Gaybutton Posted October 3, 2007 Posted October 3, 2007 Apparently the ruling junta in Burma will stop at nothing to retain their personal hold on wealth and power. I have been reading sporadic reports of murders by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, are taking place along with torture and mutilation. Actor Sylvester Stallone, who is presently filming a movie on location at the Burmese border says, "I witnessed the aftermath — survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land-mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off," Stallone told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. "We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia and this was more horrific. This is a hellhole beyond your wildest dreams. All the trails are mined. The only way into Burma is up the river." Now, according to the Associated Press, people are being arrested and taken away in the middle of the night. Apparently the junta has started a massive terror campaign against its own people. It's too bad the soldiers cooperate with the junta instead of joining the people and rising up against them. _____ Soldiers Hunt Dissidents in Myanmar AP Soldiers announced that they were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar's largest city Wednesday and the top U.S. diplomat in the country said military police were pulling people out of their homes during the night. Military vehicles patrolled the streets before dawn with loudspeakers blaring that: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!" Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador in Myanmar, said in a telephone interview that people in Yangon were terrified. "From what we understand, military police ... are traveling around the city in the middle of the night, going into homes and picking up people," she said. Residents living near the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's most revered shrine and a flashpoint of unrest, reported that police swept through several dozen homes in the middle of the night, dragging away several men for questioning. The homes were located above shops at a marketplace that caters to the nearby pagoda, selling monks robes and begging bowls. Meanwhile, the junta pursued other means of intimidation. An employee from the Ministry of Transport, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that he was told to sign a statement saying he and his family would not take part in any political activity and would not listen to foreign radio reports. Many in Myanmar use short-wave radios to pick up foreign English-language stations — a main source for news about their tightly controlled country. The U.N.'s special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, declined to comment on his four-day mission to Myanmar, where the military junta last month crushed mass pro-democracy demonstrations led by the nation's revered Buddhist monks. Villarosa said embassy staff had gone to some monasteries in recent days and found them completely empty. Others were barricaded by the military and declared off-limits to outsiders. "There is a significantly reduced number of monks on the streets. Where are the monks? What has happened to them?" she said. The Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident radio station based in Norway, said authorities have released 90 of 400 monks detained in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, during a midnight raid on monasteries on Sept. 25. A semblance of normality returned to Yangon after daybreak, with some shops opening and light traffic on roads. However, "people are terrified, and the underlying forces of discontent have not been addressed," Villarosa said. "People have been unhappy for a long time ... Since the events of last week, there's now the unhappiness combined with anger, and fear." Some people remained hopeful that democracy would come. "I don't believe the protests have been totally crushed," said Kin, a 29-year-old language teacher in Yangon, whose father and brother had joined a 1988 pro-democracy movement that ended in a crackdown in which at least 3,000 people were killed. "There is hope, but we fear to hope," she said. "We still dream of rearing our children in a country where everybody would have equal chances at opportunities." The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, and the current junta came to power after snuffing out the 1988 pro-democracy movement. The generals called elections in 1990 but refused to give up power when Suu Kyi's party won. The military crushed the protests on Sept. 26 and 27 with live ammunition, tear gas and beatings. Hundreds of monks and civilians were carted off to detention camps. The government says 10 people were killed in the violence. But dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained. Among those killed was Japanese television cameraman Kenji Nagai of the APF news agency. His body was flown from Myanmar to Tokyo on Wednesday. Gambari went to Myanmar on Saturday to convey the international community's outrage at the junta's actions. He also hoped to persuade the junta to take the people's aspirations seriously. He met junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe and his deputies and talked to detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi twice. Gambari avoided the media in Singapore, where he arrived Tuesday night en route to New York. He was not expected to issue any statement before briefing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday. The junta has not commented on Gambari's visit and the United Nations has only released photos of Gambari and a somber, haggard-looking Suu Kyi — who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest — shaking hands during their meeting in a state guest house in Yangon. In Singapore, Gambari met with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc of which Myanmar is a member. A Singapore government statement said Lee told Gambari that ASEAN "is fully behind his mission" to bring about "a political solution for national reconciliation and a peaceful transition to democracy." Quote
Guest wowpow Posted October 4, 2007 Posted October 4, 2007 Thailand is going to be seriously effected by the political situation in Burma, Refugees are flooding over the border. Thai investments in Burma especially in the tourist business will suffer badly. Will Burmese be able to afford to buy Thai goods as poverty increases. No country likes a regime unstable neighbour. Thais are appalled at the vicious beatings and killings of people and monks in particular. A Thai guy told me years ago that to kill a monk is the worst thing that you can do other than kill the King. ................................................................................ ................. Violence in Burma to affect Thai business, Bangkok Post says it better than I can. Violence in Burma caused by the military government's crackdown on mass street protests by monks and the people, if persistent, will have an impact on businesses owned by many groups of Thai investors in the country, according to the Kasikorn Research Centre. The leading think tank reported should the unrest drag on, and escalate, it would affect Thai businesses investing in tourism in Burma since foreign tourists would reduce their travel into the country. At the same time, Thai businesses investing in production for export in Burma might be affected by additional international sanctions. At present, Thai businesspersons have invested in various areas including production, hotels and tourism, fishery, mining, transportation, oil and natural gas drilling, construction, property, and agriculture. The KRC forecast indicated that should the violence persist, Burma would face more economic sanctions from the international community, particularly the United States, the European Union and Japan. It said investment made by Thai investors in hotel and tourism businesses in Burma totaled US$228.6 million. Investment projects Thai businesspersons made in the production industry in Burma are worth $614.6 million, the fisheries industry $171 million and agriculture the smallest at $2.7 million. Power generating projects invested by Thailand in Burma worth $6.03 billion baht involve construction of hydro-power dams along the Salween River, which is expected to take six years to complete. The project value, combined with that of other investment projects, brought up the total investment value Thailand has in Burma to $7.38 billion. It resulted in Thailand becoming the biggest investor in Myanmar with Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia coming second, third and fourth respectively. Regarding the border trade with Burma, KRC believed trade activities along the border of the two countries would be sluggish only in the short run unless the violence escalated to such an extent that the border is closed. Bangkok Post 4th October 2007 ................................................................................ ........ Body of dead monk dumped in river near Rangoon published by Democratic Voice of Burma http://english.dvb.no/letstalk.php?id=4 ................................................................................ ......... epsy posted on Gay ting tong: A sign can help, please help too. More then 500.000 peoples in the world have sign, help to get 1.000.000 peoples! http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/tf.php?cl_tf_sign=1 Look what they do with the people: What happen in the last 48 hours in Burma: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/...,509232,00.html Quote
