That’s two smoking guns going off, directing our attention back to the little Decider and his eagerness to take us into Hell in the Middle East; not that they will help us impeach him … we’ve found so many smoking guns stuffed down Dubby’s pants, at this point, that the Oval Office looks like the corporate headquarters of the NRA.
Here’s two bits that have bubbled up from the Dark Secrets File that prove … one more time … that this is Bush’s war and profiteering from chaos is his dance.
On that topic, I’ve added a great blog-bit from Bill Maher, his most recent “New Rule,” last, that illustrates the book-cooking and dissembling that our failed American CEO cottons to — while today he stumps to “protect democracy” by denying sick little kids … and admits that Global Warming is real, announcing that America will now “lead the way” by expanding nuclear power and asking nicely … again … for Big Oil to mind their manners.
Sigh.
Jude
Saddam Offered Exile, But Neo-Cons Unleashed Carnage Anyway
What could have been saved? A trillion dollars, a million lives, the global
reputation of the U.S. - but that wasn’t the plan
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Neo-Cons could have saved a trillion dollars, spared over a million lives and prevented tens of thousands of dead and injured U.S. soldiers but decided to unleash carnage anyway, after it was revealed last night that Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq.
“Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion),” reports the Daily Mail.
“The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President’s Texas ranch.”
“The White House refused to comment on the report last night. But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted.”
According to the tapes, Bush told Aznar that whether Saddam was still in Iraq or not, “We’ll be in Baghdad by the end of March.”
Why didn’t the Neo-Cons take Saddam’s offer? After all, the invasion was about “weapons of mass destruction” and “spreading freedom”, we were told. With the dictator gone, the U.N. and American forces were free to roam the country in search of the non-existent weapons while setting up the “utopian democracy” that Iraqis now live under.
The Neo-Cons didn’t take the offer because the invasion of Iraq was not about Saddam Hussein, it was about making fat profits for the military-industrial complex by bombing the country back into the stone age, slaughtering countless innocents in the process, seizing control of oil factories, and setting up military bases as a means of launching the Empire’s next jaunt into Iran.
The invasion of Iraq was about having a justification to stay there indefinitely and break the country up into different pieces as was the plan all along.
Here’s what $1 billion could have saved us.
- At least $200 million every single day that could have been spent on fighting poverty, building schools, taking men to Mars, ad infinitum.
- At least $1 trillion that the Iraq war will eventually cost if we ever leave. A trillion is a million millions.
- At least 1 million dead Iraqis according to the latest numbers, along with millions more that will die in the years to come as a result of depleted uranium poisoning, malnutrition, cholera and all manner of other horrors brought about by the invasion.
- Over 1.1 million displaced Iraqis who have been forced to leave their new “utopian democracy” and another million who have been forced to leave their homes due to sectarian violence and persecution.
- Over 3800 dead U.S. soldiers since the invasion began.
- 300 dead coalition soldiers since the invasion began.
- Anything from 23,000 to 100,000 injured U.S. soldiers since the invasion began.
- The reputation of the U.S. around the world as the most hated nation on earth.
- The ballooning deficit and the probable eventual collapse of the U.S. dollar and the economy.
Thanks Neo-Cons - I hope it was worth it.
Bush threatened nations that did not back Iraq war: report
AFP
9/26/07
MADRID (AFP) - US President George W. Bush threatened nations with retaliation if they did not vote for a UN resolution backing the Iraq war, according to a transcript published Wednesday of a conversation he had with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.
In the transcript of a meeting on February 22, 2003 — a month before the US-led invasion of Iraq — published in El Pais newspaper, Bush tells Aznar that nations such as Mexico, Angola, Chile and Cameroon must know that the security of the United States is at stake.
He says during the meeting on his ranch in Texas that Angola stood to lose financial aid while Chile could see a free trade agreement held up in the US Senate if they did not back the resolution, the left-wing paper said.
The confidential transcript was prepared by Spain’s ambassador to the United States at the time, Javier Ruperez, the paper said.
The White House did not challenge the accuracy of the transcript, with national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe declining to comment.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, Washington unsuccessfully lobbied the 15 members of the UN Security Council for a second resolution paving the way for military action against Iraq if Saddam Hussein failed to comply with demands to disarm.
But during the meeting with Aznar, Bush made it clear the US would invade Iraq by the end of March 2003 whether or not there was a UN resolution to authorize it, El Pais reported.
“We have to get rid of Saddam. There are two weeks left. In two weeks we will be ready militarily. We will be in Baghdad at the end of March,” Bush said in the transcript which was translated into Spanish by the newspaper.
“We can win without destruction. We are already planning a post-Saddam Iraq and I think there is a good basis for a better future. Iraq has a good bureaucracy and a relatively robust civil society,” he added.
During the meeting Aznar tells Bush that he is worried by the US president’s optimism.
“I am optimistic because I believe I am right. I am at peace with myself,” Bush responded according to the transcript.
Bush also told Aznar that Saddam wanted to go into exile.
“The Egyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he’s indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he’s allowed to take one billion dollars (700 million euros) and all the information he wants about weapons of mass destruction,” he said.
Asked by Aznar whether Saddam could leave with a guarantee that he would not be prosecuted, Bush replied: “No guarantee. He is a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal.”
“Compared to Saddam, (former Yugoslav President Slobodan) Milosovic is a Mother Teresa. When we go in we are going to find many more criminals and take them to the International Court of Justice in The Hague,” he added.
Bush said Saddam could be assassinated or even be ousted from power.
“For me that would be the perfect solution. I don’t want war,” he said in a reference to Saddam’s possible ousting from power, while estimating that the operation to remove his regime by force would cost some 50 billion dollars.
New Rule: Stop Saying Iraq is Another Vietnam, it’s Another Enron
Bill Maher, HuffPo
September 27, 2007
Iraq is Enron, and President Bush is Ken Lay. He’s fighting a war with phony accounting tricks. The Bush administration fudged the numbers to get us into Iraq, and cooked the books to keep us there. “The surge” is simply another in a long series of inflated stock quotes. This past weekend Marcel Marceau passed away at age 84. Doctors say he went quietly. Thus proving that evil thrives when good men stay silent. And just like with Enron, the good men and women who are blowing the whistle on Iraq contractor fraud are being vilified, fired, demoted, and those are the lucky ones.
Last Friday morning the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing entitled “The Mistreatment of Iraq Contracting Whistleblowers,” just in time to make the Friday news dump. According to the committee more than $10 billion dollars in Iraq reconstruction and military support contracts is unaccounted for. In other words, for every six dollars spent in Iraq one dollar is in question. And folks, it’s a war-zone, you’re dealing with a culture known for its haggling skills, so you’ve got factor in a little skimming, but this is ridiculous. If you stole that much money from the Mafia you’d be dead.
Vicente Fox may have called President Bush a “windshield cowboy,” but Bush has certainly turned Iraq into a wild, wild, west. And here’s another one from the War in Iraq’s this-is going-to-make-you-vomit file. Some Iraq contract whistleblowers have been vilified and fired, others have been detained by the US military and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques.
Donald Vance, a Navy veteran, was working for an Iraqi-owned outfit called the Shield Group Security Company. Vance said he witnessed Shield Group selling guns, land mines, and rocket-launchers to Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry workers. Vance described Shield Groups as “a Wal-Mart for guns.” Vance reported this to the FBI, and instead of a pat on the back, he got 97 days at Camp Cropper, a military prison outside of Baghdad. In fact, Saddam’s Hussein’s old crib. Vance was placed in solitary confinement, subjected to head-banging music blaring from dawn to dusk, and interrogators screaming the same questions over and over again in his face.
Also testifying at the hearing along with Vance was Barry Godfrey, a former KBR employee (KBR Halliburton=Cheney) who claimed that he was fired after complaining to his supervisors about fraudulent overcharges.
Also testifying was Bunnatine Greenhouse. Greenhouse is the former highest-ranking civilian contracting official at the Army Corps of Engineers, so I’ll dispense with the “Greenhouse having gas” joke. But Greenhouse was removed from her position when she tried to crack down on “casual and clubby contracting practices” at the Army Corps of Engineers.
Also testifying was Robert Isakson who was a co-plaintiff in a “qui tam” lawsuit (a whistleblower lawsuit) against Custer Battles. No, “qui tam” is not that stuff that Chinese people do in the park, it’s shorthand for the Latin Phrase “qui tam pro domino quam pro seipso,” which dates back to 13th century England, and means, “He who is as much for the King as for himself.” Today, a “qui tam” lawsuit is one brought under the False Claims Act by a private plaintiff on behalf of the Federal or State Government. Isakson won the first civil verdict for Iraq reconstruction fraud against Custer Battles. However, the verdict was overturned by the judge, who ruled that because the CPA was not part of the US government, the “qui tam” statute did not apply.
Meanwhile the Bush administration has not litigated a single case against a contractor alleged to have defrauded the US Government in Iraq. Apparently, like terrorism, this isn’t a law enforcement issue either.
Bill Maher is the host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” which airs every Friday at 11PM.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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September 28th, 2007
The junta bully boys in Burma have imposed a curfew and cut the Internet, occupied monastaries and sealed communities; they are not friendly to foreign press and access has become very difficult now. This comes at a time when the world’s eyes have turned toward itty-bitty Myanmar — even the Dubby had his say about this situation; this was the topic of my Weekly piece, you’ll find it last.
Yesterday I mentioned how vital the Internet was to breaking the stranglehold of oppressive government — here’s our echo. The first two articles here are about Burma’s bloggers and their witness of what is happening in the streets. The next few are MSM about current conditions, followed by memories of the 1988 uprising that produced slaughter.
These protests were peaceful — the monks that took to the streets are the most respected and beloved of Burmese citizens and some have been killed, many imprisoned, outraging and distressing the people. This has not stopped the iron hand of tyranny.
China plays its part in this, and its influence is important. I follow the Tibetan issues very closely, and the Chinese oppression of the Tibetan culture … they recently [and stunningly] announced that the reincarnation of Buddhist leaders was no longer allowed, a hit at the Dalai Llama; years ago the Chinese spirited away the Panchan Llama, the child that was to identify the new incarnation of the DL [when their OWN candidate for Panchan was rejected by the Tibetans,] and they hold him in a secret location to this day. The Dalai Llama, of course, is not allowed in Tibet, and does not attempt to enter for fear of arrest — he is considered an enemy of the state.
I mention this because the Tibetan protest has found a vulnerable spot with the Chinese due to their hosting of the upcoming Olympics. The Chinese want respectability — and yet their continued heavy-handedness with the Tibetans … and now their weak recommendations in Burma … is their Achilles Heel. The last thing they want is a group of people boycotting their Olympic splendor and pointing up their ruthlessness.
You’ll find a link to support the Burmese people in my editorial. Use it today, times wasting.
Jude
Voices from cyberspace:
How Burma’s bloggers are bearing witness to the unfolding revolution
27 September 2007
Dawn 109,Rangoon
A lot of rumours are flying around Yangon [Ran goon]. I am getting awfully paranoid. The military has been ordered to shoot. I heard… that “they have been ordered to shoot.” Even now, a co-worker is saying: “They are going to shoot.” I just saw with my own eyes that more than 500 monks… have marched on Bo Gyoke Aung Sand Road. There were other people too, walking along the side, holding hands, holding Buddhist flags, singing and clapping hands. They were chanting: “To the uncountable living beings living in uncountable universes to the east, May they be free of danger, May they be free of anger, May they be free of sufferings, andMay their hearts be calm and peaceful. May there be peace on earth.”
Kto Hike
All over Rangoon, thousands of people are marching on foot, some on bikes, from 26th Street to 33rd Street. Soldiers in police uniforms are using tear gas bombs, officers are shouting orders to fire just above peoples’ heads. Guns are firing continuously. Students from Main University Road are now marching towards 80th Street. On 26 September, a Buddhist monk was beaten to death by plain-clothed thugs while he was praying at the Shwe Dagon Pagoda in the centre of Rangoon. The dead body was carried back to the Sadu Monastery in Kyee Myindine. My part-time duty is working on Emergency YGH… at about 2 pm, 5 patients were coming to our Emergency… for gun shot wounds… 1 patient died on spot on arriving at hospital… 4 r still bad in Diagnosis… The patient’s attendant said he was not in d line of protest… they were chatting and watching d protest line and sitting on Cafe Bar near Shawe Dagon Pagoda… Government military car was crossing to d protest line and randomly shot all of them…
Sein Khaloke
Buddhist monks are chanting: “All humans be free from killing and torturing, Our compassion and love spread all over country” and “Peace on earth”.
Mya, Rangoon
A monk who took part in the protests came to us and told us about his experiences. He said: “We are not afraid, we haven’t committed a crime, we just say prayers and take part in the protests. We haven’t accepted money from onlookers although they offered us a lot. We just accept water. People clapped, smiled and cheered us.” The monk seemed very happy, excited and proud. But I’m worried for them. They care for us and we pray for them not to get harmed.
Mg Khar, Rangoon
The current situation can lead to civil war because the junta still holds the power and the opposition might use this opportunity to launch an armed struggle. We want things to change peacefully, not through a civil war. But if there’s no way to avoid the armed struggle, the people will choose it and the conditions in our poor country may become worse. International pressure, including from China and Russia, is very important for the future of Burma at this moment.
Soe Soe, Mandalay
I am not sure where these protests are going to lead, but I am sure it’s not at a good sign. Many people are expecting a great change soon. I am not sure if the monks will be joined by students, workers, or even soldiers. We are very insecure because we don’t know what the government is planning. There is some news in the government-controlled newspapers that the monks are trying to agitate the public. This can be a big excuse for them to start attacking the monks. I hope there won’t be any bloodbath this time like there was in 1988.
Kyi Kyi, Rangoon
I am really sorry for our country and our people because we are under the control of the wicked junta. We haven’t got arms, we wish for peace, a better future and democracy. We are hoping that the UN Security Council will put a pressure on the junta. We are so afraid.
David, Rangoon
Now the junta is reducing the internet connection bandwidth and we have to wait for a long time to see a page. Security forces block the route of demonstrations. Yesterday, the junta told people in Rangoon and Mandalay not to leave their houses from 9pm to 5am. I think if the junta decides, they will cut off communication.
Thila, Rangoon
Riot police and soldiers are beating monks and protesters at the east gate of Shwedagon Pagoda. They are starting a crackdown by all means. Regardless of this, just after noon, about 1,000 monks from a nearby monastery started a march to Shwedagon Pagoda.
Yi, Rangoon
I saw a truck full of police with guns, which looked like AK47. The military junta has been making us miserable for nearly two decades.
Eyewitness, Rangoon
Riot police started to chase the monks and beat them up. Then about 200 were hauled off onto the trucks and driven away. About 80 monks were taken away.
Bloggers in Burma keep world informed during military crackdown
Richard S. Ehrlich, SF Chronicle Foreign Service
Friday, September 28, 2007
Bangkok — Dodging a deadly military crackdown that has killed at least nine protesters, Burmese bloggers are on the front lines, providing news and photos of death and insurrection.
Their Internet blogs, written in Burmese and grammatically flawed English, are posted mostly by residents of Rangoon, the commercial port also known as Yangon, where Buddhist monks, pro-democracy activists and residents have been defying security forces for more than a week.
The bloggers rely on word-of-mouth, cell phones, online chat groups, instant messaging, and firsthand accounts of protesters facing barricaded streets, tear gas and gunfire from Burmese security forces. The best blogs provide photos, video and text updates purportedly by eyewitnesses, which are later confirmed by news organizations or, in some cases, can’t be verified.
The nation’s military regime has refused to grant visas to foreign correspondents, and has even blocked visa requests for many foreign tourists after the mass uprising worsened this week.
As a result, blogger accounts have captivated the outside world, including President Bush and the United Nations. On Thursday, the Bush administration imposed economic sanctions against 14 senior Burmese officials. On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council issued a statement of concern about the violent crackdown and said it would send a special envoy to Burma.
Burmese and foreign bloggers in Rangoon, Mandalay, the nation’s second-largest city, and elsewhere have risked their lives to document the pro-democracy demonstrations, which began over a fuel price hike in August.
One poignant blog, by a young Burmese woman who identifies herself as Dawn, appears at www.xanga.com/dawn_1o9.
“Around 1:20 or 1:30 p.m., I heard someone saying that the police/army started shooting in the air,” Dawn wrote, describing Rangoon on Wednesday.
“At 2:00 p.m., I heard that buses have stopped running on Sule Pagoda Road. Someone from the office went out there, and came running back when there were shots being fired.
“I heard the gun shots too, but it sounded a lot like clapping. So I went out to look.
“I was reading the news on a blogger’s Cbox, and it said that at least 5 monks were dead at Shwedagon Pagoda. My sis had already called home and told my brother not to go to work. I called home too, and also to my father. He told me to stay at work and not to go out.”
International media reports said at least one person died when security forces attacked protesters Wednesday, though some reports said as many as five people may have been killed that day.
“I’ll let you know when I’ve been shot,” Dawn continued. “I’ll ask someone before I die to blog about it. If it was an instant death, I’ll come to my sister in my dream and tell her to blog about it, or I won’t rest in peace.”
Another popular blogger created a collection of vivid text and photos at ko-htike.blogspot.com and noted that “now the regime open fire into these group, and used fire engine to sweep the blood on the street.”
Foreigners blogging in Burma include burmesedayze.blogspot.com, which is written by an unidentified person who moved to Rangoon in March 2006. “The BBC is getting hold of a reasonable amount of video footage that people are taking surreptitiously and sending to them,” the foreigner posted Saturday. “Some of it is hand-held video clips shot from the hip (so that the photographer isn’t too obvious to the police watching the marches), while other clips seem to have been shot out of windows in tall buildings in downtown Rangoon.”
Even before the current protests, Burma had a strong presence on the Internet, created over the years by Burmese dissidents and foreigners who had established pro-democracy Web sites in Thailand, Europe, United States and elsewhere.
In 2006, several Americans created a MySpace Web page for Aung San Suu Kyi, a pro-democracy activist and Nobel Prize Peace Prize laureate, who has been under house arrest for much of the past 18 years.
Other Web sites pertaining to Burma, also known as Myanmar, have been created by nongovernmental organizations, or by aid provided by the U.S. government and other international sources. These include www.irrawaddy.org, which also publishes a monthly magazine in Thailand, and www.dvb.no, the Democratic Voice of Burma radio, in Norway.
In 1988, exiled Burmese journalists set up mizzima.com, which promotes democracy in Burma through India’s Mizzima News Agency, The site is bilingual in Burmese and English, and includes online video.
Some blogs, such as weunite-weblog.blogspot.com, offer Internet links relating to Burma, and warn users when the Burmese military regime blocks Web sites and blogs.
And graffiti taggers can go to saffronrevolutionworldwide.blogspot.com, for stencil images of two Buddhist monks walking side by side, which can be cut out, held against a wall, and spray-painted.
“You can help make this image appear all over the world, reminding people everywhere of the uprising in Burma and showing that the struggle for freedom is alive everywhere,” wrote the site’s bloggers, who are in Mae Sot, Thailand, near the Burma border.
“Monks make great stencil images … download the pattern and get your monks on the march!”
Myanmar Breaks Up Rallies, Cuts Internet
AP via HuffWire
September 28, 2007
YANGON, Myanmar — Soldiers clubbed activists in the streets and fired warning shots Friday, moving decisively to break up demonstrations in Myanmar before they could gain momentum. Troops occupied Buddhist monasteries and cut public Internet access, raising concerns that the crackdown on civilians that has killed at least 10 people was set to intensify.
Troops also fired tear gas to break up a demonstration of about 2,000 people in the largest city, Yangon, witnesses said. Five protesters were seen being dragged into a truck and driven away. The clash in an area near the Sule Pagoda was the most serious of the several sporadic - though smaller - protests that were reported.
By sealing monasteries, the government seemed intent on clearing the streets of monks, who have spearheaded the demonstrations and are revered by most of their Myanmar countrymen. This could embolden troops to crack down harder on remaining civilian protesters.
Efforts to squelch the demonstrations appeared to be working. Daily protests drawing tens of thousands of people had grown into the stiffest challenge to the ruling military junta in two decades, a crisis that began Aug. 19 with rallies against a fuel price increase, then escalated dramatically when monks joined in.
Security forces first moved against the anti-government protesters on Wednesday, when the first of the 10 deaths was reported. Images of bloodied protesters and fleeing crowds have riveted world attention on the escalating crisis, prompting many governments to urge the junta in Myanmar, also known as Burma, to end the violence.
The United States imposed new sanctions on the junta’s leaders, and the United Nations dispatched a special envoy, who is expected to arrive Saturday.
Earlier Friday, soldiers and riot police moved quickly to disperse a crowd of 300 that started marching in Yangon, sealing the surrounding neighborhood and ordering them to disperse. Elsewhere, they fired warning shots to scatter a group of 200.
Bob Davis, Australia’s ambassador to Myanmar, said he had heard unconfirmed reports that “several multiples of the 10 acknowledged by the authorities” may have been killed by troops in Yangon. Scores have been arrested, carted away in trucks at night or pummeled with batons in recent days, witnesses and diplomats said, with the junta ignoring all international appeals for restraint.
“The military was out in force before they even gathered and moved quickly as small groups appeared breaking them up with gunfire, tear gas and clubs,” said Shari Villarosa, the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar.
“It’s tragic. These were peaceful demonstrators, very well behaved.”
British Ambassador Mark Canning told BBC-TV that “there have been a lot of arrests,” with up to 50 people detained at one time.
Video emerged of a striking image - the shooting death Thursday of a man identified as Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai of the video agency APF News.
The Democratic Voice of Burma released video of security forces opening fire on protesters, including a man falling forward after apparently being shot at point-blank range, and the opposition shortwave radio station based in Norway said the victim was Nagai, 50.
Another image posted on the Web site of Japanese TV network Fuji showed Nagai lying in the street, camera still in hand, with a soldier pointing his rifle down at him.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations expressed “revulsion” at the violence in Myanmar and told the junta “to exercise utmost restraint and seek a political solution.”
Demonstrations against the junta were seen in Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere.
But by Myanmar standards, the crackdown has so far been muted, in part because the regime knows that killing monks could trigger a maelstrom of fury.
Southeast Asian envoys were told by Myanmar authorities Friday that a no-go zone had been declared around five key Buddhist monasteries, one diplomat said, raising fears of a repeat of 1988, when troops gunned down thousands of peaceful demonstrators and imprisoned the survivors.
Gates were locked and key intersections near monasteries in Yangon and the second-largest city of Mandalay were sealed off with barbed wire, and there was no sign of monks in the streets.
“We were told security forces had the monks under control” and will now turn their attention to civilian protesters, the Asian diplomat said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.
The government’s apparent decision to cut public Internet access - which has played a crucial role in getting news and images of the pro-democracy protests to the outside world - also raised concerns.
Thursday was the most violent day in more than a month of protests - which at their height have brought an estimated 70,000 demonstrators to the streets. Bloody sandals lay scattered on some streets as protesters fled shouting “Give us freedom, give us freedom!”
Truckloads of troops in riot gear also raided Buddhist monasteries on the outskirts of Yangon, beating and arresting dozens of monks, witnesses and Western diplomats said.
“I really hate the government. They arrest the monks while they are sleeping,” said a 30-year-old service worker who saw some of the confrontations from his workplace. “These monks haven’t done anything except meditating and praying and helping people.”
The United Nations’ special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, was heading to the country to promote a political solution and could arrive as early as Saturday, one Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Though some analysts said negotiations were unlikely, the diplomat said the decision to let Gambari in “means they may see a role for him and the United Nations in mediating dialogue with the opposition and its leaders.”
The protesters won support from countrymen abroad as more than 2,000 Myanmar immigrants rallied peacefully in Malaysia and smaller demonstrations against the junta took place in Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines.
China, Myanmar’s largest trading partner, for months quietly counseled the regime to speed up its long-stalled political reforms. Some analysts say Beijing would hate to be viewed as party to a bloodbath as it prepares to welcome the world to the 2008 Olympics.
“China hopes that all parties in Myanmar exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there does not escalate and get complicated,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in Beijing Thursday.
But every other time the regime has been challenged, it has responded with force.
“Judging from the nature and habit of the Myanmar military, they will not allow the monks or activists to topple them,” said Chaiyachoke Julsiriwong, a Myanmar scholar at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Burmese Crackdown Generates Broad Condemnation
Edward Cody, Washington Post
Friday, September 28, 2007
BANGKOK — Violence subsided markedly in Rangoon on Friday as armed troops sealed off key downtown streets in an attempt to halt the bloody rioting that has shaken Burma and generated broad condemnation of the military dictatorship that has ruled the country for nearly half a century.
Restrictions on Internet use imposed by the military’s State Peace and Development Council sharply reduced the flow of information. As a result, Thailand-based exile groups and outside observers had only a sketchy picture of what was going on in Rangoon, Burma’s main city, and the dozen other places where anti-government protesters led by Buddhist monks have mounted the strongest challenge to the junta since 1988.
News agencies reported several hundred people gathered near Rangoon’s revered Sule Pagoda, only to be dispersed by soldiers marshaled behind coils of concertina wire and rows of trucks. Otherwise, they said, the downtown area seemed mainly to be deserted as residents reeled from the violence of Thursday.
Soldiers opened fire at several places around the city Thursday, killing nine people and injuring 31 according to an account read on official Burmese television. But exile groups said they had received information overnight that the toll was considerably higher, perhaps in the dozens. Bob Davis, the Australian ambassador, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that he believed the number dead was several times the official count.
The new Japanese prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, said in Tokyo that his government expected a full explanation from the ruling junta on what led to the killing of a Japanese cameraman, Kenji Nagai, who was among those acknowledged shot during the clashes Thursday around Sule Pagoda. Nagai, 50, was shooting for the APFN News video agency when he was seen taken away by soldiers.
In addition to cracking down with automatic weapons in the street, Burmese security forces arrested dozens of the robed monks who had been providing leadership and moral authority to the protests since they erupted in August and swelled over the last two weeks into a political movement demanding an end to military dictatorship. The monastery raids, in which a number of monks were beaten and hauled away in trucks, resulted in a sharp reduction in the number of monks seen in the streets. Most of those seen protesting Thursday — in video footage shipped out electronically — were lay activists of student age.
Southeast Asian diplomats who were called in by Burmese authorities told news agency reporters in Rangoon that they were told the military felt it had neutralized the monks’ anti-government organization with the arrests and would turn its attention next to the lay political activists and pro-democracy politicians in the party headed by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Some of her followers already have been arrested.
Sympathizers with their struggle staged rallies Friday across Asia, condemning the junta’s crackdown and demanding more action from their governments and the main regional grouping, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Burma. Protests were reported in Tokyo, Canberra, Phnom Penh, Bangkok and Jakarta.
On the diplomatic level, a special U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, flew to Singapore to pick up a visa and was expected to confer with Burma’s military leaders over the weekend. ASEAN foreign ministers, meeting in New York, condemned the junta’s tactics and said they placed great stock in Gambari’s mission.
But Kraisake Choonhavan, a former Thai senator and member of an ASEAN parliamentary caucus on Burma, noted that Gambari has been to Burma before and returned only with what turned out to be vain promises of reconciliation and liberalization. “Gambari has been given assurances before,” he told a news conference in Bangkok.
Choonhavan and the caucus leader, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim of Malaysia, urged ASEAN to expel Burma, saying the country’s “cruel regime” planned only to suppress the protesters and arrest political leaders while making another round of promises to the United Nations and ASEAN.After news of Thursday’s violence reached Washington, the White House renewed its demand that the Burmese junta end the crackdown.
“The world is watching the people of Burma take to the streets to demand their freedom and the American people stand in solidarity with these brave individuals,” President Bush said in a written statement. He added: “Every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand up for people suffering under a brutal military regime like the one that has ruled Burma for too long.”
The U.S. Treasury Department designated 14 senior Burmese figures under new sanctions announced by Bush earlier in the week, including the leader of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe; the army commander, Vice Senior Gen. Maung Aye; and the acting prime minister, Lt. Gen. Thein Sein. Any assets they have in U.S. jurisdictions will be frozen, and Americans are now banned from doing business with them. U.S. officials hope to leverage that to influence foreign banks and institutions to follow suit.
The European Union also vowed to seek tighter sanctions. The United Nations, meanwhile, has said it will send an envoy to Burma, a move that the Burmese foreign minister said Thursday would be welcomed.
Video images from Burma, also known as Myanmar, showed a preponderance of lay people in the demonstrations on Thursday, most of them of student age. Some news agencies estimated that as many as 70,000 people took to the streets of Rangoon and other cities, despite the soldiers’ warnings and the death of at least one protester on Wednesday.
Soe Aung, spokesman for the Thailand-based National Council of the Union of Burma, an exile group, said the number was probably much lower, perhaps as low as 10,000, which was sharply down from Wednesday. “This would be mainly because of the raids that took place before dawn in Rangoon,” he said.
Until Thursday, students and other lay political activists had been following the lead of the monks, mostly young students in cinnamon-colored robes who are undergoing religious training in the monasteries. Although the protests started last month over sharp fuel price increases and economic hardships, they have blossomed over the last two weeks into a frontal challenge to the military’s ruling council.
Armed security forces burst into at least five monasteries in Rangoon and two others in outlying cities on Thursday, ransacking rooms and arresting and beating monks believed to be protest leaders, Soe Aung and news agency reports said. At least 150 monks were hauled away in one of the raids, they said.
Myint Thein, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party, was also taken into custody during the night, the Associated Press quoted family members as saying. Suu Kyi herself has spent most of the past 18 years in prison or under house arrest and has been detained continuously since May 2003.
The arrests marked the beginning of what probably will be an extended series of arrests of monks and lay activists who helped promote the protests, said David Mathieson, a Thailand-based Burma specialist with Human Rights Watch. Security services likely had been watching key people for days, monitoring cellphones and noting protest organizers in an effort to identify leaders and mark them for arrest, he said.
“You get involved, and you start getting sloppy,” he added, “and then they lock you up.”
In another sign the government was tightening its grip, exile groups headquartered in neighboring Thailand said communications with their contacts in Rangoon and Burma’s other cities were getting more difficult, apparently the result of government efforts to cut cellphone links. Most foreign correspondents were barred from entering the country.
The New Light of Myanmar, the military council’s official newspaper, blamed foreign agitators and news media for the wave of unrest that has shaken Burma and generated demands from political leaders in the West for restraint and political reform. The “internal instability and civil commotion” were caused by “instigative acts through lies” relayed by foreign radio stations, the newspaper said in an editorial.
Staff writers Peter Baker in Washington and Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Rangoon Memories
Is History Repeating Itself in Burma?
Sept. 26, 2007
TERRY MCCARTHY, ABC News
BAGHDAD, Iraq — It is with an eerie sense of déjà vu that I have been watching the Burmese military maneuvering to put down the swelling protests by monks on the streets of Rangoon over the past week.
I was in Rangoon, Burma, also known as Myanmar, in September 1988 when the military shot thousands of students demonstrating for democracy. And it looks as if their playbook has changed little since then.
As they did two decades ago, the military sat back and watched the demonstrations get bigger — in 1988 they were initially sparked by a revaluation of the currency, just as these demonstrations were prompted by the government’s decision to double fuel prices. Then as a political, anti-regime element came in, the generals decided they had to act.
They declared a curfew, banned gatherings of more than five people and started to truck in the troops, some of them from units based in the jungle who knew little about life in the city.
When I saw those pictures of the dark green covered trucks with soldiers inside I knew this was going to get serious again.
In the 1988 coup there were five foreign reporters in Rangoon — we were staying in the old Strand Hotel, and our only communication with the outside world was one old telex machine and a single telephone at the front desk that took many attempts to get an international line. When we arrived, the city was poised between giddy hopes of real reform and deep fears of a bloody crackdown.
There were bands of students all over the city carrying pro-democracy banners (they charmingly pronounced it “demo-crazy”), Aung San Suu Kyi had become their leadership figure, and there were daily rallies. But there were also strange stories of provocateurs beheading alleged spies in the streets and people poisoning water supplies. Something was brewing.
When the military announced on radio the following day that they were taking power, many older people knew that the shooting was going to start, and they tried to get their children to stay home. But on Monday a large group of students marched down the street outside the U.S. Embassy, thinking that there at least the military would not dare to attack them.
They were wrong.
Overnight the army had positioned men on the rooftops of the street, and that morning they started shooting from overhead at the students, who had nowhere to run to escape.
Around the city there were other confrontations, and by nightfall hundreds were dead.
I remember going to Rangoon General Hospital and seeing a young student who had been shot in the torso dying on a gurney as his friend held his hand — his friend had lost his shoes and was barefoot, and he was standing in a pool of dark red blood that was spilling off the gurney.
We spent a lot of time with Aung San Suu Kyi in her house on University Avenue by Inya Lake. We could hear the shooting outside, and yet she sat there, composed but furious, decrying the unnecessary loss of life. She was unshakeable, and has never wavered since, refusing all offers to leave Burma, knowing that if she does they will never let her back in. She sees her destiny as something similar to Nelson Mandela (they both have won the Nobel Peace Prize) — sometime in the future her day will come to lead the country back into the light.
By the end of the week the military had reasserted control in Rangoon, but several thousand Burmese, mostly idealistic students, had been killed. Many more were jailed, and a lot fled to the Thai border seeking sanctuary.
Today, the generals are faced with a slightly different threat — not students, but monks, who are deeply revered by the Burmese. They will be unwilling to shoot the monks, but at the same time they have consistently shown they will not tolerate any challenge to their absolute power. I have great fear for the immediate future in Burma.
Hand in Hand
Judith Gayle | Political Waves
OUR SUPERMOON in Aries, in perigee, comes to us completing the manifestation cycle the New Moon set into motion at the Sept. 11 eclipse and finishing the course of action set at the last New Moon in Aries, six or so months ago.
This thunderous Moon is set to dominate the night sky as I write — bigger, badder and more compelling than usual. The astounding astrological events of these last few years continue to amp up the energy without skipping a beat, without giving us a notable breather, without leaving anything untouched.
Luna figures into a Grand Cross including the Sun and Pluto, with Mars in Gemini at the difficult 29th degree. We’ve been crossed and crossed again, lately — and when I think of the cross, I think of the metaphysical conceptualization of the horizontal line representing the material, intersected by the vertical expressing the spiritual. There is a gift at hand — will we take it?
The chart for this Moon indicates Neptune on the MC creating fuzzy edges, but we can follow the cookie-crumb trail in our personal lives that has been encoded by these cycles. We have been asked to reconsider, reflect and surrender during these last months — this should come as a relief to those of us who carry the weight of our personal world on our shoulders, putting down the burdens of the past and releasing us to a new beginning.
This is easier said than done, of course, if we’ve hit our internal walls of unforgiveness, unlovingness and control and failed to leap them. We fear, too often, that we will lose our power if we give up our grievances and our victimization — like fear itself, these are shadows that keep us locked in place. If we have put off this important exercise, we still have opportunity to reconsider what has been mindless and habitual in our lives and give ourselves the gift of release. The work that we do in astrology is within — as we mend ourselves, the energy of the collective changes the world. We heal Gaia, and ourselves, one mindful personal decision at a time.
With so powerful a Moon arriving in Aries, we’re sure to want some action; the Libra Sun will argue for a more cautious path. Aries bellows for conflict, Libra counsels for boundaries — Aries overflows with headstrong enthusiasm, Libra sighs with gentle cooperation. Mars and Venus are the age-old story, aren’t they? The ancient prototypes of male and female energy, each with a different set of concerns, attempting to come to understanding of one another, merging the concerns of God and Goddess while meeting the needs of the whole. Heart and head, holding hands and moving forward. It’s the challenge of the ages — more importantly, it’s the need of the hour.
The world stage has given us a remarkable example of this grand experiment, happening in Burma, as we speak. Burma, contemporarily named Myanmar, is headed by a de facto military dictatorship propped up by the heavy hand of the People’s Republic of China; for almost two decades, this arrangement has ignored the rightfully elected, remarkable and internationally beloved Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy (NLD).
Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in human rights, has been under house arrest for more than 11 years. Desmond Tutu calls her the “only pinup” in his office; she is embraced by the Dalai Lama and an international community of those who love freedom. She has been likened to Kuan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, aptly named for her unwillingness to ascend to Nirvana while so many suffered on the earthly plane.
In the last few weeks, there have been protests in Burma that, notably, were joined by Buddhist monks, ignoring the monastic code that urges them not to involve themselves in mundane politics. Students and ordinary citizens flocked to this cause by the thousands, resulting in a crackdown by the military that has resulted in deaths and arrests.
The junta has now banned all public gatherings of more than five people and imposed a nighttime curfew, but they were not in time to stop the march earlier in the week by some 400 monks to the house where Suu Kyi was imprisoned, and where she gave them her blessing. They carried a banner with them — it read, “Love and kindness must win over everything.”
Our president, breaking his singular preoccupation with his wars, spoke to the UN this week, criticizing the Myanmar government and asking for harsher sanctions than we already impose — this was likely encouraged by his wife, Laura, who has spoken out for the cause of the Burmese people and expressed her admiration for Suu Kyi.
Such measures will do little, however, while the influence of China, India and Russia continues to protect the junta. If you would like to support this cry for freedom, you can sign an emergency petition supporting the Burmese people here which will be delivered to United Nations Security Council members at the annual Summit Meeting in New York this week.
The military junta in Myanmar reflects government everywhere — it is the old paradigm authoritarian model, become transparent in these last years. Since they assumed power in 1988, the junta has become a pack of greedy influence peddlers, trading in arms and political favors with stacks of money changing hands and finding its way to the families and cronies of the major players, while the people suffer quietly. The flawed patriarchy of leadership across the globe is as worn and frayed as the dinosaurs gasping their last, but it still holds sway in this 21st century, awaiting the final shake and rumble of the earthquake that will doom it; a people’s quake.
We don’t know how this protest in Burma will end. It certainly looks frightening for the courageous petitioners, but we can be confident that it won’t escape the world’s notice and approval. Goddess is rising and she will not be denied now — our heart chakras have been long closed but now they open, and all that was can no longer stand in the long-awaited demand for humanitarianism and freedom.
We’re simmering in a broth, swimming in a soup — floating in the amniotic fluid that precedes birthing into a new awareness and understanding. We can already feel the changes, the sharp shaking of the walls of reality, the contractions we endure as we outgrow our here and now and rush toward a new thing, untried in, some say, eons. We will collaborate on a new age, once this great labor is done and we emerge as new creatures.
Years back, I wrote a splendid little poem about the birthing process, one I could use now to convey my awe and appreciation for this moment. It’s lost somewhere in my files, but the last line of it speaks to my wonderment at the paradox: Now, crying for your death, come seize your life.
That’s where we are today: confounded, confused, no longer held safely by what we knew and anticipating something that feels difficult unto death. It is not — it is the natural progression of our times, and it takes us to life more fully expressed and honored than we hold in memory. It’s the 21st century we’ve longed for, the leap we’ve yearned for and the new thing that beckons us on. It asks us to take responsibility in the moment — do the baby steps, day by day, that will push our freshly sensitized consciousness out into a world anticipating our arrival. While we’re all doing a bit of crying for our “death,” it’s time, now, to seize our lives — and I can think of no worthier banner to wave than that which the Myanmar monks carried, at their peril.
“Love and kindness must win over everything.” Amen…and amen.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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September 28th, 2007
