437개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
CPN(M) election campaign
Tomorrow, Nepalis vote in elections for a constituent assembly which is meant to write a new constitution and serve as a parliament for the Himalayan country.
The assembly will decide the fate of the country's (almost powerless) monarchy.
The majority of the political parties - from the communist left, like the CPN(M), to the bourgeois right (Congress Party etc.) - will likely declare a (or better said: any) kind of "republic".
GEFONT's campaign poster for the CA election
But the gap between the different ideas of the coming "republic" couldn't be deeper: the CPN(M) prefere likely the "People's Republic", the CPN-UML ( together with GEFONT) a "Federal Democratic Republic" and the Congress Party wants just an "ordinary" parliamentarian democracy (i.e. a bourgeois republic). And unfortunately the developments before tomorrow's election day (just read the stuff below) have - possibly(??) - nothing to do with any kind of "democracy", ...not really.
Nepal police fire on activists (al-Jazeera, 4.09)
Police have opened fire on protesters in western Nepal, killing at least one person, ahead of landmark elections to choose an assembly that will rewrite the constitution.
Protesters took to the street on Wednesday, angry at the slaying of a Maoist election candidate that has prompted authorities to postpone polling in the district.
Ram Kumar Khanal, an area police chief, said the police had opened fire with live ammunition in order to disperse protesters who were smashing stores and busses.
He said Wednesday's protesters were defying a curfew imposed in the area following the killing of the candidate.
Call for calm
Prachanda, Nepal's Maoist leader, earlier called on his party activists to remain calm.
"The need of the hour is to show restraint and have a fair and free election," Prachanda said in a statement after meeting Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepal's prime minister.
The dead candidate was Rishi Prasad Sharma, a member of the Communist Party of Nepal United Marxist Leninist, one of Nepal's top three political parties.
Election officials in Surket district, where Sharma was killed, subsequently postponed voting in Thursday's constitutional assembly elections.
A new polling date will be chosen in about a week for the constituency in Jahare Bazar town, Binod Kumar Pokhrel, an election official was reported by the Associated Press as saying.
Activists killed
In a separate incident on Tuesday, police shot dead six Maoist activists in Dang district, 300km west of Kathmandu, the capital, officials said.
Police shot the activists as they clashed with supporters of the Nepali Congress party, an official said on Wednesday.
"Six Maoists were killed and five injured after police intervened in clashes between cadres of the Nepali Congress and Maoist supporters," Mohan Sapkota said.
Officials imposed a curfew in Dang district after the deaths on Tuesday night.
Al Jazeera's Jane Dutton, reporting from Kathmandu, said the situation was tense across the country.
"There has been an escalation in violence prior to the elections," she said, adding that there had been at least four bomb explosions in the capital in recent days.
Dutton also reported there would be 136,000 police on the streets during the elections and that travel bans and a ban on the sale of alcohol would also be imposed.
Tamrat Samuel, a UN official overseeing the elections in Neapl, called the violence "unfortunate".
He told Al Jazeera: "These are unfortunate events that should not happen given the committments all the parties have given us. We have been in constant contact with the parties, all are committed to a free and fair election."
The United Nations peace mission in Nepal has appealed for an end to pre-election intimidation and violence, which it says could undermine the polls.
The elections, due on Thursday, are part of a peace process that brought Nepal's Maoists fighters into mainstream politics and ended a decade-long civil war in which at least 13,000 people have died.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D2D40AF4-E6AC-4CC6-AFAE-CCF226B165B1.htm
Baburam threatens takeover in 10 minutes
(eKantipur, 4.06)
Senior Maoist leader Dr Babu Ram Bhattarai warned Saturday that people would seize power within ten minutes of the announcement of poll results if Maoists were defeated through rigging in Constituent Assembly (CA) election.
Addressing an election rally here, Dr Bhattarai claimed that people were impatiently waiting to elect the Maoist party, which made sacrifices for CA during the decade-long war against the establishment. He added that none of the forces could defeat the Maoists if there were free and fair polls.
“Maoists are the mother of the CA. Let the CA not be kidnapped by fake mothers. Only the Maoists should reap the crops they sowed. Monkeys should not be allowed to reap the crop,” said Dr Bhattarai. “If Maoists were defeated through riggings the people will seize power within 10 minutes, not 10 days.”
He said that Young Communist League (YCL) members and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will make sure no cheating takes place during the elections and reiterated that his party is ready to accept any verdict of free and fair elections.
Dr Bhattarai alleged that both “national and international regressive forces” were hatching conspiracies to defeat the Maoists fearing that the Maoists are certain to win the elections.
He warned that sustainable peace in the country will not come about without properly managing the People’s Liberation Army. He criticized Nepali Congress and CPN-UML for failing to mention the issue of PLA management in their manifestos.
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=143242
Related articles, recently published:
☞ 7 Maoists killed in clash with police in Dang (eKantipur, 4.09)
☞ Prachanda urges YCL to be on ‘defensive’ posture (nepalnews, 4.06)
☞ Maoists ready to accept any outcome of CA polls.. (eKantipur, 4.05)
☞ Video: al-Jazeera interview with Prachanda (4.09)
☞ The Maoists who embraced democracy (Guardian, 4.10)
More informations here:
☞ Nepal's Maoists go mainstream (al-Jazeera, 4.07)
☞ People & Power - Nepal elections - 06 Apr 08 - Part 1 (Videos by.. )
☞ People & Power - Nepal elections - 06 Apr 08 - Part 2 ( ..al-Jazeera TV)
It's really "impressive"(??) to learn how "objective" the int'l media is reporting about and commenting the latest developments in Tibet and in Kosovo/Kosova.
Especially before y'day in almost all leading newspapers (for example here in Germany), on the font pages we had to read in huge letters about the "Chinese state terror against peaceful Tibetan protestors", "Massacre in Lhasa!", "Genocide against the Tibetans!" and more strange stuff like that.
As far as I know.. this is the only picture of "Chinese State Terror" against last
weekend's "protests" in Lhasa..
Almost at the same time it was reported that "Serbian nationalist gangs in Mitrovica attacked with extreme criminal violence indepence of Kosovo", "UN police was forced to withdraw, NATO tanks took over the power".
But what was/is the difference? First of all: the Tibetan "protesters" are fighting against the Chinese gov't - in fact since several years THE rival power for the West.
The Serbian "protestors" are fighting against "our own"(the western) power - the NATO (for the Serbs in Kosovo the NATO military and the UN police are occupation forces).
But in fact both - the Tibetans (of course not all!! likely only a minority..) and the Serbs in Kosovo - want the same: National Liberated Zones, without any "aliens"!
"A witness said Chinese drivers were carried from vehicles with bloodied faces after being beaten by angry youths.
Reports claimed that several people, possibly including a Chinese teenage girl, had been killed and dozens seriously wounded in the clashes. Protesters were also said to have burned down a mosque and the Tromzikhang market, smashed up a government telecommunications office, attacked hotels and looted Chinese shops." (Guardian/UK, 3.15)
"A western tourist reported to BBC that Tibetans directed their attacks directly against "Chinese" (especially Han Chinese but also Hui, a muslim minority) shops, hotels and restaurants and killed the owners. The city center is almost burned down", according to today's German daily newspaper Berliner Zeitung. The same newspaper reported today that in Lhasa at least 300 houses were burned down, schools and even hospitals were attacked by the "protestors".
But, finally, really stunning is the almost complete unified "public opinion" in connection with the developments in Tibet: From the far right - German neo-Nazis(fascists) - to the "left", for example S. Korean "socialists" (All Together/다함께): They all supporting a "Free Tibet" (Imagine a "free Tibet" without the "Chinese" security forces! Let's say, tomorrow China would give up its sovereignity over Tibet.. After the experiences of the last days it would - very likely - lead to a great massacre of all non-Tibetans!) - a new "National Liberated Zone". (*)
Latest news:
"The Dalai Lama will step down as leader of Tibet's government-in-exile if violence by protesters in the region continues, the exiled spiritual leader said Tuesday." (CNN, 3.18)
* Since the end of the GDR/the fall of the Wall German fascists are struggling to create "National Liberated Zones", under the motto Germany (only!!) for the Germans. THE main slogan for the Tibetan "freedom activists": "Tibet for the Tibetans!" (surprise, surprise!!)
Uri Avneri, the "grandfather" of the Israeli peace movement, on the eve of the Middle East "Peace" Conference - starting and also ending tomorrow in Annapolis(USA) - wrote following article/analysis:
THE ANNAPOLIS conference is a joke.
Though not in the least funny.
Like quite a lot of political initiatives, this one too, according to all the indications, started more or less by accident. George Bush was due to make a speech. He was looking for a theme that would give it some substance. Something that would divert attention away from his fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Something simple, optimistic, easy to swallow.
Somehow, the idea of a "meeting" of leaders to promote the Israeli-Palestinian "process" came up. An international meeting is always nice - it looks good on television, it provides plenty of photo-opportunities, it radiates optimism. We meet, ergo we exist.
So Bush voiced the idea: a "meeting" for the promotion of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Without any preceding strategic planning, any careful preparations, anything much at all.
That's why Bush did not go into any details: no clear aim, no agenda, no location, no date, no list of invitees. Just an ethereal meeting. This fact by itself testifies to the lack of seriousness of the entire enterprise.
This may shock people who have never seen close up how politics are actually conducted. It is hard to accept the intolerable lightness with which decisions are often made, the irresponsibility of leaders and the arbitrary way important processes are set in motion.
FROM THE MOMENT this idea was launched, it could not be called back. The President has spoken, the initiative starts on its way. As the saying goes: One fool throws a stone into the water, a dozen wise men cannot retrieve it.
Once the "meeting" had been announced, it became an important enterprise. The experts of all parties started to work frantically on the undefined event, each trying to steer it in the direction which would benefit them the most.
Bush and Condoleezza Rice want an impressive event, to prove that the United States is vigorously promoting peace and democracy, and that they can succeed where the great Henry Kissinger failed. Jimmy Carter failed to turn the Israeli-Egyptian peace into an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Bill Clinton failed at Camp David. If Bush succeeds where all his illustrious predecessors have failed, won't that show who is the greatest of them all?
Ehud Olmert urgently needs a resounding political achievement in order to blur the memory of his dismal failure in the Second Lebanon War and to extricate himself from the dozen or so criminal investigations for corruption that are pursuing him. His ambition knows no bounds: he wants to be photographed shaking the hand of the King of Saudi Arabia. A feat no Israeli prime minister before him has achieved.
Mahmoud Abbas wants to show Hamas and the rebellious factions in his own Fatah movement that he can succeed where the great Yasser Arafat failed - to be accepted among the world's leaders as an equal partner.
This could, therefore, become a great, almost historic conference, if …
Please read the full article here:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1195337091
Related articles:
☞ Palestinian official: Israelis aren't serious (Yedioth..)
☞ Hamas: Abbas' policy failed, dangerous (..Ahronoth/IL, 11.27)
☞ The Real Two-state Solution (Der Spiegel/D, 11.26 MUST READ!!)
☞ Children of the Palestinian intifada.. (IHT, 3.11)
☞ Groups promise 'rocket rain' (Ynet/IL)
Already last week (11.13) Der Spiegel (German bourgeois magazine) published following - in my opinion not uninteresting - article:
A Pearl Harbor without War
The dollar crisis has politicians alarmed worldwide. The US currency has lost 24 percent of its value since the introduction of the euro, and now there is even a chance that China could abandon its policy of pegging its currency to the dollar -- a problem the United States should take very seriously.
What do Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen and the People's Republic of China have in common? The answer, as of last week, is that both distrust the dollar.
Patricia Bündchen, the twin sister and manager of the world's top model, announced that Gisele now prefers to be paid in euros rather than dollars. Almost simultaneously, the Chinese central bank predicted that the dollar is likely to lose its status as the world's leading currency.
One could easily overlook a supermodel's currency preferences, but China is a different story. It's the beast breathing down America's neck.
The most important country in the world for the United States isn't Great Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russia or Iraq. China holds that dubious distinction, because it is also the country the US can least do without. Without its willingness to buy an almost unlimited supply of US treasury bonds, there would be no American spending miracle. Without a spending miracle there would be no economic growth. In other words, without China the US superpower would lose a significant share of its economic clout.
So far Beijing has behaved like the benevolent shopkeeper who willingly extends credit to his customers. The Americans receive shipments of Chinese-made television sets, toys and underwear, but the Chinese do not import a comparable volume of US goods. The gap between buying and selling amounts to about $5 billion every week.
The Chinese are satisfied with buying US treasury bonds, partly to keep their most important customer afloat. The central bank in Beijing already holds currency reserves of $1.4 trillion.
The Chinese have looked on with great patience as their best customer has gradually lost its ability to supply goods.
But the men in power in Beijing cannot be indifferent to the dollar's decline. It devalues their central bank's dollar reserves, the monetary embodiment of some of the fruits of China's export machine.
For the United States, a Chinese decision to abandon the dollar would be tantamount to Pearl Harbor without the war. It would represent a challenge to the world's biggest economy by the world's fastest growing economy. Millions of people would see their standard of living suffer as a result, and American self-confidence, already shaky, would crumble even further. The United States would suffer a serious blow on its very own turf, the economy.
Americans can hardly blame Beijing for their troubles. The Chinese aren't exactly kamikaze politicians, concocting some secret plan to attack the dollar. On the contrary, the preparations are taking place in full view. Translated into Texan, what the Chinese politely told the Americans last week simply means: Unless something happens, all hell will break loose.
For years the US economy has suffered one dramatic setback after another. A historic trend reversal began with the rise of the Asian economies -- first Japan, then China and now India. The United States, a once-proud exporting nation, became the world's biggest importer. In only 15 years, from 1992 to 2007, the US balance of trade deficit has surged from $84 billion to $700 billion.
Within a single generation, the world's biggest lender has become its biggest borrower, a circumstance the United States has made no serious attempts to change. And what has been Washington's standard take on the shift? The dollar is our currency, but it's your problem.
Thus, the tone of the US government's callous and thick-skinned reaction to China's announcement last week came as no surprise. There was a reason the dollar became the world's reserve currency, US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said in a slightly offended tone.
But the truth is that the United States would be better off if Paulson and the administration of President George W. Bush would take decisive action instead of sulking. The US's ability to deliver goods should be increased and its industrial base should be reinvigorated. Government and consumer spending, which in reality is doing nothing but eating away at the country's future, should be curbed. Although growth would decline as a result, it would be a more sustainable form of growth.
Last week's remark by a Chinese central bank official should be interpreted as a warning, not a threat. Indeed, China has no choice but to respond, given the dollar's ongoing weakness.
For these reasons, an attack on the US economy is probably the most easily predictable event of the coming years. And if it happens, the attacker will even be able to justify its actions as self-defense.
What is the difference between the US government in 1941 and the administration in Washington today? Perhaps there is none. A Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was unimaginable, even though US intelligence had picked up clues that it could happen. Washington, at the time, was convinced that the Japanese wouldn't dare stage an attack on a target 5,000 miles away, and that they wouldn't succeed if they did.
The crews on America's ships were sleeping as the Japanese bombers approached Pearl Harbor.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,517060,00.html
Related articles:
☞ Japanese shift cash out of U.S. investments (IHT, 11.22)
About last Sunday's fascist demonstrations in Moscow today's German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel reported following:
NEO-NAZIS ON THE MARCH IN MOSCOW
'We Russians Are Part of the White Race'
Thousands of Russian neo-Nazis marched through Moscow on National Unity Day this weekend, joined by pensioners, students and families. Experts believe Russia's far right gives President Vladimir Putin a welcome justification for his authoritarian political style.
Russian skinheads, hooligans, nationalists, fascists and racists gathered on Moscow's Kutosovsky Prospect to mark National Unity Day on Sunday.
They waved flags as they marched in single file along the banks of the Moskva River and to the Ukraina Hotel, across from the White House, the seat of Russia's government.
"Russia for Russians!" the demonstrators shouted in unison, followed by slogans such as "For a Slavic, Russian nation!" or "Slavic, Russian, Powerful!" The demonstrators stretched out their arms in the Hitler salute between slogans. Their loud shouts of "Slavic Russia!" were followed by the sound of drum rolls.
"We are opposed to the immigration of Caucasians and Asians to Russia. Our people must remain pure. Russia belongs to us," 32-year-old Andrey Bukov explains. The trained media expert says he has been "serving" in the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) for four years. He waves its white, yellow and black flag, which features a symbol resembling a swastika.
Nineteen-year-old Sergei carries the red flag of his group -- the "Slavic Union" -- tied around his shoulders. "We Russians are part of the white race," he says. "The blacks -- the Caucasians, the Chechens, the Dagestani -- should stay away," says the Muscovite, a student at the Finance Academy.
Skinheads and Pensioners
The roughly 2,000 demonstrators from the ultra-nationalist scene, who were holding the Russian March for the third year in a row, are a mixed and varied bunch -- a pool of discontented groups and individuals from all classes of society. Elderly women handing out badly photocopied flyers, young female students wearing make-up and high-heeled boots, and parents with small children in colorful snowsuits can all be seen next to skinheads wearing black leather coats, combat boots, SS uniforms or bomber jackets and displaying swastikas. Even young children were giving the Hitler salute.
Pensioner Monika Nikolayeva eagerly passes out flyers portraying oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky as enemies of the people. "These billionaires send their children to school abroad," Nikolayeva, who has a 15-year-old granddaughter, says angrily. "When it comes to our children, there is not even enough money to send them to university in Russia." That is why she believes it is good that young people take to the streets and protest. "Young girls in particular only get limited education!"
The young girls she means are technical university students like Olga and Darya, who are marching beneath the flags. "We're against everything. We're patriots," rants 18-year-old Olga. She and her 19-year-old friend have traveled to Moscow from Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia to attend the demonstration. Asked what they are demonstrating against, she is at a loss for a moment. Then she stutters: "Against the anti-Russian policy in the world -- I can't say it any more clearly."
Nazis are Welcome Bogeymen
Andreas Umland, an expert in comparative fascism studies who specializes in Russia, believes these "organized neo-Nazis" are relatively harmless politically. "It's purely a subcultural provocation," he says. Militaristic fascism has been imported to Russia from the Third Reich, he says, and simply adorned with a few Russian and orthodox symbols. "Within wider Russian society, these fascists are stigmatized," he explains. "This Russian March is more of a protest movement."
Nevertheless the Kremlin allows the ultra-right demonstrators to take to the streets on National Unity Day, a public holiday, and dispatches thousands of security forces to keep the aggressive mob under control. "The Nazis are a welcome bogeyman, an occasion for demonstrating the power of the authoritarian state," Umland says, explaining that President Vladimir Putin uses the neo-Nazis to legitimate his authoritarian political style by suggesting that without it, the far right could take power. On the other hand, Russia's Central Election Commission has banned the "Motherland" party from participating in the elections to the Russian parliament, the Duma.
Later on Sunday evening, four hours after the neo-Nazi demonstrations, a second Russian March took place in Moscow. Again, thousands walked from Kutusovsky Prospect to the Ukraina Hotel. This time, the marchers were members of groups and parties such as "People's Union" -- followers of revolutionary fascism whose ideology is not so much racist as imperialist.
Anti-American Screed
Umland says that this group has little to do with the racist nationalists and their overt Nazism. Generally, says the expert on nationalism -- who has been researching Russia's right-wing movements for 15 years -- groups like the "People's Union" rely on anti-American and anti-European screed to attract followers.
They include the Vice Speaker of the Duma Sergey Baburin and other members of parliament. "More or less all the powerful political parties participating in the Duma elections have made use of these anti-Western slogans -- from the Russian Communist Party to Putin's United Russia," Umland says. But, he adds, there is a complete absence of a significant left-wing party or movement in the run up to the Russian elections.
Russia's leading human rights group, the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, still sees the neo-Nazi march as reason to sound the alarm. In its latest report the SOVA Center says it recorded 270 racially motivated violent attacks against a total of 472 people, 53 of whom have died. SOVA's Galina Kozhevnikova is even expecting an increase in xenophobia during the coming weeks, in the run up to the parliamentary elections in December. "Sadly, we are not surprised," she says. The figure increases by between 20 and 25 percent every year, Kozhevnikova explains. "But this year we are seeing a trend towards the targeting of new enemy groups, such as homosexuals," she adds.
Most incidents described in the report involve drunk young men on the prowl after football or ice hockey games. They beat up Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks or Tajikistanis or attack them with weapons. Usually, it is the very same young men who can be seen giving the Hitler salute at the Russian March.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,515380,00.html
Member of the "National Union"..
Related:
☞ Neo-Nazis March in Russia ("Photo Galery", Der Spiegel, 11.06)
☞ Russian Neo-Nazis Strike Again (Der Spiegel, 9.15)
☞ SOVA Center for Information and Analysis
JUNTA PROTESTS RETURN
Burmese Monks Venture Back onto Streets (Spiegel, 10.31)
Last month, protesting monks in Burma were being beaten up and detained by the thousands. Now they're are back at it -- in smaller numbers, but with equal conviction.
For the first time since last month's bloody crackdown by the military regime, monks have ventured back onto the streets of Burma. On Tuesday, more than 100 chanting and praying monks marched through the central Burmese town of Pakkoku, about 630 km north-west of Yangon.
People who witnessed the march, which lasted about half an hour, said the monks did not make any overt political statements but that the rally was clearly in defiance of the junta.
Pakkoku, a centre of Buddhist learning, was the scene of clashes between soldiers and monks on Sept. 5, when soldiers had violent confrontations with 600 demonstrating monks.
Since mid-August, hundreds of thousands of Burmese, among them many students and monks, had been protesting rising fuel prices in peaceful demonstrations against the military regime. With the brutal crackdown that began in Pakkoku and continued for weeks, the domestic crisis entered international headlines. Since then, public gatherings of monks have been prohibited, and many monasteries remain deserted.
While the Burmese government claims that only 10 people died in the clashes, diplomats and dissidents set the figure much higher. The Norway-based opposition news organization the Democratic Voice of Burma has estimated that 138 were killed in the violence and around 6,000 detained...
A frame grab taken by a member of the DVB and released 9.01,
shows the body of a dead Buddhist monk floating in a river in Rangoon
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,514596,00.html
Related:
☞ Burmese monks stage first protest since uprising (Guardian/UK, 11.01)
☞ Monks warned against protesting (DVB, 11.01)
☞ Rangoon Diary (Irrawaddy, 11.01)
☞ Myanmar's generals hit where it hurts (A. Times/HK, 11.01)
Latest soli-activities in Seoul/S.K.:
Yesterday, 10.24, the German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel took..
..A Closer Look at the Burmese Junta
It is clear that the Burmese military junta is brutal. But what else do we know about them? Not much -- unless, that is, you talk to disgruntled leaders inside the country.
The residents of Pakokku have always lived on the brink of starvation. Indeed, the city has earned the dubious distinction as Burma's "rice cemetery." Otherwise, this city at the confluence of the Irawaddy and Chindwin Rivers has been a relative unknown until recently. But its anonymity is now a thing of the past.
Burma's f.. old men - the military junta
"One day perhaps Pakokku will go down in the history books as the place where the fight for democracy began," says the old monk. "That, at least, is our dream." Then he looks around carefully. "Let's talk where we won't be observed. Otherwise I'll go to prison."
Foreigners have always been a rare sight in Pakokku, and that is especially true now. This was the city where the police's brutal treatment of protesting Buddhist monks in early September triggered a wave of demonstrations that eventually swept across the entire country. Not surprisingly, the elderly monk -- influential in one of the city's Buddhist monasteries -- is unwilling to be identified in print. Being seen in the company of foreigners would pose serious problems for him.
'Because They Were Hungry'
Burma's generals are firmly in control of the country once again. The mere act of listening to a foreign radio station is enough to land a Burmese citizen in prison. Government militias are still dragging regime critics and alleged demonstrators from their homes at night. Pakokku's three largest monasteries have become military camps, with parked trucks filling the spaces between the monks' quarters. The city's residents look sick and emaciated, and the city itself is little more than a poorhouse today. The once-magnificent steps leading up to the Shweguni Temple have been destroyed. Neighboring residents have removed stones from the structure to build fire pits, where they cook pancakes made of inexpensive rice meal. Few can afford rice.
Tensions began rising in the city in mid-August, when the government raised the price of gasoline overnight. Many people could no longer travel to work because the fuel hike led to a drastic increase in bus fares. "At first the monks took to the streets merely because they were hungry," says the monk.
Pakokku is second only to Mandalay as the country's most important religious center. The novices who come to its monasteries are generally from Chin State, a mountainous region in the country's far west. The Chin people are bitterly poor, and the region is home to local rebels who have long been fighting the military government.
Cremations of the Unknown
In an effort to intimidate local residents, the government decided to make an example out of Pakokku. Police units entered the city, tied young monks in their red robes to lamp posts and beat them until they were bloody. "It was a violation of everything that is holy in our country," says the elderly monk.
What happened next -- the formation of the All-Burma Monks Alliance, the uprising in the country's commercial capital and largest city Yangon, the massacres and the arrests -- shook the world. How many victims the uprising claimed will likely never be known. The "State Peace and Development Council," as the junta calls itself, claimed that there were 10 dead and about 3,000 arrested. The only thing that is certain about these statistics is that the real number will never be known. On the same day the country's military leaders released the figures, 79 bodies of "unknowns" were cremated at the Yangon crematorium.
United Nations Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari traveled to six Asian capitals last week in an effort to convince neighboring countries to exert enough pressure on the 74-year-old junta leader, Than Shwe, to enter into talks with Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, the opposition leader who remains under house arrest. Gambari, though, was largely unsuccessful. Thailand, currently under military rule itself, is loath to get involved. China, although it voted for a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Burmese generals, has declared the resolution of the conflict Burma's "internal affair." India, the country's big democratic neighbor, remains reserved, anxious not to harm economic relations. Gambari himself was granted permission on Tuesday to see for himself what the situation is inside Burma and will be traveling there in early November...
To read more:
☞ Part 2: The Story from the Inside
☞ Women Recall Life in Prisons, Interrogation Centers (The Irrawaddy)
☞ Aung San Suu Kyi meets junta (Guardian)
Actually not really surprisingly the state terror in Burma against the Democracy Movement is continuing..
Here just some/few of the latest informations/reports about the current situation:
☞ Firsthand accounts reveal the terror.. (IHT, 10.14)
☞ After the riots, Burma returns to an unspoken terror (Guardian, 10.13)
☞ Rare footage of the protests in Burma.. (Haaretz TV/IL)
☞ Myanmar and Israel develop military pact (Jane's intelligence.., 2000.07)
Today's daily newspaper The Independent (UK) published following article:
Only now, the full horror of Burmese junta's repression of monks emerges
Monks confined in a room with their own excrement for days, people beaten just for being bystanders at a demonstration, a young woman too traumatised to speak, and screams in the night as Rangoon's residents hear their neighbours being taken away.
Harrowing accounts smuggled out of Burma reveal how a systematic campaign of physical punishment and psychological terror is being waged by the Burmese security forces as they take revenge on those suspected of involvement in last month's pro-democracy uprising.
The first-hand accounts describe a campaign hidden from view, but even more sinister and terrifying than the open crackdown in which the regime's soldiers turned their bullets and batons on unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Rangoon, killing at least 13. At least then, the world was watching.
The hidden crackdown is as methodical as it is brutal. First the monks were targeted, then the thousands of ordinary Burmese who joined the demonstrations, those who even applauded or watched, or those merely suspected of anti-government sympathies.
"There were about 400 of us in one room. No toilets, no buckets, no water for washing. No beds, no blankets, no soap. Nothing," said a 24-year-old monk who was held for 10 days at the Government Technical Institute, a leafy college in northern Rangoon which is now a prison camp for suspected dissidents. The young man, too frightened to be named, was one of 185 monks taken in a raid on a monastery in the Yankin district of Rangoon on 28 September, two days after government soldiers began attacking street protesters.
"The room was too small for everyone to lie down at once. We took it in turns to sleep. Every night at 8 o'clock we were given a small bowl of rice and a cup of water. But after a few days many of us just couldn't eat. The smell was so bad.
"Some of the novice monks were under 10 years old, the youngest was just seven. They were stripped of their robes and given prison sarongs. Some were beaten, leaving open, untreated wounds, but no doctors came."
On his release, the monk spoke to a Western aid worker in Rangoon, who smuggled his testimony and those of other prisoners and witnesses out of Burma on a small memory stick.
Most of the detained monks, the low-level clergy, were eventually freed without charge as were the children among them. But suspected ringleaders of the protests can expect much harsher treatment, secret trials and long prison sentences. One detained opposition leader has been tortured to death, activist groups said yesterday. Win Shwe, 42, a member of the National League for Democracy, the party of the detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has died under interrogation, the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said, adding that the information came from authorities in Kyaukpandawn township. "However, his body was not sent to his family and the interrogators indicated that they had cremated it instead." Win Shwe was arrested on the first day of the crackdown.
It was the russet-robed Buddhist clergy, not political groups, who had formed the backbone of demonstrations during days of euphoric defiance and previously undreamed-of hope that Burma's military regime could be brought down by peaceful revolution. That hope has been crushed under the boots of government soldiers and intelligence agents and replaced by fear and dread.
A young woman, a domestic worker in Rangoon, described how one woman bystander who applauded the monks was rounded up. "My friend was taken away for clapping during the demonstrations. She had not marched. She came out of her house as the marchers went by and, for perhaps 30 seconds, smiled and clapped as the monks chanted. Her face was recorded on a military intelligence camera. She was taken and beaten. Now she is so scared she won't even leave her room to come and talk to me, to anyone."
Another Rangoon resident told the aid worker: "We all hear screams at night as they [the police] arrive to drag off a neighbour. We are torn between going to help them and hiding behind our doors. We hide behind our doors. We are ashamed. We are frightened."
Burmese intelligence agents are scrutinising photographs and video footage to identify demonstrators and bystanders. They have also arrested the owners of computers which they suspect were used to transmit images and testimonies out of the country. For each story smuggled out to The Independent, someone has risked arrest and imprisonment.
Hein Zay Kyaw (not his real name) received a telephone call last week telling him to be at a government compound where the military were releasing 42 people, among them Mr Kyaw's friend, missing since he was plucked from the edge of a demonstration on 26 September. Mr Kyaw told the aid worker: "The prisoners were let out of the trucks. Even though now they were safe, they were still so scared. They walked with their hands shielding their faces as if they were expecting blows. They were lined up in rows and sat down against the wall, still cowering. Their clothes were dirty, some stained with blood. Our friend had a clean T-shirt on. We were relieved because we thought this meant that he had not been beaten. We were wrong. He had been beaten on the head and the blood had soaked his shirt which he carried in a plastic bag."..
The scale of the crackdown remains undocumented. The regime has banned journalists from entering Burma and has blocked internet access and phone lines.
Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK says the number of dead is possibly in the hundreds. "The regime covers up its atrocities. We will never know the true numbers," he said.. Exile groups estimate the number of detentions between 6,000 and 10,000.
In Rangoon, people say they are more frightened now than when soldiers were shooting on the streets.
"When there were demonstrations and soldiers on the streets, the world was watching," said a professional woman who watched the marchers from her office.
"But now the soldiers only come at night. They take anyone they can identify from their videos. People who clapped, who offered water to the monks, who knelt and prayed as they passed. People who happened to turn and watch as they passed by and their faces were caught on film. It is now we are most fearful. It is now we need the world to help us."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3047606.ece
Related:
☞ Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery after troops raided on 9.27 (video)
☞ Blood on the monastery floor (Haaretz/IL)
☞ Slideshow: Photos taken by Burmese opposition activists..
[10.6/7] INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY..
..with the Struggle for Democracy in Burma
Today in S. Korea (Seoul/Myeong-dong) and y'day in many other countries across the world thousands of activists took the streets to demonstrate their support for the domocracy movement in Burma and to protest against the state terror in the south-east Asian country. The largest protest (likely) took place yesterday in London - about 5,000 people joined the demo.
Seoul/Myeong-dong(S.K.), 10.7
Auckland(NZ), 10.6
London(UK), 10.6
For more please read:
☞ 명동거리에 울려퍼진 "버마 승리하리라!" (OhmyNews, report)
☞ [10월 7일] 버마 학살 규탄 및 민주화 지지 국제공동행동 (다함께, pictures)
☞ [Free BURMA] 5, 7일 행동.. (redclef, many nice pictures!! incl. sound)
☞ Protests around (the) world.. (AFP)
☞ 10.6 Solidarity demo in Auckland (indymedia NZ)
☞ Pictures from the Burma march in London (indy UK)
☞ ..Junta Puts Pressure on Monks (The Observer/UK)
☞ Resistance to Myanmar Soldiers Continues (AP)
☞ 'People Will Never Forgive the Murders' (Der Spiegel/D)
☞ Free Burma (video about the rally/demo 9.29 in Seoul)
최근 덧글 목록