Open Journal Montreal

More news from Burma. Please wear red on Saturday Oct 6 and tell people why.

Just last Sunday – as marches led by Buddhist monks drew thousands in the country’s biggest cities – Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was in Burma’s capital Rangoon for the signing of contracts between state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd and Burma’s military rulers to explore three offshore blocks.

Companies from China, South Korea, Thailand and elsewhere are also looking to exploit the energy resources of the desperately poor Southeast Asian country.

France’s Total SA and Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas, currently pump gas from fields off Burma’s coast through a pipeline to Thailand, which takes 90 per cent of Burma’s gas output, according to Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production PLC.

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In a sign the junta was confident it had squeezed the life out of the uprising, barbed-wire barricades were removed from the Shewdagon Pagoda, rallying point for monks leading the marches.

Soldiers and government security men, however, were searching bags and people for cameras, and the Internet, through which images of the crackdown have reached the world, remained cut.

State-run media say order was restored “with care, using the least possible force,” but soldiers continued to be stationed at the four corners of Shwedagon, the country’s holiest Buddhist shrine, as well as the Sule Pagoda, the other focal point of the rallies.

Having raided more than a dozen monasteries and hauled off at least 700 monks, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission, soldiers and riot police are penning the rest behind the monastery walls.

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Monks are missing and nearby nations are content to divy up the spoils…
Meanwhile, on a Chinese policy website, claims like this are made:

Jiang Zemin said China stands for going along with the historical tide and safeguarding the common interests of mankind; for establishing a new international political and economic order that is fair and rational; for maintaining the diversity of the world and in favor of promoting democracy in international relations and diversifying development models; and for fighting against terrorism of all forms.

“We are ready to work with all nations to advance the lofty cause of world peace and development,” Jiang said.

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The contradiction is an embarrassment, and I hope leaders here in Canada and in India and China feel that shame deeply and manage to do something more then politely request ‘restraint’ or wag their fingers.

In my opinion the crucial issue is one of communication. Canada and the US try to communicate to people all over the world that violence is not an acceptable or effective means of pursuing change, freedom, progress. Fair enough, but this requires backbone. It means that when people do come together against horrifying odds (decades of torture and complete and total dictatorship) to demonstrate peacefully as the monks and citizens of Burma did this month, they are doing so because they have believed in the message of peaceful resistance. They believed if they could hold out one more day, the world would decide to help, and instead they got another UN envoy and hundreds of people are missing, many being held in buses for days now.

With a democratically elected leader in prison and 70 000 people risking their lives peacefully in the streets I cannot fathom how China, India, Thailand, France, the UK, Canada and others can continue to use the military as security force for mining operations torturing local citizens and claiming to be working for international peace and justice. Canada is no better then these others in some ways – while our government has no investments there, Canadian companies like Ivanhoe and Air Canada are in there – here’s a full list.

Please note most especially that while the Canadian peacekeepers in Afghanistan are among the only international force with no helicopters, making them hugely vulnerable to the deadly road mines being used against them, a Canadian company does provide helicopters to the Burmese junta to help them demolish villages and squash peaceful dissent. Great.

Here’s a new report from inside (small yay for nerds with proxy servers everywhere. god bless ya.):

Reports emerging from Rangoon indicate that the temporary detention
centres based in Yangon Institute of Technology and General Institute
of Technology (GTI) is currently detaining 500 hundred monks.

The monks are refusing to accept Sune (Alms food…..food offering given to monk
by layperson just before 12 noon as main meal of the day) from the
military junta. The local population approached these detention
centres to offer food and they have been turned away by the
authorities. Technically, the monks are unintentionally on huger
strike.

We contacted the International Red Cross’s (ICRC) office and UNHCR in
Rangoon. The UN’s office refused to help and ICRC bucked the
responsibility on their head office in Geneva.

Please write or Phone to ICRC, e-mail Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister
Gordon Brown. Every governments contribute funds in the running of
the UN bodies and therefore you persuade the PM and the Foreign
Secretary to pressure the UN organisations to take action on or least
ask them if they provide value for money service to the world
humanity.

Please be professional when writing to PM Gordon Brown and Secreatarty
. You can thank the British Government for their efforts so on Burma
and persuade them succinctly with sound arguments. Contact details
are:

ICRC headquarters in Geneva

Postal address
International Committee of the Red Cross
19 avenue de la Paix
CH 1202 Geneva

Fax
ICRC general: ++ 41 (22) 733 20 57
Production, Multimedia, Distribution Division: ++ 41 (22) 730 27 68

Phone
++ 41 (22) 734 60 01

UK prime minister office

10 Downing Street,
London,
SW1A 2AA

Fax
+442079250918

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[ originally posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Communication, Everything. ]