Special UN Human Rights Rapporteur for Burma: Prof. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro

http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/pinheiro.htm

Burma Post-Clampdown: What Should Be Done? by Kyi May Kaung in The American Prospect.

Found collage on a page of my dissertation, copyright Kyi May Kaung.

In The American Prospect (TAP) on line:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=burma_post_clampdown_what_should_be_done

Web issue of TAP is read by one million unique readers a day.

"Recovering Politician" Al Gore going into venture capital and clean energy of the future.

Abstract of something industrial laid sideways, "Industrial" Photograph copyright Kyi May Kaung.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/11/news/newsmakers/gore_kleiner.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007111208

Joke I read:

Why did Al Gore win the Nobel Peace Prize and not the monks of Burma?

Ans. Al Gore lobbied more for it.

--- Hint, Hint -- Nobel Committee, think of the Burmese Monks!

Hmm -- U.N. Human Rights Investigator's visit to Burma also does not seem to be shaping up well.

Shwedagone Pagoda (where most of the monks went to pray before demonstrating) seen through a glass murkily -- pastel drawing and photograph copyright Kyi May Kaung.

http://www.voanews.com/burmese/2007-11-12-voa1.cfm

There is some descrepancy between the write-up in English and the detailed original reporting by Thar Nyunt Oo in Burmese. I think it is due to the English write-up being a summary, so many salients facts have been glossed over and generalized.

If you understand Burmese, make sure you listen to the Burmese sound bites! Or get someone who does to do so and summarize/translate for you.

The English version just says Pinhiero went to Bago (spelled Pegu, when Burma was still officially called Burma). It is about 40 miles from Rangoon, where most of the demonstrations took place. I doubt many foreigners will know where Bago or Pegu is. I saw an international TV newscast recently where "Rangoon" was shown at the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent. I know Americans and maybe most Westerners are very insular and not international, and the National Geographic famously conducted a survey once which showed Americans general ignorance of world geography. But this was ridiculous.

Thar Nyunt Oo's report points out through several interviews that if Pinhiero is just"escorted" around to the places his military regime guides take him, his trip won't be much use.

The Kya Hkat Waing monastery's head abbot in Pegu, whom Pinhiero was taken to see by the junta authorities, is the notorious one who "complained" to authorities on Sept 24th, that a glass window in his monastery was broken because 2 monks threw empty water bottles into his garden! I suppose that was a government set up to illustrate the demonstrators were "violent."

The Mah Soe Yein Sayadaw ("Not to Fret" Abbot) in exile that Thar Nyunt Oo talked to said, (if Pinhiero goes there, to Kya Khat Waing) "he will only get the point of view of a pro-junta monk."

Ko Bo Kyi of AAPPB (Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners Burma) said that he had met Pinhiero in person and had full confidence in Pinhiero himself "as he has his own experiences with an authoritarian government" but "it won't be much use if he can't go where he wishes, like Gambari." Bo Kyi said that he had already given the detailed statistics he had collected to Mr. Pinhiero as an official report.

Another interviewee said that Pinhiero for sure needs to see Min Ko Naing and other 1988 leaders still under detention, and go to the monasteries that were raided and sacked.

I want to stress here I am only giving an impressionistic summary. If you need a exact verbatim translation it would be best to approach VOA or have someone do it independently.

The English version gives a rather positive impression of Pinhiero's trip while the original reporting in Burmese by Thar Nyunt Oo does not.

Commentary here copyright Kyi May Kaung.

Chinese writer Lu Jiamin wins Asian Booker Prize for Wolf Totem

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2851521.ece

Lu, writing under a pseudonym, lived 11 years in Mongolia herding sheep and wrote this part memoir, part allegory, part environmental novel over 6 years after 30 years of thinking about it.

Amazing and wonderful.

I hope champion translator Prof. Howard Goldblatt will translate it and we will be able to read it in English soon.

Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary arrested and taken to Tribunal

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/11/cambodia.khmer.ap/index.html

I went to a poetry reading today, where I bought a poetry book, Where are the love poems for dictators? by E. Ethelbert Miller.

In 1983, Ethelbert wrote:

"when the generals invite you home
do not salute them
when they ask you to forgive them
do not forgive them."

Copyright E. Ethelbert Miller.

In the Introduction, John Cavanagh, Director, Institute of Policy Studies, relates how Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit were killed by a car bomb, (in view of the Chilean Embassy), in 1976, in Washington DC when they were on their way to work at IPS.

In Burma, in 1976, I read about the bomb.

It was only in 1998, that Jeremy Woodrum, of U.S. Campaign for Burma, in an interview I did of him at Sheridan Circle, showed me the small memorial, that looks like a tree stump, at the Circle.

John Cavanagh relates how Pinochet's arrest in London in 1998, led to the verb "Pinocheted."

It's amazing it took so long to get Ieng Sary pinocheted.

I have met variously, several Cambodian survivors and the human rights lawyer who worked on the Yale Genocide Project.

Angelina Jolie as a Hollywood Beowulf's mother --

http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/story/352636.html

So that is what the ads on the metro are about.

For me, the late John Gardner's Grendel is still the best.

I don't know why this obviously learned book editor did not mention Gardner's work at all.

Singapore 2nd largest arms supplier to Burma --

http://myamarnews.blogspot.com/2007/11/singapore-is-2nd-largest-supplier-of.html

Burma -- "Words have escaped" -- John Pilger.

Ceramic plate decorated with some Burmese alphabets -- art work and photograph copyright Kyi May Kaung.

http://mostlywater.org/hypocrites_amp_burma

"The young monks are quiet in their cells, or they are dead. But words have escaped." John Pilger.

Definitely the most beautiful and thoughtful piece written so far about Burma.

Old piece from NPR 2005 -- flailing a dead horse --

" Five Thousand Kyat note" with Aung San Suu Kyi's image. Copyright Burmese Dissidents.

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=4709612&m=4709613

I really don't see how Aung San Suu Kyi could have "worked for economic development in Burma" when she was under house arrest most of the time. She was never economics minister in Burma! She has not been part of a government in power yet. She never was in a position to make decisions on a national scale that could effect the economy. For instance, she did not nationalize all industries in 1962, she does not set the purchase price of rice (paddy), decide how much and what to export, set the exchange rate of the kyat, decide how much the military government will spend, etc etc. It is the military government which does these things.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the beleagured leader of an opposition party that has been sorely oppressed, for goodness sakes. Quit trying to blame everything on the poor woman who has already given enough already.

I did not realize till now how poor the economic understanding of some individuals is, and that includes some people in the media.

To the charge that anti-sanctions does not mean pro-junta, I say --

1. Who initiates moves continuously that sanctions be lifted? We have reason to believe it is the junta.

To my mind, the economic argument and political debate regarding sanctions is already cut and dried.

2. Who will benefit most if they are lifted? The junta.

As recently as six days ago, U.N. Special Envoy Ibrihim Gambari was subjected to a tongue lashing by the Burmese information minister Kyaw Hsan that he had not been able to help lift sanctions after his first visit after the Sept 26-27th -- clampdown, but instead sanctions had been amped up. The junta does not seem to realize that the U.N. and the national governments who impose sanctions are different entities.

The junta did not produce real economic development and they are the government in charge of a command economy that they themselves put in place and "operate" on a daily basis with cock eyed commands and decisions.

The best response is a "visual aid" produced by Burmese dissidents showing a "new currency" with Aung San Suu Kyi's portrait on it.

Text commentary copyright Kyi May Kaung

Interview of Elaine Kessler of Educate the Girls (of Uganda) by Kyi May Kaung in Panamowa

http://web.mac.com/newlitorder/iWeb/Panamowa%3A%20A%20New%20Lit%20Order/educate%20int%20is%202.html

(re-posting)

Aung San Suu Kyi may be released soon, NLD Spokesperson says.

"Glowing Woman" -- painting and photo copyright Kyi May Kaung

http://www.mizzima.com/MizzimaNews/News/2007/Nov/29-nov-2007.html

Dominic Faulder, who has reported on Burma since at least 1988, says,

the Burmese junta is not known for keeping its promises, but "one day, once, the pessimists will be wrong."

We continue to hope so, while doing all we can to push things along.

Writer/activist/journalist Norman Mailer dies at 84.

He was also an anti-feminist and stabbed one of his wives.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/11/10/mailer.obit.ap/index.html

Australian Idol star is grandchild of 1962 Burmese emigres

http://myamarnews.blogspot.com/2007/11/face-of-australian-idol-becomes-face-of.html

Quote of the Day: From famous Burmese comedian, just released.

http://www.seapabkk.org/newdesign/alertsdetail.php?No=778

original source -- mizzima.com

"I was released at 4 PM but only got home at 9 PM, as I had to sign about 15 things. But none of them was a pledge."

Par Par Lay.

Long live comedians and other artists of all stripes in our poor beleagured country!

kmk

Burmese survivor testimonies post-clampdown --from Bangkok Channel 4 News

Part of a human brain lying in a Rangoon drain, photo copyright Citizen Journalist, Rangoon. The caption says it was due to a beating with iron rods, but U Bo Kyi in piece below says it was splattered out due to the young man being shot by soldiers in the forehead. This photograph has been circulating on the Internet since the clampdown of Sept 26th and 27th, but I am only posting it now because it illustrates what U Bo Kyi is talking about in the Channel 4 piece below.

From Bkk Channel 4 News:

http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=10056

The three people interviewed are:

1. U Panchar, a Sikh businessman and activist, now in hiding. This shows it was not just a demonstration comprised of Buddhists, but also of people of other religions.

2. Ashin U Kovida (pronounced "Kaw -- wi - da" ) a Buddhist monk who also led the demonstrations.

3. U Bo Kyi of the AAPPB (Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners, Burma.)

I am posting a copy of the photograph of a piece of human brain lying in a drain. (This is what the people in the Channel 4 piece are lined up looking at at the end part of the piece.)

Even some overseas based activists/academics deny this is real, but it is.

Earlier I showed the picture to 2 different people who have MD degrees and they confirmed it is the brain of a young person.

We need the international community to keep paying attention and pressuring and for UN Special Envoy Mr. Gambari to keep on with his mission. We need international monitors of human rights abuses to be in Burma on an on-going basis.

Text copyright Kyi May Kaung

Burma Seminar at Brown University --

http://watsoninstitute.org/news_detail.cfm?id=714

Article on Oct. Senate Hearing on Burma by Kyi May Kaung in New Mandala.

New Mandala is a publication of The Australian National University.

http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/newmandala/

This article is also on this Blog.

Yahoo provided name of Chinese dissident to Chinese authorities resulting in his arrest.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2007/11/07/todd.yahoo.betraying.dissidents.cnn

Young Burmese Monk -- Where is He?

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/blog/2007/11/ri-guest-blogger-eileen-shields-west-on.html