Monks return to streets of Burma

BBC

More than 100 monks have marched in central Burma, the first time they have returned to the streets since last month's bloody crackdown on protests. The monks chanted and prayed as they marched through Pakokku, the site of an incident last month that triggered pro-democracy protests nationwide.

The government said 10 people died during the crackdown, but diplomats believe the toll was much higher.

Thousands more - many of them monks - were thought to have been detained. Separately, the Human Rights Watch organisation has accused the Burmese army of forcibly recruiting children to cover gaps left by a lack of adult recruits.

Envoy's return
Pakokku is a centre of Buddhist learning about 630km (390 miles) north-west of the main Burmese city of Rangoon.

Reports that soldiers had beaten up monks there on 6 September gave momentum to protests that began on 19 August over fuel price rises. The junta began its crackdown on protests on 26 September

Witnesses at Wednesday's march said the monks did not make any overt political statements but that the rally was clearly in defiance of the junta.

In the wake of the crackdown on protesters last month, public gatherings of monks in Burma have been banned and many monasteries remain deserted. According to the BBC's Asia correspondent Andrew Harding, there is no way of telling whether this new demonstration is the start of another wave of protests.

One monk who was on the march told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norway-based radio station run by dissident journalists: "We are continuing our protest from last month as we have not yet achieved any of the demands we asked for. "Our demands are for lower commodity prices, national reconciliation and immediate release of [pro-democracy leader] Aung San Suu Kyi and all the political prisoners."

Aung Nyo Min, the Thai-based director of the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma, said of the rally: "This is very significant... we are very encouraged to see the monks are taking up action and taking up peaceful demonstrations in Burma."

'Systemic abuse'
There are hundreds of thousands of monks in Burma. They are highly revered and the clergy has historically been prominent in political protests. The crackdown on protests sparked international action, with the United States and European Union imposing sanctions and embargoes.

United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari is expected to return to Burma this weekend for talks with the military government in the wake of the crackdown.

A Western diplomat told Agence France-Presse news agency Mr Gambari would be in Burma from 3-8 November. Mr Gambari last visited on 29 September, just three days after the bloody crackdown began, and met junta chief Gen Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi. He has been on a six-nation Asian tour to try to increase pressure on the generals.
The British ambassador to Burma, Mark Canning, told the BBC he expected further unrest in the country. "I do think this sort of economic and political frustration that is within the population will manifest itself again in the coming months."

Meanwhile, in a move that will add further pressure to the ruling junta, the campaign group Human Rights Watch has released a report saying children as young as 10 are beaten or threatened with arrest to make them enlist in the military.

The government insists it is opposed to the use of child soldiers, but Human Rights Watch says the abuses have been extensive and systemic.

Burma bloggers return as regime lifts blackout

Matthew Weaver

Tuesday October 9, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

The military regime in Burma has relaxed its information blackout in a move that has allowed anti-government bloggers to post for the first time since the height of pro-democracy protests last month. The security forces have been seizing satellite phones and computers smuggled in by exiled groups as part of their suppression of news about the protests, but last night the authorities temporarily lifted the restriction on internet access. The move is being seen as a sign of confidence by the regime that it can control the protests.

The Dehli-based Burmese news service Mizzima reported that most users in Rangoon said the internet was only accessible during the curfew hours: 10pm to 4am. The Burmese blogger Niknayman, one of the few to dodge the censors through the use of a chatroom, claimed the internet was accessible for two and half hours last night. A Rangoon blogger who attracted the attention of the western media with first-hand accounts of the protests and the perils of blogging in Burma, had been silenced by the blackout. But today she posted comments for the first time since September 27, the second day of a bloody crack down on the demonstrations.
She pointed out that it is "ironic" that pro-government protesters have been allowed to carry out their demonstrations. She also reveals that people inside Burma are getting news of the crisis from external media.

During her silence, hundreds of people posted messages on her site expressing concern for her welfare. Today, she thanked them for their comments, saying she had only just had the chance to read them because of the closure of internet. She wrote: "Now internet access is back, though I'm not sure if it's for real, or it just opened up by mistake. I heard that you were able to use internet at night, but I don't have internet at home, so it was no use for me."

Most internet shops in Rangoon are still closed, according to Mizzima. Meanwhile, a hugely popular protest group set up on the social network site Facebook reports that some of its administrators have been sent intimidating emails. The group, which has attracted almost 400,000 members, has been used to spread news about the protests in Burma.

Johnny Chatterton, its UK administrator, said: "Some of the administrators have been getting threatening messages, seemingly from pro-junta people." One administrator who is passing on news from the group to Burma was warned "consider me the little voice in the back of your head," Mr Chatterton said.

The human rights organisation Amnesty today launched a campaign called Unsubscribe, aimed harnessing the power of bloggers and social networking to highlight abuse around the world.

Comments:

I think it is sad that dictorships still exist. My heart is with the Burmese and Vietnamese people whose rights are violated in any possible ways. I am therefore very happy to see that the Burmese people had the courage to stand up for their rights, take back what belong to them - freedom! I think ( or rather I hope) that Vietnam will be next. People power! that's what Burma and Vietnam need. At the same time, international support and pressure on the regime will help tremendously.What do you think? Please share your comments

Look at the similarity between Burma and Vietnam

It occurred to me that there are similarities between Burma and Vietnam. Here is one:

Vietnamese public security beats young man, 23/9 2007

Burmese soldiers beat young man Sept 07

Blogs in Vietnam follow closely the events in Burma

BBC Vietnamese, Oct. 4, 2007

While the Burmese state media controlled and limited the amount of news it gives to the people about the protests, many blogs in Vietnamese helped spread the news

As of today, many blogs in Vietnam and from abroad have called for widespread support of the people of Burma.

Moreover, bloggers and journalists have freely expressed their viewpoints on the way Burmese military junta have been cracking down on the monks and protesters.

The level of interest and viewpoints on this issue also varied greatly among the population, especially among the different levels of class in society and the locality of where people work.

In a BBC radio interview over the phone on 04.10.2007, Mr. Gia Kiet, a member of the Society of Independent Journalists in Vietnam, said that people like him care about the events in Burma.

And it’s not just during the most intense moments in the past week but even now, when the situation is much calmer.

Blogger Gia Kiet also informed us of the general sentiments and debate among Vietnamese youths:I have not met a person who is not sympathetic with the struggle in Burma.“This morning, when I had coffee with my friends, they asked me about the situation in Burma.”

Gia Kiet’s blog offers readers a forum to post their commentaries on the situation in Burma.
When asked if he had encountered anyone who supported the Burmese military junta, he said: “I have not met anyone who doesn’t agree with the people’s struggle in Burma. My goal is to put as much news on the blog and a few website so people knows what’s going on in Burma.”

Also according to Gia Kiet, “Vietnam’s state media is very cautious in running the news about Burma but this doesn’t surprise me at all.” Gia Kiet also said, “In my opinion, the press in Vietnam failed to fully carry out its main responsibility because 600 newspapers are state-owned and mainly serves as the mouthpiece of the Party and the government.”

When asked to comment on the difficulty of getting information from the Vietnamese media, Gia Kiet said: “When the land protesters went to Ha Noi and Sai Gon, there were no mentions of them in the news.” The media only “participates” when they needed to denounce the Venerable Thich Quang Do (of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam) when he came to visit the land protesters in TPHCM and only then, “readers learned of the land protests.”

Comments:

grace2003 said...
My heart goes out to the Burmese people in their struggle for freedom and democracy. The uprising in Burma in the last couple of weeks is a proof that the Burmese people haven't given up their fight for freedom since the last major crack-down in 1988, which make me think of my own people, who, after more than 32 years of continous poverty under the communist dictatorship, are still fighting everyday to break free. Like Tam Tinh Tuoi Tre said, dictatorship shouldn't be allowed to exist; and I truly believe that one day the Vietnamese and Burmese people will win their right to live in a free and democratic country.

October 4, 2007 2:13 PM

Myanmar leader willing to meet opponent

YANGON, Myanmar - The head of Myanmar's military junta told a U.N. envoy this week that he is willing to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but with certain preconditions, the state media reported Thursday. It also said nearly 2,100 people were arrested in last week's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists, and almost 700 have been released.

Senior Gen. Than Shwe told U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari during their talks Tuesday that he is willing to meet Suu Kyi if she gives up her calls for confronting the government and for imposing sanctions on it, Myanmar state TV and radio reported. Than Shwe told Gambari that "in her dealings with the government, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has called for confrontation, utter devastation, economic sanctions and all other sanctions," state media said. "If she abandons these calls, Senior Gen. Than Shwe told Mr. Gambari that he will personally meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," the media said. Daw is a term of respect for older women.

Suu Kyi has said in the past she supports economic sanctions against the military junta, but she has not publicly called for devastation of her homeland or the government. Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, scoffed at the general's offer. "Applying such conditions shows that the government is not really sincere to meet her," he said. NLD executives are allowed no contact with Suu Kyi.

Than Shwe's preconditions are not new — the junta has regularly called on Suu Kyi to give up her confrontational attitude — but it is the first time the junta leader has said he is willing to meet with her. This willingness is remarkable given that Than Shwe has a visceral dislike for the Nobel peace laureate and is said to get angry even at the mention of her name. Suu Kyi, who has spent nearly 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, is not known to have met a senior junta leader since 2002.

The reports gave no indication that the junta was prepared to lift restrictions on Suu Kyi or on members of her NLD party, which has often called for a dialogue with the government but has been rebuffed. Suu Kyi's party won national elections in 1990 but the generals refused to give up power. Gambari on Tuesday ended a four-day trip to Myanmar in a bid to persuade the junta to end its crackdown on pro-democracy activists. He is scheduled to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon later Thursday. Ban himself has said that Gambari's mission could not be termed a success even though the envoy delivered "the strongest possible message" to Myanmar's military leaders.

China, Myanmar's closest ally, praised the meeting between Than Shwe and Gambari, and appealed to all parties in the country to remain calm and resume stability "as soon as possible."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a statement that Beijing has "made its own efforts to support the U.N. secretary-general and his Myanmar special envoy's negotiations." It did not elaborate. Anti-junta demonstrations broke out in mid-August over a fuel price increase, then grew when monks took the lead last month. But the military crushed the protests with gunfire, tear gas and clubs starting on Sept. 26. The government said 10 people were killed, but dissident groups put the death toll at up to 200 and say 6,000 people were detained, including thousands of monks.

State TV and radio said 2,093 were arrested under the emergency law that was invoked on Sept. 25, banning assembly of more than five people. It said 692 have been released. The demonstrators were arrested under three categories: people who were actively involved in the protests, those who supported the protesters, and those who inadvertently took part. Soldiers maintained a visible presence on the streets of Yangon on Thursday.
A foreign aid worker said his staff had told him that soldiers are continuing to raid homes at night to arrest people who took part in the demonstrations. Neighbors are alerting each other if they see troops coming, he said.

Meanwhile, a U.N. Development Program employee, Myint Nwe Moe, and her husband, brother-in-law and driver were freed Thursday, a day after being arrested, said Charles Petrie, the U.N. humanitarian chief in Myanmar.

With Internet access to the outside world blocked, state-controlled newspapers churned out the government's version of the country's crisis and filled pages with propaganda slogans, such as "We favor stability. We favor peace," and "We oppose unrest and violence." Critics from the international community and foreign media were dismissed as "liars attempting to destroy the nation" — one of many bold-faced slogans covering The New Light of Myanmar newspaper's back page Thursday.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta came to power after snuffing out a 1988 pro-democracy movement against the previous military dictatorship, killing at least 3,000 people in the process.

Source: Associated Press

Comments:

Are the Burmese people being defeated?

Some people say that the Burmese people are defeated. They say that the uprise was a failure.

To me, the time frame is too short to say that the uprise was a failure. Nobody knows what is going to happen next week, next month, or the next years? The journey to democracy is long, as has been proven in many countries who liberated themselves from dictatorships. I didn't expect to see the Burmese regime brought down overnight but this is a CRUCIAL step for the Burmese people. In 1988 they stood up, and 20 years later the people's aspiration for democracy is still there.

I think that the current set back of the uprise is only temporary. The people have set their minds for democracy and that is hard for the regime to remove.

Like in Vietnam, within the last 2-3 years, Vietnam has experienced a new wave of democracy movement. For the first time, people protest in large numbers such as workers' protests in 2006 with the participation of tens thousands people. The most recent event was the peasant protest in Saigon in July 2007 that lasts for 27 days!!

I think that people are getting out of their fear..... and that is an important step for the democracy movement in South East Asia.

Let's wait and see, this is only the end of the beginning.

Burma's 1988 protests

BBC News

Activists estimate some 3,000 people died during the crackdownThe mounting protests in Burma have drawn comparisons with the last time the ruling military junta faced a major challenge, in 1988. The BBC News website looks at the background to those events, which ended in a bloody crackdown.

In September 1987, Burma's then ruler General Ne Win compounded years of general economic mismanagement by suddenly cancelling certain currency notes. As a superstitious man, he wanted only 45 and 90 kyat notes in circulation. This was because they were divisible by nine, which he considered a lucky number. But by cancelling the other notes which people held, much of their savings were wiped out overnight.

Protests about the mounting economic crisis were started by Burma's students, especially in Rangoon. On 13 March 1988 students protesting outside the Rangoon Institute of Technology clashed with the military and Phone Maw, a fourth year engineering student, was shot dead.
His death triggered further protests, which gathered pace as the students were joined by ordinary citizens and Burma's much revered monks.

On 8 August 1988 - known as 8-8-88 - hundreds of thousands of people took part in protests across the country, calling for democracy. Tom White, the British cultural attaché stationed in Rangoon at the time, has told the BBC how the general strike, spearheaded by students and monks, was accompanied by a mood of euphoria.

Profile: 88 Generation Students
"The streets resounded with the chant (in Burmese) 'We want full democracy; that's what we want'", Mr White said. Like the protesters of the last few days, students sported their symbol of the fighting peacock, and monks carried their alms bowls upside down to show they would not accept handouts from the military, again as a protest.

On 26 August, Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of independence hero Aung San who had only recently returned to Burma to nurse her sick mother, made a speech at Shwedagon Pagoda and became the public face of the democracy movement. General Ne Win had resigned as party leader in late July, but warned that "when the army shoots, it shoots straight".

On 18 September, the army proved the general right. Soldiers sprayed automatic rifle fire into crowds of protesters. Other demonstrators were carried away in trucks and never seen again.
Human rights groups say at least 3,000 people were killed

In Crackdown, Myanmar Junta Unplugs Internet

BY SETH MYDANS
Published: October 4, 2007New York Times

BANGKOK, Oct. 3 — It was about as simple and uncomplicated as shooting demonstrators in the streets. Embarrassed by smuggled video and photographs that showed their people rising up against them, the generals who run Myanmar simply switched off the Internet.

Until last Friday television screens and newspapers abroad were flooded with scenes of tens of thousands of red-robed monks in the streets and of chaos and violence as the junta stamped out the biggest popular uprising there in two decades. But then the images, text messages and posts stopped, shut down by generals who belatedly grasped the power of the Internet to jeopardize their crackdown. “Finally they realized that this was their biggest enemy, and they took it down,” said Aung Zaw, editor of an exile magazine called Irrawaddy, whose Web site has been a leading source of news over the past weeks. His Web site has been attacked by a virus whose timing raises the possibility that the military government has a few skilled hackers in its ranks.

The efficiency of this latest, technological crackdown raises the question of whether the much-vaunted role of the Internet in undermining repression can stand up to a determined and ruthless government — or whether a tiny, economically isolated country like Myanmar is an exception. “The crackdown on the media and on information flow is parallel to the physical crackdown,” said David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar with Human Rights Watch, “and it seems they’ve done it quite effectively. Since Friday we’ve seen no new images come out.”

There are just two Internet service providers in Myanmar, and it was not complicated to shut them down, he said. Along with the Internet, the junta cut off most telephone access to the outside world. Soldiers on the streets confiscated cameras and video-recording cellphones. In keeping with the country’s self-imposed isolation over the past half-century, Myanmar’s junta seemed prepared to cut itself off from the virtual world just as it had from the world at large.
At the same time, the junta turned to the oldest tactic of all to silence an opposition — fear. Local journalists and people caught transmitting information or using cameras are being threatened and arrested, according to Burmese exile groups.

In one final, hurried telephone call, Mr. Aung Zaw said, one of his long-time sources said goodbye. “We have done enough,” he said the source told him. “We can no longer move around. It is over to you, we cannot do anything any more. We are down. We are hunted by soldiers, we are down.” There are still images in the pipeline, Mr. Aung Zaw said, and as soon as he receives them and his Web site is back up again, the world will see them.

But Mr. Mathieson said the country’s dissidents were reverting to tactics of the past, smuggling images out through cellphones by breaking the files down and reassembling them. It is not clear, though, how much longer the generals can hold back the future. Technology is making it harder for dictators and juntas to draw a curtain of secrecy around themselves. “There are always ways people find of getting information out, and authorities always have to struggle with them,” said Mitchell Stephens, a professor of journalism at New York University and the author of “A History of News.” “There are fewer and fewer events that we don’t have film images of: the world is filled with Zapruders,” he said, referring to Abraham Zapruder, an onlooker who was the only person who recorded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Before last Friday’s blackout, Myanmar’s hit-and-run journalists were staging a virtuoso demonstration of the power of the Internet to outmaneuver a repressive government. A guerrilla army of citizen reporters was smuggling out pictures even as events were unfolding, and the world was watching. “For those of us who study the history of communication technology, this is of equal importance to the telegraph, which was the first medium that separated communications and transportation,” said Frank A. Moretti, executive director of the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning at Columbia University.

Since the protests began in mid-August, people have sent images and words through SMS text messages and e-mails and on daily blogs, according to some of the exile groups that received their messages. They have posted notices on Facebook, the social networking Web site. They have sent tiny messages on e-cards. They have updated the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. They also used Internet versions of “pigeons” — the couriers reporters used in the past to carry out film and news — handing their material to embassies or nongovernment organizations that had access to satellite connections. Within hours, the images and reports were broadcast back into Myanmar by foreign radio and television stations, informing and connecting a public that hears only propaganda from its government.

These technological tricks may offer a model to people elsewhere who are trying to outwit repressive governments. But the generals’ heavy-handed response is probably a less useful model. Other nations, with larger economies and more ties to the outside world, have more at stake. China, for one, could not consider cutting itself off as Myanmar has done, and so control of the Internet is an industry in itself.

“In China it’s massive,” said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project and an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. “There’s surveillance and intimidation, there’s legal regulation and there is commercial leverage to force private Internet companies to self-censor,” he said. “And there is what we call the Great Firewall, which blocks hundreds of thousands of Web sites outside of China.” Yet for all its efforts, even China cannot entirely control the Internet, an easier task in a smaller country like Myanmar.

As technology makes everyone a potential reporter, the challenge in risky places like Myanmar will be accuracy, said Vincent Brossel, head of the Asian section of the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders. “Rumors are the worst enemy of independent journalism,” he said. “Already we are hearing so many strange things. So if you have no flow of information and the spread of rumors in a country that is using propaganda — that’s it. You are destroying the story, and day by day it goes down.”

The technological advances on the streets of Myanmar are the latest in a long history of revolutions in the transmission of news — from the sailing ship to the telegraph to international telephone lines and the telex machine to computers and satellite telephones. “Today every citizen is a war correspondent,” said Phillip Knightley, author of “The First Casualty,” a classic history of war reporting that starts with letters home from soldiers in Crimea in the 1850s and ends with the “living room war” in Vietnam in the 1970s when people could watch a war for the first time on television.
“Mobile phones with video of broadcast quality have made it possible for anyone to report a war,” he said in an e-mail interview. “You just have to be there. No trouble getting a start, the broadcasters have been begging viewers to send their stuff.”

The Ultimate Reality: AMERICAN TEENS EXPERIENCE PERSECUTION IN VIETNAM

Janet Chismar

It wasn’t your typical summer vacation. Last year (2006), eight teens—six Americans and two Australians—travelled to Vietnam to witness firsthand the persecution of Christians in the Asian nation. Their adventure—Underground Reality: Vietnam—was captured on film and is available now on DVD from The Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry dedicated to helping persecuted Christians in nations like Vietnam.

"We’ve seen a lot of reality TV over the last five years or so," says Todd Nettleton, spokesperson for The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM). "Well, this is the ultimate reality -- the reality of life and death for Christians in Vietnam. It’s the reality of Christians paying the price to live out their convictions and serve God." The idea for a DVD was generated as VOM staff wrestled with how to present the reality of persecution to an American audience. "Many Americans think persecution existed in the book of Acts, then it stopped." Nettleton says. "But it is still going on all the time. This DVD serves as a way of confronting the American church with the daily reality of our brothers and sisters in restricted nations."

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) listed Vietnam in its May 2007 report as a "Country of Particular Concern" regarding religious freedom.

According to Tears of the Oppressed, an Australian Christian human rights organization, although Vietnam has a constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, the State has a range of decrees and laws in place to control religious activities and detain religious leaders. Christianity is incompatible with the Marxist/Communist political ideology of Vietnam, which denies the existence of God, and so Vietnamese authorities go to great lengths to suppress and hinder Christian activities. "The Vietnamese government wants people to be Communists first and Christians second," Nettleton explains. "But the people we filmed say they are Christians first and everything else comes after that." The government allows some Christian meetings but they are closely monitored and watched. These groups are subject to having the police raid their services or having people arrested and locked up. In some cases, they are even attacked physically.

One of the things that happened right before the VOM group travelled to Vietnam is that a house church was torn down by the government. "The people came in swinging clubs and some of the Christians were roughed up pretty badly," says Nettleton. "That’s the reality for Christians in Vietnam -- that’s what we wanted to capture on the DVD -- what it is like for an American Christian teenager to come face to face with that type of reality." Bethany, one of the teens who made the trip, admits she was shaken by the reality she experienced. "When I went to Vietnam, everything got shaken up," says Bethany. "One day I interviewed a girl we called Esther. This was my greatest moment in Vietnam. Her dad was the first Christian in their village. When he started having services in their house, the police asked him to come to meet them."
Looking at the floor, the Vietnamese girl told Bethany, "I never saw him again or heard about him for three years."

The World Must Act for Burma

Zoya Phan

Zoya Phan, who spent 10 years in a Thai refugee camp after the Burmese military attacked her village, explains the emergence of the democracy movement and calls on the world to act.

The tables are turned. A regime that rules through fear now fears for its own survival. For 45 years the people of Burma have suffered under military rule. Now they are demanding freedom, with the biggest street protests seen in the country since 1988. Even threats of action, and shooting at monks with bullets and tear gas, has failed to suppress the protests. But this is one of the most brutal regimes in the world, and it won’t give up without a fight. Zoya Phan, a 26-year-old exiled Burmese political activist, is an ethnic Karen, escaped from the Burmese regime’s ongoing war against the Karen ethnic people.

12 years ago when she was just 14 years old, she was forced to leave her home, village and country because of the military regime offensive against ethnic Karen in Burma. As a refugee, she lived on the Thai-Burmese border for many years and spent her teenager live in the refugee camps. Now she is campaigning for human rights and democracy for her homeland as a Campaigns Officer with the Burma Campaign UK.

We know from experience that the regime has opened fire on peaceful protesters. The current regime came to power on the back of a massacre in 1988 that left at least 3,000 civilians dead. In addition, the UN has accused the regime of breaking the Geneva Convention for their deliberate targeting of civilians in attacks on ethnic minorities. They are capable of anything. I know that from personal experience. I was 14 years old when the Burmese attacked my village, opening fire without warning. Now 400,000 monks are pitched against the regime’s 400,000 soldiers, guns against begging bowls, with the hopes and support of a population that has suffered increasing poverty and oppression under military rule.

The protests were sparked by an increase in fuel prices of up to 500 percent. In a country where the majority of people live in poverty, and can barely afford to feed their family, let alone pay for basic medicines if they fall ill, it was a step too far. The regime, increasingly out of touch in its new capital, Nay-Pyi-Daw, miscalculated the mood of the people. They also failed to realise the extent to which democracy activists have developed networks to circumvent controls on the flow of information, and were able to get news out to the international community. Nor did they anticipate the level of organisation that the monks alliance had built, how they had learnt from previous uprisings.

The leadership has remained largely anonymous and under cover, stopping the regime from ‘beheading’ the movement by imprisoning the organisers. This, combined with an international community that finally seems willing to take on the regime with UN action and targeted sanctions, gives Burmese exiles like myself hope that our suffering may soon be over. But much still depends on how the international community responds. They must translate words into action, providing maximum support to those risking their lives on the streets of Burma.

Source: http://www.viettan.org/

DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF THE MARCH FOR DEMOCRACY OF THE PEOPLE IN MYANMAR/BURMATO:

The Government of Myanmar/Burma
All Sangha Leaders, Democratic Organizations and the People of Myanmar/Burma
The Secretary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Office of The Secretary General of The United Nations
The United States Government
The President of the European Union Human Rights Organizations and
International Telecommunications Agencies

For over a month we have followed with great interest news of the march of people’s power in Myanmar/Burma, watching Buddhist monks, students and ordinary people peacefully taking to the streets and demanding that the dictatorial Myanmar/Burma government conduct real dialogue with the people and democratic organizations so as to build a true democratic system that allows for a healthy, competitive pluralistic political society and that respects human rights.

We, the undersigned Vietnamese individuals, organizations and associations struggling for a true Democratic and Prosperous Vietnam, would like to share the following sentiments: We wholeheartedly support the peaceful struggle of the People of Myanmar/Burma in order to establish a strong and stable civil society within a democratic, pluralistic political system.

A successful democratic struggle of the people of Myanmar/Burma will contribute to the stability and security of Myanmar/Burma in particular, ASEAN and the world in general.

We are holding the current government of Myanmar/Burma responsible for the security and safety of these peaceful demonstrators. The military junta of Myanmar/Burma should take this opportunity to hold direct talks with the people and democratic organizations of Myanmar/Burma such as the National Democratic League, led by Madame Aung San Syu Kyi, the Nationalist Students Organization of 1988, and venerable Buddhist clerics to create a peaceful democracy for Myanmar/Burma.

We petition the Secretary of the Association of South East Asian Nations and member countries to raise his voice a in timely fashion to support the people of Myanmar/Burma in their current struggle for democracy, and we request that the military government of Myanmar/Burma conduct peaceful dialogue with the opposition in order to work out the differences between the people and the government.

We are calling upon the United Nations, the United States, the European Union other democratic nations, human rights organizations, and international press and media agencies to raise their voices to support and assist with solutions for the current struggle for democracy of the Myanmar/Burma people.

We resolutely condemn the government of Myanmar/Burma for the use of any violence to suppress peaceful demonstrators. We would like to express our sincere admiration and understanding of the present difficulties that the people of Myanmar/Burma are going through, but we believe wholeheartedly that the non-violent way to struggle for democracy of these brave citizens will be successful.

Drafted in Vietnam on September 28, 2007

1/ Duong Thi Xuan, Movement for Democracy in Vietnam, Ha Noi Viet Nam2/ Do Nam Hai, Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights in Viet Nam3/ Prof. Hoang Minh Chinh, General Secretary Vietnam Democracy Party, Ha Noi Viet Nam4/ Lu Thi Thu Duyen, Member, Block 8406, Ha Noi Viet Nam5/ Le Hong Tuan, Le & Brothers, Ha Noi Viet Nam6/ Minh Son, Representative Committee To Support the Victims of Land Injustice, Sai Gon Viet Nam7/ Prof. Nguyen Chink Ket , Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights in Vietnam8/ Writer Nguyen Xuan Nghia, Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights in Vietnam9/ Engineer Nguyen Tien Trung, Representative Assembly of Democratic Youth, Sai Gon Viet Nam10/ Nguyen Khac Toan, Member, Block 8406, Ha Noi Viet Nam11/ Pham Linh, spokesman United Workers and Farmers Association of Vietnam, Sai Gon Viet Nam 12/ Attorney Phạm Thanh Hai, Constitutional Law Office, Sai Gon Việt Nam13/ Tran Ngoc Ha - Việt Nam Reform Party, Viet Nam14/ Tran Hoang Le – People’s Democratic Party, Ha Noi Viet Nam15/ Vu Thanh Phuong, Member, Block 8406, Ha Noi Viet Nam16/ Vu Thi Binh, Member, Block 8406, Ha Noi Viet Nam17/ Attorney Le Quoc Quan, Ha Noi, Viet Nam18/ Engineer Nguyen Phuong Anh, Ha Noi, Viet Nam19/ Nguyen Qui Duc, Ha Noi Viet Nam20/ Nguyen Duy Thong, Ha Noi Viet Nam21/ Nguyen Ba Dang, Hai Duong, Viet Nam22/ History Prof. Nguyen The Ky, Ha Noi Viet Nam23/ Journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, Ha Noi Viet Nam24/ Dr. Pham Hong Son, Ha Noi, Viet Nam25/ Engineer Pham Van Troi, Ha Tay Viet Nam26/ Vi Duc Hoi, Lang Son, Viet Nam27/ Teacher Vu Hung, Ha Noi Viet Nam28/ Amy Duong, Women for Human Rights29/ Bui Diem, Dai Viet Revolutionary Party30/ Cuong Nguyen, Director, Vietnam Helsinki Committee31/ Do Thanh Cong, Spokesman, People’s Democratic Party32/ Do Hung, Viet Future Foundation33/ Jane DoBui, Women for Human Rights34/ Hoang Tu Duy, Representative, Vietnam Reform Party35/ Le Minh Nguyen, Chairman, Vietnam Human Rights Network36/ Le My Phuong, Committee for Little Sai Gon37/ Ngo Thi Hien, Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam38/ Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan, Chairman, International Committee to Support the Non-Violent Movement for Human Rights in Vietnam 39/ Nguyen Ngoc Bich, Chairman, National Congress of Vietnamese Americans40/ Dr. Nguyen Van Lung, Dai Viet Revolutionary Party41/ Nguyen Cong Bang, Representative, Vietnam Populist Party42/ Nguyen Quoc Trung, The People’s Democratic Party, Phnom Penh Cambodia43/ Nguyen Trung Kien, Block 8406’s Member, Phnom Penh Cambodia44/ Pham Tran Anh, Chairman, Former Vietnam Political and Religion Prisoners Association45/ Tran Quoc Bao, Chairman, Vietnam’s Restoration Party46/ Tran Tu Thanh, Spokesperson, The Vietnam Nationalist Party Overseas 47/ Tran Thanh Hiep, Chairman Vietnam Center Human Rights, Paris – France48/ Doan Viet Hoat, Virginia, U.S.A49/ Nguyen Thanh Trang, San Diego, CA, U.S.A.50/ Nguyen Khoa Thai Anh, Oakland, CA, U.S.A.51/ Vu Thu Hien, Paris, France

Bloggers for Burma to Stage International Online Protest October 4th

The junta in Burma (aka Myanmar) may have blacked out public internet access in the country in an attempt to prevent information about the military's violent crackdown on protesting monks from getting out, but the move is proving to be too little too late.

Now Free-Burma.org has announced an International Bloggers' Day for Burma on October 4th. Bloggers who wish to show their solidarity with the peaceful protest are being asked to refrain from posting that day and instead display one of the Free Burma banners or images (such as the one at right) that have been created for the online protest. A list of participating bloggers (currently more than 2,000) can be found here. The Free-Burma.org protest site for bloggers was launched by two German college students. They got the idea from a multi-lingual Wiki page that was set up last month as a forum to allow participants around the world to brainstorm ideas on how to show support for the protesters in Burma.

Source: http://ko-htike.blogspot.com/

Blogs sweep Vietnam as young push state-run media aside

HANOI (AFP) — Pop stars are doing it, so are millions of teenagers and even Communist Party politicians -- blogging has taken Vietnam by storm and spawned an alternative communications universe to dusty state media.In an online phenomenon that has exploded in a little over a year in this youthful and booming nation, millions of net surfers now reveal all as they share daily gossip and thoughts on their fast-changing society.

Vietnam may be a one-party state that censors its official media and the Internet, but this hasn't stopped millions of yong people embracing a world of carefree online chatting their parents could only have dreamed off.

"Blogs were nothing two years ago and suddenly everybody's got one," said 28-year-old Canadian expatriate Joe Ruelle, a celebrity in the local blogosphere. "The number of people who have blogs is baffling," he said. "It's kind of like the Wild West right now. People write everything." When Hollywood star Angelina Jolie came to adopt a child here in March, in a visit celebrated by state media, bloggers hotly debated the merits of her trip -- and whether she really is the world's most beautiful woman.

When Vietnam hosted world leaders for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit last year, student volunteers and state-paid staff provided behind-the-scenes looks at the event. Bloggers have fought wars over the cultural divide between Vietnam's north and south, but they have also raised funds for the needy, arranged organ donations and given support to people suffering deadly diseases.

Blogger Cuoi HK, aka Tuyen, a Vietnam Airlines employee, touched thousands as he chronicled his fight against cancer on a blog, and supporters held real-life "offline parties" for him before he died earlier this year. "I read your blog to learn how to live and fight," wrote blogger Phuong Thanh. "Thanks for your smile. I know you will be with us forever."

Pop stars such as Phuong Linh use blogs to share details of their daily lives, and unknowns such as blogger Ha Kin have become minor Internet stars through blogs such as her 50-part "Love Story in New York". National assembly deputy Duong Trung Quoc, a prominent historian, recently became the legislature's first blogger, posting an assembly diary as well as historical tit-bits about the 1,000-year-old capital city.

Even Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has shared details of his personal life in a one-off online chat to reach out to young and tech-savvy citizens. "Some people said that as a senior leader, one may feel very lonely," Dung wrote. "But I have never felt lonely. I don't know what other people think, but I feel life is always beautiful." Vietnam's rulers have also been parodied in fake blogs using their names, in which unknown writers have sung the praises of the Communist Party -- leading the goverment in August to affirm that Dung has only one official website.

But for the most part, it is youngsters who have pioneered the form, usually with non-political chit-chat. Phan Kim Ngan, a 13-year-old student from Hanoi, said at least half her 40 classmates now have a blog. Some even have two. "Those who don't have blogs are mostly those without a PC and an Internet connection at home," she said. "They can use an Internet cafe, but that makes it harder to regularly update their blogs. "I write about my life, what I think, and what happens at school. I don't share my blog with my parents and never with my teachers. We sometimes complain about them, so they can't know about our entries."

Writing diaries has a long tradition in Vietnam, a country with a strong and ancient literary heritage, and the tragic Vietnam war diaries of female army doctor Dang Thuy Tram have become a recent best-seller.

But for Ngan and many of her class-mates, written diaries are as passe as the Vietnam War that ended in 1975, long before she was born. "It's old-fashioned and I already have to do too much hand-writing at school," she said. "On a blog we can express ourselves more freely. Writing a blog is a good break from study. It's entertainment."

Blogging has rapidly caught on in Vietnam, where two-thirds of people are under 30 and most are happy technology-adopters who casually text-message each other while riding mopeds through chaotic city traffic. The number of Internet connections has mushroomed to 16.7 million in the country of 84 million people, with cybercafes and wi-fi spots widespread.

"In Vietnam, once something comes along in the way of technology or information, people take to it really very quickly," said Ruelle. "There's a whole language of Internet Vietnamese that's completely different, with abbreviated words, slang and word plays. Someone who doesn't read on the Internet a lot probably wouldn't get half of it," he said. "But blogging is really just an extension of the Vietnamese chatting culture. There is a real satirical bent here. People like to joke and wind each other up about silly things.

Vietnamese are the ultimate chatters." Ruelle should know. His blog -- a series of quirky takes on daily life, and originally a way to practice his Vietnamese -- has received three million hits and made him a household name here. "I had written a few things, mostly for my friends," he said. "There was an entry about old ladies doing exercises in a park to that song "boom, boom, boom boom -- I want you in my room." And I wrote about why I thought that was funny. "An online newspaper found my blog and put it on its front page, and it immediately went from 10,000 to 100,000 hits. I got so many emails from readers that at first I thought my inbox was full of spam." Ruelle has since published a best-selling book of his blogs and parlayed his online stardom into a job as host of a VTV6 youth show and a leading role in a soon-to-be-screened tele-romance.

The authorities have taken notice of the blog boom. State and party censors have threatened fines and other penalties for "black blogs" with pornographic and "out of stream" content or "information against the party and the state". "There's been debate about whether there should be some kind of censorship," said Ruelle. "The main conclusion was, 'What on earth would you use as an acceptable standard?' It's pretty much a free-for-all at the moment."

Internet cut in Myanmar, blogger presses on

By Wayne Drash CNN (CNN) The Internet connection in Myanmar was cut Friday, limiting the free flow of information the nation's citizens were sharing with the world depicting the violent crackdown on monks and other peaceful demonstrators.

Ko Htike runs his Myanmar blog out of his London apartment and says he's trying to stop the violence. Myanmar-based blogs went dark suddenly. But London-based blogger Ko Htike -- who has been one of the most prominent bloggers posting information about the violence -- has vowed to keep up the fight, saying where "there is a will, there is a way." "I sadly announce that the Burmese military junta has cut off the Internet connection throughout the country," he said on his blog Friday. "I, therefore, would not be able to feed in pictures of the brutality by the brutal Burmese military junta."

Ko Htike is a 28-year-old who left Myanmar, once known as Burma, seven years ago to study in England. Watch a blogger's fight for Myanmar » He told CNN.com a day earlier that he has as many as 40 people in Myanmar sending him photos or calling him with information. They often take the photos from windows from their homes, he said. Myanmar's military junta has forbidden such images, and anyone who sends them is risking their lives. "If they get caught, you will never know their future. Maybe just disappear or maybe life in prison or maybe dead," he told CNN. Why would they take such risks? "They thought that this is their duty for the country," he said. "That's why they are doing it. It's like a mission." Even with Friday's action by the government, he said he will continue to do all he can to get images of what's happening out for the world to see. "I will also try my best to feed in their demonic appetite of fear and paranoia by posting any pictures that I receive through other means," he said on his blog. "I will continue to live with the motto that 'if there is a will there is a way.' "

With few Western journalists allowed in Myanmar, his blog has become one of the main information outlets. More than 170,000 people from 175 countries have gone to the blog, according to a counter on the page. On Friday, shots rang out in the streets of Myanmar's biggest city of Yangon, marking the third straight day of violence at the hands of the ruling military junta to suppress citizen protests. See photos of the protests »

One diplomat told CNN that a Western witness had reported seeing about 35 bodies lying in row is on a street near Sule Pagoda, with civilians praying over them. CNN could not independently confirm the report, and it was not known if the bodies were from Friday or the result of earlier violence. According to The Associated Press, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday he believes the loss of life in Myanmar has been "far greater" than is being reported. In a country where Buddhist monks are revered, the violence against them could stir even more outrage among the people of Myanmar. "Now, there is blood shed on the monastery," Htike said.

The Internet has also spawned other Myanmar pages. On the popular online community of Facebook, several Myanmar support pages were set up with links keeping a close eye on the latest developments. One letter floating around the Internet from a group calling itself the "Global Alliance of Burmese Students" called on people abroad to stage protests. "We call on you to take action, to take the lead, and to show solidarity with our fellow countrymen back home," it said. "The streets of Yangon bleed red, and it will all be in vain if we do not act and mobilize for change." Other people used technology as simple as the cell phone as a means to get the word out on what was happening. "We didn't do any terrorism, but they sharp-shoot us," one woman said by phone inside Myanmar Thursday. "I just want to say we have no weapons and no rights." She added, "Who can help us?"

The last time the nation saw such widespread protests was in 1988, when today's instantaneous means of communication did not exist. The government used brutal force to quash that democratic uprising, with few people seeing what happened. View a timeline of events there » Today's technology allows anyone with the means to capture what is happening. Despite the cutting of the Internet inside the country, people can still take pictures and videos with cell phones and send them to the outside world. "They are ready to die for that," Vincent Brossels with Reporters Without Borders said on Thursday. "I spoke with a Burmese journalist this morning in Rangoon and he told me that now I don't care about anything. I'm ready to be in jail. I'm ready to die for that." Benjamin Valk, a 25-year-old student from a university in Tokyo, Japan, sent CNN.com video of saffron-robed monks carrying out a peaceful protest earlier this week in Yangon, once known as Rangoon.

The video shows thousands of monks and civilians walking together and chanting. He said he felt compelled to share the video because people "should know what is happening in a country like Myanmar." "In a world where democracy is considered the better or perhaps the best political system, there is huge global support for a people who dare to openly challenge a military dictatorship and call for democracy," Valk said. "I think it's good for the world to see." Htike agrees, saying he's just trying to stop the killing in his homeland. "If I can publish these kind of [photos] and this kind of news to the world, so maybe they may stop a little bit."