Letter to Media

Editor Sir,

You can call us pessimists, but we would like to express our worries over future of Myanmar.At 5753rd meeting of Security Council held on Friday, 5 October 2007, Mr.Gambari said ;The Council is already aware of the following key areas in which I have been encouraging the Government to make tangible progress:
first, the release of all political prisoners, including those arrested in the course of recent demonstrations;
secondly, the promotion of an all-inclusive national reconciliation process;
thirdly, full cooperation with, and better access for, humanitarian organizations;
fourthly, the cessation of hostilities in conflict areas, including in Kayin State; and
fifthly, continued cooperation with the International Labour Organization.
These are great encouraging words for all Myanmar people. Yet, we can't be very happy as we see SPDC's furtive advances.We wish they are just our hallucinations.
Next to every release of arrested protesters, more arrest and night raids are still occurring. SPDC's newspapers are telling us clearly that they are going to imprison everyone who had active participation in the September 07 demonstrations. Security Council can, in no way, hope to see the release of any political prisoners.
General Than Shwe has condescended to negotiate with Daw Aung San Su Kyi. We suspect this is their old trick for alleviating the impending action from Security Council. After the action has been successfully averted, they will indefinitely prolong the negotiating process by setting unconscionable conditions as they already did.We can hope to see little or no changes in all five areas.
We can see that SPDC is uniting with North Korea, Cuba and Iran. The dishonorable ambition is to form an anti-western alliance in case ASEAN dump him and to secure nuclear power to fend off possible but improbable US invasion.Now, China and Myanmar threaten the whole world that Myanmar will quit UN if Security Council takes harsh measure against its blatant violation of human rights. We can sense, in SPDC's announcements, their motive to disband present NLD by declaring it illegal and thence automatically nullifying the 1990 election results. Then, they can take advantage on weakness of new re-formed NLD in upcoming referendum and election which are sure to be rigged if held without international close-up monitoring. We have rumors of SPDC's moles in local UN units. They are going to stick to their old SML ( Steal, Murder and Lie ). And yet, Mr. Wang Guangya believes "The current situation does not pose any threat to international or regional peace and security. The future of Myanmar lies in the hands of its people and its Government." We doubt the sincerity in his belief. Why Chinese government is helping Myanmar Junta ?
1. They believe democracy activists in Myanmar are not likely to win
2. They want Myanmar as an anti-western stronghold
3. They want Myanmar's help to secure Tibet and Yunnan
4. They want Arakan sea ports
5. They want to buy "TEAR GAS" from Myanmar
6. They don't want an Umbrella Sanction to destroy China's current headstart in trade with Myanmar
7. They want to avoid another Tiananmen uprising in China which was inspired by 8888 uprising in Myanmar
8. They want Myanmar's embrace for chinese residents in Myanmar
Some of these facts may apply to India and to some ASEAN countries too.But, in their desperate efforts in cooking favors with Myanmar Junta to get a chance for "Fishing in the troubled water", they are unwittingly antagonizing the people of Myanmar. In Mr.B.Raman's words;"In Myanmar, it is not just normal business with the military junta. We have been pampering it and showing undue sensitivity to it by avoiding active interactions with the civil society and pro-democracy elements and by avoiding any articulation of our views on Su Kyi and the pro-democracy movement.
Ref: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070720&fname=raman&sid=1&pn=2
We are afraid they might face adverse effects from Myanmar when democratic forces won the days.
These are our view and you can take us as paranoiacs. But, please remember SPDC's leaders are much worse sociopaths.We don't want gentlemen in Security Council to under-estimate the malevolence the Junta is capable of. Has anyone foreseen that North Korea will become this way ?We want UN peace-keeping forces in Myanmar.

With Respects,
A Group of Private Citizens in Myanmar.

OPEN LETTER TO UN SECURITY COUNCIL

OPEN LETTER TO UN SECURITY COUNCIL
Sirs in Security Council,

Subject: Request from Myanmar for help

Please forgive us for uncouth inappropriateness in submitting for help this way.We request you to protect our non-violence efforts to rebuild Myanmar into a peaceful and democratic nation from persecution of Military Junta. Our backwardness and all-round limitations made this request a desperate clutch for the straws.For us, you are the highest intelligence that wields the ultimate power for the highest aims of humankind, the world peace. We believe you will overcome all technicalities and substantiate the noble ambition set forth in the UN Charter."To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small."
We would like to make special request to China and Russia who previously have shown sympathy for Myanmar Junta.We have great admirations for your struggles for freedom from dictators and invaders, for your sacrifices to earn back the right to shape your own future and of your great determination in realizing your political beliefs. You have set the most brilliant examples of people's struggle for freedom in Eastern Globe. We hope, if you take our fight as worthy as your own, you will not let down our struggle for freedom just because of buying some "TEAR" gas, paranoid geopolitics and power balance in the region. We are not fighting for a political ideology or regional power. We fight to end the dictatorship, to re-establish the sovereignty of people, to remove the fear and to enjoy the freedom in our daily lives. We still will practice non-alignment but not immobile and frigid one which ignores the end of cold war and beginning of globalized communication and economy. We definitely will be the better neighboring friend without suicidal willfulness of present Junta.
Please let us describe about the present status of our struggle for freedom. Our one and the only military have been being misused by generals bigoted with military supremacy. They are using the military to oppress the people they are supposed to protect. Our Military is the only strong organization in Myanmar as formation of NGO is forbidden except a few vassal ones set up to control the strata of people. The uniqueness of situation in Myanmar is the monstrous disproportion between oppressor and the oppressed. A handful of generals are using the power of combined forces and most of country's GDP to oppress the nation with unprecedented sophistry. To persecute demonstrators under the eyes of the whole world, without getting implicated, they are using a mixture of coerced civilians as cover, riot police as major inflictor, soldiers in uniform as executioner, commanding officers in plain clothes, convicted criminals disguised as armed demonstrators. They have difficulty in finding a pretext for brutal killing as in done in 1988 as demonstrators have learnt from history and are armed with nothing but Buddhist chant and pure courage. They usually commit crimes on democracy activists after cutting off telephone system, internet access and electricity, in total darkness. They forced millions of intimidated people and monks to say false incriminating words against the fearless few. They are using state-run media to blame the killed for the killing and suppressing independent media from reporting the truth, even by shooting down photo-journalists. After narrowly escaping the assassination attempt, Daw Aung San Su Kyi was home-arrested until now, to prevent her own words on the assassination.
The control of all the country's resources, unscrupulous use of deadly force, brazen-faced lies, legislature and judiciary subordinate to whims of generals, monopoly of media and base machinations amount to a Goliath to democracy activists, a tiny David. They are wolves among the sheep, having everything their own way.
For the non-organized, peace-loving people to gather enough courage to rise up against this formidable system took us just about 20 years of time, torment and tears. The more time you take for action, the longer Myanmar's misery become. By hesitating to protect the non-violence movement, activists are being compelled both by our Military and International to pick up arms for self-defense. That surely will give our Military a chance for bloodbath and perhaps it will make Myanmar fully eligible for UN Security Council's intervention. The world has seen that no amount of economic sanction and "constructive engagement" can generate enough political pressure to replace the hard-liner generals with younger, modernized new generation of military officers.
We do not ask UN soldiers to shed their blood for our own freedom. But, we really need a stronger UN presence to prevent military scale violation of our basic human rights. If the respected UN Security Council can secure our basic human rights as our solid stepping stone, we will be able to secure much needed "National Reconciliation" and build a peaceful and democratic Nation by combined efforts of Reformed Myanmar Military, Ethnic groups and Political leaders.
We would like to have UN Peace-Keeping forces in Myanmar to safeguard against military scale persecution of non-violence movement and independent media. We would like to request the UN to conduct a poll in Myanmar for a desire to have UN Peace-Keeping forces in Myanmar. We will be very glad and will welcome any "Investigation and Mediation" attempt from UN Security Council. We hope the noble ambition of UN Security Council can surpass any technical difficulties to help us.

with due respects,
A Group of Private Citizens in Myanmar

Bad Attitudes, Bad Practices

Japanese Legacy

An attitude born amidst the hardships of our patriotic revolution against invaders is "making things happen all by ourselves, only with what we have". Japanese fascist army showed us an excellent example of such efficiency by marching in with nothing but guns and plundering our villages for all the supplies they needed. Allied forces showed their feats of supply and transport by the small markets near their barracks dealing in their surpluses. But, we afforded only the Japanese way. It can be succinctly described by our motto " ေရဘူးေပါက္တာ မလိုခ်င္ဘူး ၊ ေရပါတာပဲ လိုခ်င္တယ္ " ( I don't want to hear about your leaky canteens, I just want you have the water)." It implies the leader will turn a blind eye to whatever they have done to have that water. That attitude has been carried on very well and has created corruption throughout the military. The leader gets boss's pat for easy accomplishment of his assignment ( usually a false report ) and follower's abuses are CONDONED, ALL AT THE EXPENSE OF COUNTRY'S PLIGHT.

British Legacy

In 1887, Chief Commissioner of Burma, Charles H.T Crosthwaite set these unjust rules to squelch the Burmese resistance;

1. all travelers must be registered by village headsman,
2. all festivals can be held only by permission from British,
3. all headmen must inform of all potential resistant activities,
4. villagers are subjected to provide forced volunteer works, forced provision of transport ( requisition , Porter ).

We hate the British but love their suppressive laws and still practicing them UNTIL NOW.

Ref: ကိုလိုနီေခတ္ဦး ေက်း႐ြာ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး " by Ma Kyan

Our Own Invention

Abuse of Laws

Later, AFPFL government and socialist government (BSPP ) set more of unjust laws to suppress political dissidents.

Ref: http://www.blc-burma.org/legal_resource.html

The worst thing ever happened to us is we never had a sound legislature and we ended up with scanty and impracticable laws. To make the law-makers job easy, we practiced " လူမုန္းရင္ မူသံုး ၊ လူခင္ရင္ မူၿပင္ " ( hate the man, use the rule; love the man, bend the rule ). Officers and judges can take bribes , government can arrest dissidents with arbitrary laws and VIP can make black money, all by tweaking laws everyone taken to be impractical.

WE DESPARATELY NEED A NEW GENERATION OF COMPETENT LAW PROFESSIONALS.

Distorting the truth

Another bad practice is in dealing with facts. We set up a ministry of truth and published reverse logic as "It's hard to get tickets because of black-marketeers and not black-marketeers appear because tickets are hard to get." It descended from very filthy legacy of leftist propagandists ; cry "Four legs good, two legs bad." with your eyes shut. They are so devoid of truth that only "People Daily Online" is vile enough to repeat them. All unpleasant news of mishaps, epidemics and natural disasters which might reflect the lousy performance of government are censored that victims cannot have the needed attention and help. Staged assemblies are forced to make false impression of people's consent. All the media-people were trained with only "retaliating the western media" in mind. Highest officials lie with straight faces.

The smokescreen is so thick everyone, friends or foe were confused and it makes impossible for everyone to help.

WE DEFINITELY NEED TO REMOVE THOSE KNAVES AND THEIR EVIL PRACTICES FROM DEPARTMENT OF MIS-INFORMATION.

Hates politicians

Throughout our history, our kings relentlessly chased down the potential rivals and mercilessly killed them. Our kings practiced " က်ဴပင္ခုတ္ ၊ က်ဴငုတ္မက်န္ " ( when mowing the reed, don't leave the stubble )" so well that the last king's crony killed all his siblings and families. Earl of Dufferin, Viceroy of India reported to British Parliament that he couldn't find a suitable candidate to take the deposed king's place and he had to decide that British rule Burma directly.

Ref: " မဟာဝန္႐ွင္ေတာ္မင္းႀကီး အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရး " by Ma Kyan

Japanese invaders showed us their way of dealing with dissidents ; world infamous, inhuman tortures. British showed some respects for political prisoners. AFPFL government followed it but with some tortures. BSPP and present military government broke those records with making lives in prisons so wretched they are dubbed "cemetery of living people".

cf: http://www.aappb.org/

The implicit notion that government want those activists dead makes the police, inquisitors, prison guards and even prison doctors to treat them with hate and contempt. They were selectively harassed and tortured. The extreme finance cut and grafting by officers make the lives of prisoners destitute of food, clothes and medicines.

WE HAVE A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT RIGHTS. WE ARE STILL SAVAGES IN THIS ISSUE. WITHOUT RESPECTS FOR ANOTHER MAN'S RIGHTS, WE WILL NEVER HAVE THE COURAGE TO FIGHT FOR OUR OWN.

Future Military

Military and Politics

Myanmar military claims they are good at politics and should lead the country. Military should be involved in politics ? I don't think so. An organization's structure is tuned to its function. Theirs is tuned to maximum effective group action based on strict chain of command. Insubordination is an offence to be court-martialed. CO is responsible for life and death of his followers. Military is not built to find an answer by lengthy debates.
But, it is dangerous when military is completely ignorant of politics and easily manipulated by a cunning politician, like Hitler did. So, a military definitely should be in touch with country's politics but should serve the country and its legal government. They should have the power and intelligence to self-organize and self-protect when rogue politicians try to split it into factions , leading to a civil war. We should devise such mechanism to be used in state emergency with authorization from special council ( no way of majority of military leaders ) , all to be defined in a constitution. These laws should be removed when country has very strong civil government and no more danger of civil war.

1. Military cannot lead the country. It protects the country and follows its leaders.
2. Military should have a voice in Parliament, just audible enough and not overwhelming.
3. State Emergency can be announced only by a supreme council

Military Split

We have a 60 years old ethnic conflicts and it has taken countless limbs and lives of combatants and civilians, sinners and innocents alike. There was an ideological split in military and some battalions turned to rebels. Our history is soaked more in our own blood than of invaders. If ever the present military is split into political factions, un-imaginable horrors will rage over the country. None wants that to happen.
But, our country is in the worst plight ever happened to her and we need a united, patriotic and strong army to safe-guard our nation-rebuilding efforts and to protect our national interests. That requirements demand for a reformation in the military itself and "Fuck everyone, I don't give a shit" attitude of old army hard-liners necessitates the rise of a new generation of progressive and liberal young army leaders to take over the control of military and thence secure a better future for all of us.

WE NEED GOOD GUYS IN THE ARMY TO RISE UP AND TAKE CONTROL OF IT.

Equality

Let's do a thought experiment number 1 ( Secession ).
We will divide up Myanmar into as many independent states as requested. Each state will have their own government ,parliament, army, police, immigration, healthcare, education ministries...etc. Everyone needs passport to visit another state. States keep embassies in all other. Can we hope it will be beneficial to each state ? Do we have enough man-power, natural resources to stand on our own race while European and Asian countries are flocking up into blocs for combined strength ?
It obviously is an overkill. Even some weak races might become subordinates to stronger neighboring countries.

Keeping own army
This demand is to safeguard the security of the race in case present military resorts to force. This is currently unavoidable as the military evaluates everyone on its power of destruction, like in Counter Strike. It is very important that we need TO FIND AN ALTERNATIVE WAY to safeguard the security without keeping arms widely distributed. Having an arm in hand can make your way of thinking different. Another danger is possibility of each army becoming regional warlord and each government a dictator himself.


Let's do a thought experiment number 2 ( Unification )
We will unify the whole Myanmar into a unified state, eliminating all traces of the existence of different races. We will need to put the citizenship only and no more race in filling forms. Will everybody be happy then ?
Of course, not ! All races will definitely want to preserve their racial identities such as traditional folklore, dress, songs, dances, literature..etc.

So, we all want to have not only equality but also keep our differences too. We should not lose the sight of the fact that federalism, 8 states...etc are just means to equality which is THE REAL GOAL. We just have to make a pragmatic choice.

These inferences suggest it will be beneficial to all Myanmar if :

1. If we are willing to keep differences just enough to preserve our identities
2. If Ethnic Groups can guarantee the whole Myanmar that they would not exercise secession unless equality is seriously impaired ( to be defined clearly )
3. If new constitution can guarantee the Ethnic Groups shall enjoy the equality with no need to show their arms ( to be defined clearly )
   

But, we all know that someone cannot ask for absolute equality especially when you are not as strong, hardworking, smart or lucky as the next bastard. After all, all condoms are not created the same size. :-)

historical background

we all know that all the ethnic groups have deep concern for equality among races in Myanmar and put forward many demands. They have already made great sacrifices for it. Unfortunately, those demands are repulsed by Myanmar military and they justified their dictatorship on rebuffing those demands. In short, it becomes the root of all troubles.We need some history to see further into this issue. Here is my version.


In the times of feudalism, Kingdoms of Burmese, Mon and Rakhine were strong. Burmese kings were satisfied with token of allegiance from other ethnic groups. Then, British made Myanmar their colony for nearly a century. British were fond of karen and chin races for their faithfulness and courage.

Burmese activists led the revolution for independence against British and Japanese invaders. When they are about to give independence, smart-ass British offered separate independent states to ethnic groups. This offer flared up racism throughout the country. But, General Aung San managed to get consent for a union from progressive ethnic youth by his trustworthiness alone. Unfortunate country lost this leader in a political assassination not yet fully investigated until now. This event opened the Pandora's Box for newly independent state.

Then, young political activists who led the revolution were forced to run a government; a common misfortune to all newly independent countries. All they have learnt so far were cheap and cruel bureaucracy practiced by British in Myanmar colony, underground campaigning from communists and rule by terror from Japanese fascist army.

New idealism and urgency made them include secession right to ethnic groups in new constitution they made. Then, they faced a gargantuan task of running a government plus power struggles within government members, pressure and irresponsible attacks from leftists and demands from ethnic groups with irresponsible help from British sympathizers. The Government did too badly. Their disrespectful attitude towards ethnic groups created resentment, their use of force to quench the political dissenters kindled angrer. Burmese are factional and hot-blooded by nature and all groups started to fight.

This fiasco made ethnic groups disappointed and they tried to rely on their own race and some resorted to old feudal lords, still respected and powerful at that time. Their call for exercising the right of secession was not honored easily. They felt cheated and started armed rebellions. General Ne Win took a hard-ass approach and mounted a military coup. Citizens who were sick of civil war welcomed the coup. Unfortunately, he became over-confident and decided to rule the country by himself. He vouched , with doubtful sincerity to build a socialist country . He offered only the subjugation for ethnic groups fighting for equality. He successfully portrayed the communists as threat to Myanmar Buddhists and federalism as threat to unity , leading to the disintegration of Myanmar. Although passing time has changed everything, both government and ethnic rebels hold on to their old demands.

People uprising in 1988 removed the socialist government. Activists for democracy had no intentions to take power and failed to organize into a strong and united front. Hardliners in deposed government arranged with military leaders to stage a coup telling the uprising was a combined work of CIA and communists ( one of world's most ridiculous excuses ).

The coup was not welcomed but opposed by all Myanmar and military faced difficulty to form an accepted government. The election intended to re-instate old socialist hard-liners into power has chosen the democratic forces. Military government decided to cut allegiance to old socialist bosses and decided to rule the country for themselves. They simply ignored the election results and tried to secure military rule by legitimatizing it in future constitution.

The resolute , trusted-by-all, impossible-to-intimidate Lady became their chief obstacle to success and they tried their best to obliterate her. They offer autonomous regions to small tribes for supporting their future constitution. Bigger ethnic groups demanding equality face sub-division from their existing territory.

The attempt of Gen. Khin Nyunt to secure economic success without much needed political major overhaul was gone with him. Until now , they could not find sincere supporters like old socialists to Gen. Ne Win's government and they are to be satisfied with rogue opportunists as their main supporters.

common aims

I found these two aims are common to all myanmar activists;

1. end military dictatorship
2. begin democracy

I found these two analogous aims from myanmar military;

1. end military dictatorship + begin disguised military rule
2. begin disciplined democracy

There is no such thing as un-disciplined democracy. Every democratic country has more rules than Myanmar while Myanmar keeps only two basic rules. Namely;

1. Don't involve in politics.
2. Agree to whatever military does.

We learnt with our lives that military rule sucks.

So, let's agree on two modified aims;

1. begin legal military participation in leadership ( to what extent is to be negotiated )
2. begin democracy with fair and just disciplines