The ruling military junta has cracked down hard on previous protests. But the current round is led by Buddhist monks, who have enormous social and moral prestige in that country. Will the government dare crack down on them?
Riot police have been sent in, and a curfew declared, but the protestors say they won’t back down. There are now at least 100,000 marchers in the streets of Rangoon.
Bush just announced economic sanctions on the Myanmar government and its backers.
Wow, BG, thanks for the heads-up, I somehow missed it. The Economist thinks that a crackdown is still the most likely outcome. As the protest widens to include many non-monks, it will just make it that much easier to come down hard on people who don’t have to kind of protection-by-moral-stature you mentioned the monks as having, and so it might not end up accomplishing much. Still, let’s hope it does.
I’ll be in Malaysia (and, briefly, Singapore) in late December. If this thing is still happening then, I’ll try to find out what I can and report to you all then.
Probably. They did it in 1988, right? I believe it was the NY Times that reported - and it’s hard to say what’s actually happened over there - that the government has ordered robes and may be preparing to have agents pretend to be monks and act up in order to justify a crackdown. I hope the US sanctions and world attention help, but the country with the most influence on Myanmar is said to be China, and China doesn’t appear to care.
The Burmese junta – nasty thugs! –
Are dissing Aung Suu Kyii
We’ll help her out, altough it gets us
Into World War III
BURMA SAVE!
I wouldn’t put it past the Burmese government to do practically anything. Their control of media in the country is near total, and they showed little compunction in '88 regarding wholesale slaughter of protesters.
According to the most recent reports the crackdown seems to have started. The riot police have started using tear gas, there has been shooting at the demonstrators and at least one monk has been killed. In addition, many opposition leaders have been arrested in the last 24 hours.
I’m afraid this can get really ugly, I agree with** Dunawake** regarding the junta. It would probably be necessary for the major trading partners, especially China, to get involved in order to reign in the junta. So maybe some pressure on China might be in order. I think it’s essential that the international community keeps a close eye on the situation.
This is going to get very nasty.
The Khmer Rouge killed many monks and put the rest to work in the fields.
I suspect that there’s going to be another Tiananmen/1988-style massacre.
The other velvety revolutions have happened because the armed forces sided with the people against the government. This time, the SLORC (or whatever the bastards are calling themselves now) are the government.
As Ready_for_my_closeup says, China is the key. We need to pressure our governments into pressuring China and ASEAN. Not that it’ll do much good.
I’m thinking Tianamen square too, although I really hope I’m wrong. The people of Burma really do deserve a “velvet” revolution, but it looks highly unlikely at this point.
China is still insisting that they won’t get involved in domestic affairs, but it might be possible to pressure them. My best guess would be to use the Olympics in some way, seems to be awfully important to the Chinese government that that one goes without a hitch. However, I’m very pessimistic about Burma, the junta seems to be the kind of despots who cling to power at the cost of everyone and everything else and they don’t seem to be easily swayed by outside pressures.
Interesting take from a friend of mine who has travelled throughout Burma several times (and whose dad was born there during British rule):
People inside Burma have been emailing the BBC and speaking to the BBC Burmese service. Some of these accounts are available here.
Here is a blog I found via BBC that is maintained by a London-based Burmese man called Ko Htike. He’s getting a lot of on-the-spot reportage, some of which is in English. There are lots of camera-phone pictures and videos.
I think we have already learned many times over that nobody is in any position to put much pressure on China.
According to the Washington Post (midway through the article), Suu Kyii has been taken to prison, apparently to keep her out of this.
Very interesting how impartial the China Daily (source: Xinhua) is being over this.
Well, they don’t want their readers getting any ideas, now, do they? :dubious:
From the above-linked Washington Post article:
They’re actually publicising it, though.
I’m optimistic, which is kind of rare for me in these circumstances, for the following reasons:
I think, BTW, that China not doing anything is a good thing. When China does something, bad things happen.
I think this is going to be a fairly long, extremely ugly struggle. And I think that, in the end, the government will be out, and Aung Sung will be in.
Feel free to correct my ignorance.
Yes, they often do . . .
What’s Sanskrit for “Ayatollah”?