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[Jacques de molay]

I napoletani sono dei dilettanti in confronto a questi pazzi.....

An esoteric regime


It is well known that 74-year old dictator Than Shwe, financed by the Chinese communists to maintain "calmness" on the Burmese scene (1), trusts various kinds of fortune tellers, clairvoyants, astrologers and wizards for his senseless politics. Yet he’s not the only one to believe in the influence of stars and spirits in earthly matters; as a matter of fact he shares these beliefs with his wife and many of his government’s members. In the 80s Than Shwe added the astrological faith to his megalomaniac personality, exactly from the moment in which a fortune teller predicted his political success to his wife (who is a practiser of the Nat cult). When that prediction turned out to be true, Than Shwe grew his interest in divination, so he has begun to ask the "stars" for advice since. An enlightening example of this explosive mix in Than Shwe’s personality is his decision to change the country’s capital, generated both by the "opinion" of the stars and his desire to repeat the deeds of an ancient Burmese king, whom he believes to be a reincarnation of.
Still following the advice of his chief astrologist, on November 6, 2005 at 67 AM (a favourable date and time) he ordered the move: an interminable convoy of military trucks headed to the "elected place," despite the new capital’s total absence of functioning machinery – not even a fax.
The institution of the esoteric regime is not attributable to Than Shwe, though. In fact his predecessor, general Ne Win (who governed from 1962 to 1988) already showed the importance of superstition in Burma’s political choices. A revealing episode: based on the belief that 90 is a lucky number in Burma, Ne Win invalidated the 100-kyat banknote, replacing it with the 90-kyat one. Through this absurd move, he hoped to receive his country’s blessing, thus avoiding the terrible Buddhist purgatory. It’s not surprising then that the Burmese junta is surrounded by a sort of "court of miracles" comprising "advisors," clairvoyants, astrologers and the likes, all practicing yadaya. This magic practice is used to avert bad luck and keep the evil spirits at bay. Its occult rites are celebrated to influence every politically important occurrence, for example the meetings with the opposition’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They’re very afraid of the latter, since predictions and astral "signs" are favourable to her, so much that Than Shwe decreed her name not to be pronounced in his presence. This is also due to the importance attributed to names composed of two diametrically opposed sounds like Aung Kyi. In the Burmese language, such a combination is known as "Ket Kin" and is "astrologically" translatable as Tuesday-Monday. In order to contrast Suu Kyi, the chief astrologist advised Than Shwe to use a "Monday-Tuesday" symbol like the "kyet Suu" plant. Therefore the junta has started a national program to force the population to plant the "kyet Suu."
All that remains is asking ourselves whether Burmese people are harshly suffering due to a handful of bloodthirsty yet lucid generals, or because of some nincompoop gifted with immense power yet manipulated in turn by smart fortune tellers.
It’s an incredibly arduous choice indeed.
Maybe we should ask the stars.

(1) we refer to the political and commercial agreements between China and Burma. For a chronology of the relationships between the two countries see: http://www.irrawaddy.org/research_show.php?art_id=446

Sources:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...508231,00.html http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9407
http://www.dassk.com/contents.php?id=1159
www.4burma.org

[Everhard]

io ai monaci tibetani metterei il giogo al collo e farei arare i campi,al posto dei buoi

[trenta81]

io ai monaci tibetani metterei il giogo al collo e farei arare i campi,al posto dei buoi

io a chi insegue ideologie

[Jacques de molay]

io farei provare queste situazioni a tutti quelli che ci scherzano.....

The shopping of the junta: yes to weapons, no to medicines


Cyclone Nargis further broke down a population already starved by a criminal government, which made great business all over the world while ignoring the basic needs of millions.
Emblematic in that sense is the management of the abundant natural resources of Burma, supported through "ethnic cleansings" requiring continuous huge investments in weapons.
It’s not a coincidence, then, that Burmese political and economical choices tend towards the military sector, which absorbs about 40% of the national balance every year. It’s equally obvious that "slightly" lesser amounts are destined to the sanitary and education sectors, 0.4 and 0.5% respectively.
Burma must in fact support an army of 450.000 by purchasing a lot of weapons. Among the countries that keep selling to them, China – in friendly relationships with the Burmese junta since 1988, when they realized that they could put their avid hands in that territory thanks to the new dictators.
The official commercial agreement between the two states exists exactly since August 6, 1988, a time in which the political situation wasn’t steady (1). It is impossible to precisely evaluate the business volume derived from this agreement yet it is esteemed that, only in the 90s, China has furnished Burma with about two billion dollars worth of weapons.
But while Burmese generals spend whatever amount is necessary to defend themselves from internal and external attacks, the country is plagued by serious diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis (which affects 40% of the population) and malaria, which in Burma reaps over 50% of the Southern Asian victims.
Given the virtual absence of the public sanitary service, finding medicines is extremely difficult and, when they are found, they’re often counterfeit. The large majority of these bootlegged medicines come from China. Talking about anti-malaria pharmaceuticals, World Health Organization reports that at least 200.000 patients affected by malaria died for having been treated with fake or expired medicines. In the Chinese bootlegs, the percentage of artemisinine (an active principle) is often too low, while in other occasions it was adulterated with chalk and starch.
It is probably superfluous to highlight that the members of the regime are cured in the military hospitals which, contrarily to the civil ones, are endowed with the most updated machines and the best pharmaceutical supply (obviously coming from the West).
Like every dictatorial regime worth of its name, Burma’s government is not at the service of the population, which on the contrary gets enslaved and exploited. And so the International Aid, a necessary laundering of conscience by the Western nations, will turn into weapons and additional luxury for the dictators instead of food and medicines.

(1) On August 8, 1988 the protest of millions of Burmese against the military regime was repressed in a bloodbath.
www.4burma.org

[Jacques de molay]

continuando....
A people put to flight


They had succeeded in crossing the border illegally but they died from asphyxiation at the back of a truck transporting fish before they managed to reach destination. This happened in April 2008 in the province of Ranong, an area which borders Thailand and where illegal trafficking of cheap laborers is very active. 54 Burmese tried to escape from the military regime operating in their country, one of the poorest countries in the world, but they didn’t make it. Unfortunately their tragic tale is one of the many of an entire population put to flight.
The truth is that Burma has very fertile soil, is rich in natural resources and is extraordinarily beautiful. The population of about 50 million is made up of 136 different ethnic groups (Mon, Karen, Shan, Karenni, Rhakine, Chin, etc.) each with their own language and culture rich in history and tradition.
However the fate of this nation has been marked by tragic events and by the dominion of ferocious dictatorships that seem to have erased all human values from the DNA.
Let’s take a step back in time.
In 1962 Ne Win comes to power following a coup d’état and adopts the so called "Burmese way to socialism". He closes the frontiers and leads his country into isolation and hunger. All the ethnic groups are not allowed to maintain their own culture and tradition or to speak their own language.
In 1988 the Burmese people find the courage and the strength to speak out. Students go out into the streets to protest peacefully, to ask for the return of democracy. But on 8.8.88 (a date that reminds us of another date almost as a warning: 8.8.08, the Beijing Olympic Games) the regime orders to open fire. Over 10.000 students die under the ruthless fire of their own countrymen. Many others will die subsequently in prison because of torture, forced labor, abuse and disease. Still today there are several of the first activists in prison, some even in severe solitary confinement. Ne Win resigns, but only to be substituted by General Saw Maung who takes over with yet another coup and establishes the dictatorship once again.
This is but a brief outline of the inhuman tragedy of the refugees.
The Burmese regime has one of the biggest armies in the world, the Tatmadaw, which comprises of more than 70.000 children and young boys between the age of 12 and 18.
The target of the Burmese army’s maneuvers is the various ethnic groups than wish to maintain their identity and autonomy. Thousands of people are regularly subjected to abuse, forced to abandon their homes and watch them being looted, hunted from the land in which they live, arrested arbitrarily, beaten and killed; girls and women are abducted and raped; schools and hospitals are closed or burnt down; harvests are seized. Entire regions are sown with landmines.
These fugitive people seek shelter mostly in the mountainous regions bordering Thailand, China and Bangladesh where temporary villages are built - villages which are almost completely lacking in necessities ranging from schools to medical assistance. People die due to malnutrition, wounds caused by violence or disease which could in fact be easily cured. Often mothers and their newborn babies don’t survive childbirth because of simple infections. The children that do survive grow up without schooling and so become a cheap supply of workers for factories and even worse brothels.
Reporting the story of a twenty-year old girl, Naw Moo Moo, who was repeatedly raped by four soldiers of the 246th Division and then murdered with a gun shot in her vagina, a refugee says: "When the army arrives in the village the men are dragged out of their homes, kicked and beaten. The women are taken into the forest where they are raped, often by the entire platoon."
Refugees that manage to find work end up in factories – more appropriately sweatshops – or in farms without any rights or social security, with a pay of little over 1 euro for 16 hours of work a day.
And that’s not all.
There are about two million Burmese, the so called Internally Displaced People (IDP), who haven’t been able to reach a refugee camp and have had to hide in jungle areas in Burma.
There they live totally isolated and precariously given the extreme difficulty of being reached by any form of help.
www.4burma.org