Tag: Burma

Today there are many bloggers joining together to support those in Burma who have risked their lives to spread the truth.  This article gives some details about what bloggers in Burma have had to subject themselves to just to tell their stories.  As a sign of solidarity, thousands of people across the globe are dedicating their stories today to the freedom of Burma.  I am one of them.

Also, for any of you Penn State students or Alumni, Chevron has made a deal with the school for $17.5 million for researching coal.  I wrote the Collegian (the student paper) about the importance of not supporting Chevron if they support freedom in Burma.  I think it will be published tomorrow.  I hope my fellow Penn Stater’s will let them know we don’t support Chevron, and we don’t support Penn State accepting their money.  Every little bit that we all do adds to the collective and once it’s large enough we can bring about change.

It’s this simple:

It is 9.15 p.m. on Tuesday evening in Yangon, the time of day when the stranglehold of fear settles across the city. The first heavily armed soldiers take position outside the few restaurants that still serve foreigners. Curfew starts at 10 p.m. After that, anyone who is still out on the streets is risking their lives.

The foreigners can’t find a car to take them from the restaurant. Someone goes out to find some sort of transport. Outside, a young man in shabby clothes emerges from the shadows to speak to the foreigners.

“The repression is continuing every night. When there are no more witnesses, they drive through the suburbs at night and kill the people.”

He wants to get his story out, and he does so quickly. If he’s caught, he’ll be imprisoned or killed. He’s from South Okalapa, a huge, terribly poor suburb. Most of the rebel monks were from there. The military junta crushed the rebellion in the city, then went to the source.

Around midnight, the military rolled into town. There’s a special unit of gangsters and ex-cons- for special purposes.

They surrounded a monastery on Weiza Yandar Street. All the roughly 200 monks living there were forced to stand in a row and the security forces beat their heads against a brick wall. When they were all covered in blood and lay moaning on the ground, they were thrown into a truck and taken away. “We are crying for our monks,” said the man, and then he was gone.

The huge monastery in the city is empty and quiet. Several thousand monks are gone. Disappeared.

“We are assuming that the number of victims among the monks and protesters last week goes well into the hundreds,” says one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some 800 monks are captive at the infamous Insein Prison. They have no contact with the world.

(I)f the authorities don’t provide international organizations with access to the camps soon, it will be a matter of time before there are further deaths.

The British ambassador hopes condemnation from ASEAN will help. He hopes U.N. efforts will help. He hopes the Chinese will help.

The article in Spiegel Online ends with these chilling words:

Editor’s Note: For security reasons we are not naming our correspondents in Burma.

The blogosphere is frequently full of cries about the creeping fascism of the Bush Administration. There are claims that we are all in imminent danger. There are comparisons to the world’s most brutal regimes. The Bush Administration is a viper’s den of war criminals, imperialists, and End Times theocrats.

You want to talk fascism?

We all know about Chevron’s involvement in Burma.  If we are serious about Burma then we should be serious about putting pressure on Chevron.  And putting pressure on those that support Chevron. 

So take the pledge and refuse to view DailyKos until this ad is dropped and a Front Page post renounces it.  Or is renouncing only good for O’Reilly and Limbuagh?

The Ananda Temple

This temple symbolizes the endless wisdom (Ananta Panna) of the Buddha just as the Thatbyinnyu temple symbolizes the omniscience of the Tathagata. Hence the name Ananta, which changed later to Ananda, the name of Buddha’s cousin.

The gilded htee (umbrella) caps the whole at a height of 168 feet above the ground. The interior consists of two vaulted and high but narrow corridors running parallel to each other along the four sides of the temple. They are connected by low and narrow passages in front of the window by which light is admitted and further intersected by four large corridors into which access is obtained through the porticoes.

In the center is an enormous cube, on the four sides of which are deep and high niches enshrining four colossal standing Buddhas of the present world who have appeared and entered Nirvana. The images are represented in the following order: north-Kakusanda; east-Konagamana; south- Kassapa; and west- Gotama. Each of them is 31 feet high above the throne, which itself is nearly 8 feet in height. Of these images only those on the north and south are the original ones contemporary with the foundation of the temple ; those on the east and west were put up later to replace the original images which were destroyed by fire.
Other Interesting features of the temple are the numerous glazed terracotta tiles (left page top) ornamenting the base and the receding terraces which represent the Jataka stories and the hosts of Mara’s army. Each of these plaques is inscribed with a Mon legend. The interior walls are honey-combed with niches in which are set small stone Buddhas in various postures. The most notable among the sculptures is a series of eighty relief’s in the two lower tiers of niches in the outer corridor, illustrating the life of the Bodhisattva from his birth to the attainment of supreme wisdom. The western sanctum also enshrines the life-size statues of its founder, Kyanzittha and the primate, Shin Arahan

Cross-posted from DailyKos

See Not So Far Away – by Rusty1776

Make a Difference – Make Yourself Heard – Hit The Icon – Do It Now

ABITSU (All Burma I.T. Students Union) and Free-Burma.ORG have designated October 4 as
Free Burma Day.

The aim is to bring attention to the cause of the Burmese people by channeling global internet traffic for one day to one site to register protest.

Given the role of bloggers in reporting on the situation, international media attention is now focused on the power of blogs so we politely request your support of this action without fail.

This page has a beautiful Photo-journal of some of the sights, and offers some insights, captured around Myanmar.

Travel guide link for pictures of Myanmar

Even the Wikipedia page for Myanmar is closed off……sigh

Here is the link to the page where you can find the embed code to post this video elsewhere today…or any day…should you encounter someone who needs to see it…watch…be heard…make noise…YELL LOUDER!!!!!

Prior to Theravada Buddhism, the Burmese were animists who worshiped a series of nature spirits called Nats. The term Nat derives from the Pali-Sanskrit, natha, meaning lord or guardian.

There are 37 officially recognized Nats (inside Nats), each with its own history. The Nats are spirits of natural forces, such as water, wind, stones and trees and take many guises. All Nats are  ghosts or spirits of heroes.  There are many lesser nats (outside Nats) that are characterized as mischievous when they are disturbed.

…Some were martyrs, people who had been betrayed or had suffered a premature and frightful death. One had died of diarrhea and was reputed to inflict that on those who displeased him.

Regardless of their origins, they were easily disturbed, given to making a fuss when they were not treated with respect.

~Amy Tan, Saving Fish From Drowning, a novel combining Myanmar politics, Burmese superstition and spirituality, plus a touch of humor.

Whooey — the intertubes really have changed things.

This week Jon Swift is a guest blogger at mike’s round-up at Crooks & Liars and I’m already impressed with yesterday and today’s posts.

Swift says:

Something seems to be happening in Burma or Myanmar or whatever, but it must not be very important because hardly anyone is blogging about it.

Never let it be said that DocuDharma shall let this challenge go unanswered!

Jon links to comments from left field which in turn links to the front paged New York Times story on what’s going on in Burma:

Myanmar’s military government has sealed off the country to foreign journalists but information about the protests has been increasingly flowing out through news reports, exile groups in Thailand with contacts inside Myanmar, and through the photographs, videos and audio files, carried rapidly by technologies, including the Internet, that the government has failed to squelch.

…

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of an assassinated independence hero, Aung San, came to prominence when she became a leader in the pro-democracy demonstrations of 1988.

Her political party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory in Parliamentary elections in 1990, although the junta, fearing her charismatic appeal, had already placed her under house arrest.

The military government annulled the result of the 1990 elections and held on to power. But it miscalculated the public mood again in 2002 when it released her from house arrest and allowed her to tour the country, visiting party offices.

She drew increasingly large and enthusiastic crowds until a band of government-backed thugs attacked a convoy in which she was traveling, killing several people. The government seized her again and placed under even stricter house arrest, cutting off her telephone and deepening her isolation.

The latest protests began Aug. 19 in response to sharp, unannounced fuel price increases of up to 500 percent, immediately raising the prices of goods and transportation.

They were led at first by former student protesters and other activists, but most of these leaders had been arrested or were in hiding when the monks began their protests last Tuesday.

The monks were apparently motivated at first by an attack on a small demonstration at which security officers fired shots into the air and beat a number of monks.

Since then, the monks’ protests have spread from city to city and have become more overtly political.

Please click the link in Jon’s quote to see an amazing video from Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi on non-violent protest.  It is quite astonishing — and so is she.