို႕ ေျပာၾကပါေစ။ အဲဒီလိုယံုေတာ့ သူတို႕ေတြ အေနေျဖာင့္ အေသေျဖာင့္တာေပါ့။ ဗစ္စ္ဝါဘာ ရွင္ေဘာ္စကာ ႏိုဘယ္လ္ဆုရ ပိုလန္ကဗ်ာဆရာမ Wislawa Szymborska (1923-1212) ၏ true love။ Stanislaw Baranczak ႏွင့္ Clare Cavanagh က အဂၤလိပ္လိုျပန္ထားေသာမူကို ကိုကိုသက္ ျမန္မာမႈျပဳသည္။
Outsider artist in Texas with bottle cap art - photo Copyright Kyi May Kaung - with permission of the artist, 2011.

Race, parenting, the South, etc - Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is 50 years old

Harper Lee & Truman Capote were first cousins and both became bestselling novelists. http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/showbiz/to-kill-a-mockingbird-50/index.html?hpt=hp_bn4 Kyi May Kaung

Quote of the Day - Dr Zarni in LA Times Oct 2011

"We're basically dealing with the same creature, with slightly more enlightened posturing," said Zarni, founder of the London-based Free Burma Coalition, an activist group, who uses one name. "We shouldn't fool ourselves that the regime is driven by reformers. "
Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei -- frame grab

Friday, February 03, 2012

NPR - interview of Emma Larkin (pseu) Finding George Orwell in Burma

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=4761169&m=4761207 This is a very good book, as is her second "Everything is Broken" Kyi May Kaung

My Amazon.com review of Mo Yan's Red Sorghum

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1UGSVAK6M3TYV Red Sorghum: A Novel of China (Mass Market Paperback) I read Red Sorghum by Mo Yan and translated by Howard Goldblatt about five years ago. It is unforgettable and beautifully translated, though not an easy read as Mo Yan writes about a grandmother in the voice of her grandson, so the time shifts are sometimes jarring. Most of the story is in flashback. I have not seen the film. However, many scenes are unforgettable. A great work of international literature. Yes, I don't usually like to read "Chinese" or "Burmese" or whatever fiction written by writers who base it all on research, not on life. Red Poppy by Alai, a Tibetan writer who writes in Mandarin, also translated by Goldblatt, is also excellent. Kyi May Kaung See your review on the site

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Specialpost--Ellen Bernstein--expose of World Bank Rohingya project--

https://www.irrawaddy.com/culture/books/hellfire-and-damnation-in-myanmar-ex-world-bank-country-head-recounts-rohingya-catastrophe-response....