Cockatoo head stuck in cage -- photo copyright Kyi May Kaung --
Disturbing "developments" or rather retrogressions -- regarding Burma --
At least for the past six months or so I have noticed a disturbing trend in news coverage of Burma, commentary by "experts" -- some self-styled, I am sure, and at international seminars on Burma, of which I have been a more or less regular attendee since 2001.
1. More people, some well-known "dissidents" are buying into, or letting themselves be bought into, the Burmese military junta's 2010 "elections" and their legitimation of their so-called "constitution."
2. Nargis Cyclone has become a gravy train for the junta and the non-profits around it.
3. There is too much unjustified criticism of Daw Suu, who has been under arrest since the Depayin Massacre, and is kept totally incommunicado by the junta. Even her two maid/attendants are kept isolated. How do you "criticize" such a person and the NLD for "not having a game plan," "not being unified?" etc. These criticisms border on the ridiculous.
4. The anti-sanctions lobby is as active as ever, but now they plug the 2010 "election" and the junta's Indonesian style "guided democracy." Guess who will do the "guiding."
I don't believe there is need for another "election" when the results of the 1990 election, which the junta itself touted at the time as free and fair,have not been honored.
5.Unfortunately, even Gambari, Ban Ki-Moon and the U.N. have been endorsing a 2010 "election."
6. The junta is as harsh as ever, evidence being the recent sentences of the 1988 activists and the arrest of their defense lawyer and the junta's treatment of U Gambira, one of the primary leaders of the Sept. 2007 Saffron Revolution, during which Buddhist monks chanted the metta sutra.
http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/15973/
Why are these people buying into the 2010 farce?? Is it because of Burma's newly discovered natural gas reserves??
Kyi May Kaung
