burma
1 May 2008
Take Burma or Watch a Million Die
If the United Nations is not prepared to lead a coalition to invade Burma, it should be closed down for the farce that it is, writes Tony Ryan
The more gullible of us grew up believing that the United Nations was created to stifle aggression, prevent genocide and bring peace to the world. Unsurprisingly, we saw words like God, goodness, altruism, dedication and honour as synonymous with the United Nations.We became a little disillusioned when the occupation of Palestine expanded unabated; when the CIA went unpunished for the torture and death of 30,000 men, women and children in Nicaragua; and I guess our innocence had necrosed by the time we realised that the UN actually precipitated and permitted the genocides of Rwanda.
But by this time we also realised that its creator, Nelson Rockefeller, owned the land the UN headquarters stood on, and also the banker shop-fronts we know of as the World Bank, the IMF and BIS; and of course, dominated control of the funds of these and the US Federal Reserve. His successor, David Rockefeller, created the all-influential Trilateral Commission and, along with the Rothschilds/JP Morgan, Leub, Warburg, Hill Samuel and a dozen or more global bankers, controlled every reserve bank and treasury in the world. Effectively, this financial elite is the United Nations. Our disillusionment was complete.
Unlike Charlie Brown, we lost faith.
But today we realise that the situation is not entirely lost. We can redeem ourselves.
All we need do is inform that incredibly ridiculous Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, that he is mobilising a global force to brush aside the Burmese military, and save the lives of a million people. Perhaps brushing is rather an optimistic word to use, but I would bet my last meal that the US knows damn well where every ammunition dump is, and a few other strategic targets besides. The cyclone damage will hamper the generals' resistance.
Can I put this another way? The generals don't give a fig for diplomacy and they do not want foreign rescue squads in the middle of pro-democracy regions. They will not let help agencies in, so we either force our way in or one million people die. How often in life are the choices so stark?
If we don't do this, we should close down the United Nations for the farce that it is.
So here I am, lodging my vote for invasion. Betcha I'm on me Pat Malone. And, yes, I volunteer to go.
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I am a bit beyond volunteering to to fight wars, but I appreciate the thought here. Trouble is, what do you reckon China, and possibly Russia, who are backing Burma all the way, in insisting on non-intervention by Western forces (and after Afghanistan and Iraq, and possibly Iran, I guess I can understand this to a certain extent) are going to be doing when the US Air Force starts the bombing runs?
Just from here, it appears that China and Russia are supporting all the most horrendous regimes in the world, including Mianma, Sudan, Zimbabwe, just to spite the USA! And this does include in the Security Council of the United Nations, so any chance of getting any resolution to take action against Burma has to be ZERO!
Now the USA is talking about doing bombing runs of food drops into Burma. Very dangerous talk, if understandable in a humanity guise. Trouble is, the whole world is now utterly suspicious of ANY action by the United States of America. Even we ‘know’ that their Aid Agencies are packed with CIA agents. They have by their own actions totally destroyed their own credibility.
Really, the only chance to save a few of the people left alive after the disaster, partly caused by the Military Junta of Burma, is if China goes in there in a really big way and does what has to be done, and fast! But, as one Burmese expatriate said on ABC Radio this morning, in reality, the Junta is quite happy for hundreds of thousands of the Delta people to be killed, as they see them as The Enemy! NOT Junta supporters! And I do not believe that the Junta will see spending money on saving their own people is one of their first priorities. I see they want all Western Aid to be directed through them! Of course they do, that would be a propaganda coup, and besides, they would skim off most of it for themselves.
We all know that in a few weeks, if not days, just like the Sudan, just like Zimbabwe, the media attention will move on to the next disaster, and all this will be forgotten, and people will die, by the thousands, as they always do, and Australians, just as we always do, will ‘move on’, and go back to thinking of our pockets and our sex.
Cynical? Yes!
Sorry, but I just do not see this thing having any happy ending. Thousands more people are going to die, as rotting bodies send diseases into the water and air. Lack of food is going to cause rioting, which will take up all the energies and time of the Junta Military forces. The West will sit outside, filling pages of Media, crying out for access, which will continue to be denied. It does seem that all the Junta is interested in at the moment is the Referendum which is to cement their power for ever-more. Nothing much else!
Dazza.
I have resolved not to write electronic responses in an irate state, but on this occasion I am over-riding my own rule. This trite, thoughtless and ignorant article displays exactly the type of misunderstanding of international relations that gets in the way of Australians usefully contributing to the very difficult task of establishing an effective international community.
First, a couple of facts.
1. UN agencies, including UNICEF, UNHCR and WHO have been working 24/7 coordinating a comprehensive response that will draw on the capacities of the most suitable agencies.
2. The relevant agencies, under the overall coordination of the UN have been applying for entry permission to the Burmese authorities.
3. The Burmese authorities have so far given ambiguous responses, but permission is beginning to emerge.
Burma is perhaps the worlds most closed regime and has not allowed for the type of international intervention that is generally the pattern in natural disasters. In the Tsunami for example, many international aid efforts were not able to enter Burma.
It is understandable to feel frustration that what may now be 100,000 people are dying, while many could be saved by aid organisations. But a mature and thoughtful response is to look at what is stopping the aid getting to them. To blame the UN is to blame the international organisation most poised to intervene effectively. In a world where national sovereignty, even in Burma, is still the effective order, the UN is the closest we have to a transnational agent dedicated to peace, security and human rights. If we care about people in Burma, we can use our democratic identity as Australian citizens to lobby our government to strengthen the international order.
Invasion might sound like a good, worthy and even justifiable one off hit, but we live in a world that goes on past the initial high of self righteousness. No state is prepared to threaten the principle of sovereign right, unless, as we saw in Iraq, it wishes to use high minded justifications like human rights to mask blatant self interest. Genuine concern for the people of other nations requires a slightly more sophisticate response.
Come on, settle down. Start thinking. That’s the only way to help those afflicted stranded people.
The real politik is not going to change for the sake of a million lives.
A terrible thing to say. A terrible truth.
China is the force of political influence in that region. No doubt about it. Beijing desires the PR flattery for the Olympics not least the torch on everest and the weather looked severe from the footage I saw, those poor poor climbers on patriotic script.
But they couldn’t predict a tsunami in Burma to blow that PR away.
So here is my proposal, no postures or grandstanding or cynicism east to west or west to east, to save as many victims as possible:
1. Every aid organisation or worker accept a Chinese govt partner in their endeavours. Burma will accept Big Brother China’s involvement and they will guard Burma’s interests as far as China goes.
2. Burma cannot refuse China’s involvement in a handshake with western charities because of their influence.
3. China will look good and active in providing a solution in the lead up to Beijing Olympics, and will earn that kudos too if it really expidites matters.
4. The western charities will get to help those according to their apolitical purpose.
5. Burma ‘govt’ will have reassurance their interests are being monitored at least to the extent that China props them up anyway.
Otherwise Burma cyclone can only further distract from the Chinese promotion of the Olympic Games. It’s yet another dimension to being accepted into the world community with the status that central Beijing Govt feels they have earned and desire.
It is easy, although unattractive, to mock-heroically volunteer for something that would never happen and to which you would definitely not be invited if it did. Dcelermajor is correct in pointing out some of the nonsense in this article. NewMatilda does itself no favours by publishing the grandstanding views of foolish loudmouths.
It is always irksome when the hitherto silent fail to empathise.
Of course I considered the options raised; and a lot more besides. But as every writer acknowledges, brevity is the primary virtue.
Dazza
You make excellent points.
However, may I respectfully observe that the Burmese generals, like their colleagues from Bangladesh to the Philippines, are exclusively interested in power and wealth. If it becomes necessary, they have their Swiss accounts to turn to, and will decamp. Ego and principle are like uniforms and can be shed.
Secondly, astute diplomats should already be requesting that Hugo Chavez support a non-US and exclusively UN intervention, on humanitarian grounds. It is unlikely that Russia will adopt a position in opposition to Venezuela.
Dcelermajer
As an apologist for a failed system you have said nothing I can respond to.
Tom McLoughlin
I believe you have misread the power dynamic. To preserve its investment in the Olympics, China is captive to world opinion; not vice versa. But I most certainly support your suggestion that we ask China to take the initiative. How can China refuse.
But this should not be a unilateral exercise and China should lead the UN intervention. To allow China carte blanche will terrify every south east Asian nation; who are fearful of Sino-expansionism. So too should we be.
In the meantime, let’s hear more suggestions; which is the point of this exercise.
I’m really hoping this article was a joke, but considering the carnage that has already been visited on Myanmar, I’m kinda hoping it isn’t. Military intervention is rarely a good idea. Okay, it was necessary to reign in the Nazi war machine in the 40s. But how many wars since then could one say were justified? Does anyone remember Vietnam? How many years did that one go for? How many millions of lives were lost? And what about all the consequences? Believe me, I want the best for the people of Myanmar, but I don’t think a full on invasion is the way to go.
Pickells
Vietnam was an aggressive and imperial invasion and had nothing to do with humanitarian objectives; and it was illegal.
I agree that military solutions are the last possible option; but are you asserting that Rwandan genocide would have happened if the UN had sent in troops as requested?
Either offer a better solution or refrain from imposing your incapacity to act.
Australiana
You accuse… ‘to mock-heroically volunteer’. As it happens, I have done basic military training; I am formally Community Development trained; I was the only welfare officer stationed in Darwin’s Northern Suburbs in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Tracey; I have a range of practical skills ranging from mechanical, welding, carpentry and all-land transport; a capacity to quickly accommodate foreign languages and cultures; and a few decade’s experience in grappling with political realities, including in south Asia.
In your lofty wisdom, just how many skills do you consider I require before I am entitled to express an opinion on this crisis. I meant what I said.
Hey Tom, Vietnam was Jack Kennedy’s attempt to save face after the debacle that happened in Cuba. If that little incident had been handled more professionally, then all the subsequent horrors in South East Asia could well have been avoided.
I don’t know about Rwanda, but I’m pretty certain that if an imperialist UN led mission (which - let’s be frank - means a US mission) were to invade Myanmar, then China would be onto it like a shot. Fuck the Olympics.
Seems like a lot of grandstanding about the big picture here, but not much informed comment about Burma. Which is a pity, because the challenges are huge and deserving of more serious debate in Australia and internationally.
Burmese opposition groups are not calling for an invasion but rather for genuine dialogue between the junta, pro-democracy forces and the ethnic minorities for national reconciliation. However the past 15 years of constitution-drafting has been controlled by the junta’s hand picked delegates, which is one of the reasons the opposition is calling for citizens to vote "no" in the constitutional referendum tomorrow, May 10. No one pretends that the climate is conducive to a free, fair and credible referendum, but neither does the opposition want to deny voters their first opportunity to vote since their overwhelming voice in the 1990 elections was ignored by the junta. The international community’s challenge is to hold the junta to account.
The junta’s prioritisation of its constitional referendum while refusing to repeal restrictions on multilateral aid to cyclone and flood victims is no surprise. During decades of armed conflict in eastern Burma, the junta’s counter-insurgency efforts have targeted civilians to undermine the resistance, and restricted humanitarian agencies from accessing the most vulnerable communities in conflict affected areas.
This week, restrictions on visa applications for aid workers, customs procedures for relief goods, access and movements, and the distribution of relief goods are inhibiting the efforts of multilateral and independent aid groups. (Thailand and India provided bilateral relief with much fanfare, but who knows how the junta used those goods once they were received at Rangoon airport). Dcelermajor is correct in defending the UN from unfair criticism in this regard, as the quickest and highest level protests to the SPDC have been facilitated by the UN rather than individual governments.
Given the junta’s lack of capacity and political will to assist and protect its own citizens, there is a strong case for the international community’s "responsibility to protect" to be invoked in the case of Burma. Indonesia, China and India apparently tried to block this from being tabled at the UN Security Council earlier this week. Tony suggests military invasion but relief drops from air or sea, targeted financial sanctions and a global arms embargo are more realistic objectives.
dmcarthur
Your position is entirely reliant on the integrity of the UN. Most of us have grown beyond that level of naivete.
Secondly, built into your obviously knowledgeable presentation (which is appreciated) is the second presumption that voices heard in Burma represent the people. They do not, any more than Bob Brown, John Howard or Kevin Rudd represent the voice of the Australian people. My surveys reveal quite the opposite; that, depending upon specific issue, between 74% and 94% disagree with our so-called representatives. This experience is universal. Representationalism is not democracy, as Abe Lincoln pointed out.
The third factor you ignore is that this is our money we are talking about, and 54% of Australians have incomes below $15,000, so this is a very raw nerve you are poking. I am not aware of any survey on this, but anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that Australians are fed up with their aid money being hijacked by bloated agency executives, or by corrupt governments to further oppress their own people.
So I return to my original position, that we contribute nothing to Burma; OR if we do, it is in circumstances that guarantee legitimate assistance.
The only acceptable way this can happen is through the UN, but with our aid monitored by reliable Australians. Most certainly, the question remains floating, do the Burmese victims want such intervention? There is only one way this can be answered, dmcarthur, and that is to ask yourself, if you are holding your dying child in your arms, what would be your answer?
We learn that 39 tonnes of aid has been ‘hi-jacked’ by the Burmese Military. One can guess that most if not all of this will never get anywhere near the people most in need. One can also guess that any aid that is not directly taken by aid agencies to the people in need will also end up in Military hands. The Junta are insisting that ALL aid be distributed by their Military, or with the ‘guidance’ of the Military.
We also learn that aid is being made conditional on the receptors putting a Yes vote to the Referendum in the Ballot box, undoubtedly placed in front of them. Hear also that Ballot papers with YES already printed on them are being distributed, and people being forced to place them in the boxes.
The Burmese Junta have no thought whatsoever for the people affected by the disaster. After all, they have spent many years exterminating large numbers of those same people, as well as others.
I hear ‘Stockings’ Downer raving on (and you have to say that it was incoherent, listening to it) about how the Rudd Government should behave, and intimating that the Libs would have done things differently. How any Radio Station, even the down market ABC, can still air this blathering garbage is beyond me.
I say again, unless China, and perhaps India, get themselves into gear and act immediately to provide the aid, or work with the UN, NOT against it, there is no hope for the millions of people affected.
They will die, and continue to die, while the world watches and cries tears of frustration, but will NOT act, because of politics!
Shame on the whole DAMNED lot of them.
But Military action, particularly by the US, and it’s puppet, the UN, is just NOT ON. Already, that US battle group out there in the seas off Burma and Thailand, ostensibly for Humanitarian purposes, must be sending shivers up the spines of millions of people, knowing the tendencies of Bush and Co. to act unilaterally, and rashly. A War in Burma is the last thing we want right now. What we do need is people talking to China’s (and India’s) leaders about sensible action, working WITH the UN and other aid bodies.
Dazza.
This is not the first time the world has faced a humanitarian crisis complicated by military control over the victims.
One such prior occasion occured soon after the last World War when many desperate and starving West Berlin residents were blockaded by the Russian military but who were saved by Allied bombers which flew essential supplies into the area cut off by the Russians.
Tony, the "Western World" has changed since then. The Cold War is over, not because we "won", but because "we" have become more like "them".
There is no "Free West" vs "Eastern Soviet Bloc" anymore because there is no "free" anymore. Even free countries like Switzerland and Liechtenstein were "blacklisted" by our own Australian government for observing the rights of their citizens to greater financial and personal freedoms than those which our own Australian government has left us with in laws passed under duress from such international organisations as the OECD, CFR, UN, etc.
Tony, you also mention that "this is our money we are talking about". Well, no, you are wrong. It is not "our money" at all. Legislation pertaining to our RBA and our Australian dollar specifies that neither the Commonwealth nor any Australian State may coin or print money. Furthermore, the RBA, for all intents and purposes, belongs to the "Crown" and not to the "Commonwealth of Australia". So it is not "our money".
When Australia finds the courage quotient to print it’s own currency maybe then we will be able to call the "Australian dollar" "our money".
The plastic paper with "Australian dollars" printed on it is anything BUT Australian. They all belong to the bankers and financiers which you mention in your article.
There is nobody left in the "West" who believes in freedom, liberty or the right of the individual human being to self determination.
The world will witness the bombing of an Al-Qods camp in Iran and the ignition of yet another genocide in yet another middle east nation before the world will come to the aid of Burma in an act of mercy which once typified the actions of what were once "Free" and "Western" nations.
One of those "free nations" was the old Australia, a free nation of free people which our parents and grandparents once knew.
Our civilisation is in decline because we have lost our love of freedom. We have become the world’s oppressors and aggressors and our "Western Superpowers", England and USA, have become the modern day "Pax Barboricum" responsible for the genocide of many millions of innocent people, from the concentration camps of the Boer War where more than 50% of an entire nation’s women and children were murdered by us to the genocide of millions in Vietnam, in modern day Iraq and, of course, the worst genocide of the 20th Century, the ongoing attempt to eliminate an entire nation of people in the Palestines.
Before we can help the Burmese we need to do some soul searching and ask ourselves who we are and who we have become because it is my belief that it is in fact we who are in desperate need of liberation and salvation before we can "liberate" or "save" anyone else.
George Vickers
Dazza and George Vickers
Every word both of you say is true; and yes, the US must be told to back off.
But if we are not decisive, and act now; men, women and children will die by the hundreds of thousands; and with disease looming on the horizon, perhaps millions.
All because we were frozen in indecision.
Have we now become the Licky Country? Should we change the configuration of our footy guernsies and have the green on the front only?
The more Tony Ryan goes on the more daffy the whole thing becomes. A UN military intervention led by Hugo Chavez? Russia automatically supporting because "It is unlikely that Russia will adopt a position in opposition to Venezuela."?
These are just a couple of Mr Ryan’s transparently loopy proposals.
I don’t doubt that his heart is in the right place but, frankly, his head is not.
Tony,
‘54% of Australians have incomes below $15,000’ ? I don’t think so.
Burma is a Chinese protectorate: any talk of invasion would have the PLA transferring half of its four million troops towards the Burmese border quick-smart.
The US would lead a UN-sponsored invasion ? And open up a third front ? They’re already losing on the other two, in Iraq and Afghhanistan, and if a single American soldier set foot on the place, or a single bomber flew overhead, China would be into Taiwan like a rat up a rope.
Joe
Could whoever reads to Joe and Australiana, please read the posts back very slowly.
No one suggested that Chavez play an active role; merely support UN intervention in Burma, to preempt Russian opposition. And if you don’t understand the Russian/Venezuelan alliance you should get mummy to read big person’s books to you.
But we can now see where Alexander Downer’s fans have drifted off to; to clog up Internet discussion sites.
Joe, the last thing any sensible person would want is a US-led UN Invasion. Apart from being an oxymoron, once again, nobody on my side of the fence suggested such a thing. But elsewhere, some writers have suggested that the announced intention alone might produce fruitful results. I am OK with that; whatever works.
And Aussie incomes? Instead of sucking away on your Murdoch formula, how about doing your own survey in the suburbs and let us know your findings. So far, one nationally renowned economist has challenged our figures and when he made some enquiries, suddenly took us very seriously; or so he said. He promised some collaboration and hasn’t been heard from since.
In my experience, that is the way of you elitists. You deride and vilify and misrepresent, but you don’t have the integrity or guts to get out in the real world and produce real evidence. Consistent with your lack of substance, you also hide behind nom de plumes.
Now back to Burma; unless a miracle occurs, it is UN intervention or the people die. Now, spineless ones, offer your solution and use your real names.
Tony,
My point was that the US would be very unlikely to take the lead in a UN invasion, given its present troubles. But when you go on about Rockefeller owning the land that the UN headquarters are built on, etc., etc., it does seem that this is what you are hinting at, a UN beholden to the US and ready to act as its puppet in relation to invasions. I’m not sure if it’s worked all that well so far.
And of course Chavez would, if anything, be friendly to the fascist regime in Burma, through his links to Russia and China.
According to the latest Census, the average income of all Australians over 15 years old is about $ 25,000-26,000 p.a. Check it out. I don’t know what the colonialist reactionary fascist Murdoch press and its lickspittles say about this.
Elitists ? What on earth does that have to do with anything ? Deriding whom and what ? What’s up your arse ?
My name is Joe Lane. I was born in Sydney and I live in Adelaide. What is your real name, ‘Tony’ ?
Solutions:
* put pressure on China, either through its craving to make a good impression with ‘its’ Olympics, or in trade - getting strict about standards of imports, or dragging our feet about export pricing;
* get behind World Vision etc. and go door to door raising funds for Burma;
* support Burmese refugees however we can;
* be much more prepared to give support to specific emergencies like this cyclone and its terrible aftermath;
* gove general support, through funding, demonstrations, doorknock campaigns, to human rights and autonomy movements around the world.
Joe Lane, Adelaide: rmg1859@yahoo.co.au
If you believe that Russia takes its foreign policy direction from Hugo Chavez then you have taken a sharp left into fairyland, never to be seen again.
I was amused by the claim that I am Alexander Downer fan. I have never worn stockings and garters in my life and I have no intention of starting now.
It is pointless to continue arguing with fools, no matter how well meaning, and so I am happy to let Tony Ryan have the last word and for readers to make up their own minds. As I stated in my last post the more he writes the more he reveals himself to be deeply deluded and incapable of presenting feasible proposals.
I’m getting very intrigued by the either/or way of thinking of so many people, binary, oppositional, whatever you might call it: i.e. if you don’t support A then you must support B. But people in the real world operate according to many dynamics, many different issues, positionns, preferences, angles, perceptions. Any two people will have points of agreement, and any two people will have points of disagreement. That’s how we are.
Some issues are far more clear-cut than others, of course. But take this issue of Burma and its appalling human rights record: to criticise the Burmese fascist junta does not that mean one supports, say, the US, or the UN - one may reasonably have a position of ‘a pox on all their houses’. To oppose China in its drive towards fascism does not mean that one hates Chinese people or Chinese art or culture, or does not have admiration for Chinese history and scientific achievement, only that one is dusgusted with China’s human rights record or militaristic stance or whatever. To criticise China is not to be totally uncritical of India, or the US, or Japan, or Taiwan - the world is multipolar, not bipolar, i suppose that is what i am trying to get at.
So when one of us criticises somebody’s pet project, or point of view, it does not necessarily mean that we are the rabid followers of some alternative - there are always many alternatives. I was going door t odoor back in about 1970 in Auckland, asking people whether the US should be in vietnam - most said no, and I usually left it there, but one Maori woman added ’ Yeah, they should send in the Maori battalion, they’ll clean up the bastards.’ Not quite what I was after: opposition to the US presencve there ,but not asi expected. That’s how the world works, many points of view, some clustering around one’s own, some quite independent, some clustering around those of one’s opponents. The world is usually not either/or.
So it is a wastye of time accusing one’s enemies of being Murdoch suck-holes, or US running dogs, or Chinese pawns, etc. We each stand on our own bit of space, and think our own thoughts, more like islands in an archipelago than dumb lumps of a continental mass. As such, we should respect each other’s honestly-held opinions without slagging each other. Not that I don’t enjoy doing exactly that, when it is obviously called for.
Joe
Joe
So now you defame Hugo Chavez.
Chavez leads one of the few governments in the world to dramatically increase investment into health and education for the people; particularly the poor. He kicked out the UN’s World Bank and the IMF, accurately labeling them as creators of poverty. With correct compensation, he nationalised oil resources and production, to ensure his people benefited, and not simply the US Oil Companies, banks and supportive elite, as in the earlier scenario.
Chavez has banned the water corporations, Bechtel and Vivendi, who took over Bolivia’s water supplies; which forced the poor to pay up to one third of their incomes for their own water. Only a revolution restored a semblance of resource justice, a leader of which is now the president of Bolivia, indigene Evo Morales; whom Chavez supports.
Chavez has also led with the establishment of a pan South American Development Bank, specifically to finance autonomy and egalitarian equal opportunity in Central and South America.
These actions provoked US evangelists to demand that Bush have Chavez assassinated. Nice company you are in, Joe. These are the real fascists.
Meanwhile the course that you recommend to ameliorate the plight of Burmese, is the same as that of the Australian Government; maintain the status quo. Ironically, this government policy you support has its genesis in an ALP that has invited Bechtel and Vivendi into Australia, embraced Halliburton, is currently trying to privatise NSW electricty in spite of 7 to 1 opposition; and privatised 70% of state education funding; taxpayer’s money. It is about to introduce a budget that will further reduce public expenditure.
The Australian Government is headed in the exact opposite direction to that adopted by Chavez; as are almost all other governments.
I cannot see into Vladimir Putin’s soul, but his political astuteness is legend. He has publicly supported Chavez, and is the only leader in the world to have a vast and spontaneous youth following, the NASHI. In a context of Putin’s pro-consensus democracy speeches, my presumption that he will continue to support Chavez is a reasonable one.
These are the real parameters of your politics today, Joe. I acknowledge your contributions of the past, but your words evidence that the subject of aid and global events has not dominated your reading of late.
Australiana
Instead of offering counter solutions you merely indulge in effete negativism and cheap derision. You have said nothing I can or should respond to.
I reiterate, the entire purpose of the orginal post was to identify a brief rationale, and consequential position on aid to Burma; and challenge other readers to improve on this. In other words, give me a better idea and I will go with that like a shot.
I actually support most of what Chavez is doing for the people of Venezuela. But I didn’t support his bid to be Life President. I certainly support his setting up of twenty thousand community councils giving ordinary people voice for the first time.
But we would have to admit that Chavez would either keep quiet about the fascist regime in Burma (perhaps we could check that out on Google News? Type in ‘Burma’ and ‘Chavez’) and that he would give his tacit support to the governments in Iran, Sudan, China, Russia, perhaps even Serbia. That’s his political reality, his modus vivendi in a hostile world. I can appreciate his position and so I wouldn’t be too hard on him for that.
And thanks, ‘Tony’, for proving my point about people having an either/or view of the world - ‘if you are not totally for me, you must be totally against me.’ Fascinating proof of an idle supposition !
Joe Lane, Adelaide, rmg1859@yahoo.com.au
We are pretty much in accord on Chavez then; although I appreciate the typical Latin reaction to constant coup attempts, in spite of popular support, is to set the anchor in concrete. Castro did the same.
But it’s a bit rich to hit me with the adversarial hat. If you cast your eyes over almost all of those posts, they were a litany of derision, insult and belittlement. I responded in kind, and then some. You can take the boy off the street, but you can’t take the street out of the boy. And, while I think of it, yes, I was born into the name Tony Ryan.
By the way, while you were doing your Auckland surveys about the Vietnam War, do you remember PYM and the TV debate in which Defense Minister Ralph Hunt lost the pro-war argument; the platoon who marched to the ANZAC dawn ceremony and won over the RSA; the sudden neutrality of the police during street marches?
Tents for Burma
Tents4Peace is a grassroots registered Tasmanian organisation, with a credible history, having supplied emergency shelter to Pakistan and Afghanistan following the 2006 earthquake. Please see our web site for details www.tents4peaceinternational.com
We are now making an emergency response to the situation in Myanmar (Burma), following the devastating cyclone.
We have sourced waterproof shelter, tents and tarpaulins, as well as bulk water purification tablets. We have these ready to be freighted out to Bangkok.
Through Alan Clements, co-author with Aung Sang Suu Kyi of ‘Voices of Hope’, we have reliable Burmese and Thai connections. Through these connections we have organised free freight into Burma with distribution through the monasteries, which have traditionally provided care for the people of Myanmar in times of need.
The rainy season now has begun and stagnant water and poor sanitation will cause the spread of water borne diseases such as cholera and malaria.
We are calling for urgent donations in order to supply emergency shelter to some of the one million people who have been left homeless in Myanmar, as a result of the devastating monsoon. We are urging people to make a donation now, which will purchase a tent or waterproof shelter. None of your donation will be used for administration costs.
We are a very small group, (please see our website to learn more about our history). We work in a voluntary capacity from our homes, using our own resources. Should you wish to make a donation to help support the admin. side we have a separate account. This way, everyone knows how his or her money is being used. Please call us if that is your preference, on 03 62348016, or specify if you mail your cheque.
Each tent, or a package containing a large water proof reinforced tarpaulin and bulk water purification tablets costs $100.
Our project has now been registered as a non - profit charity organisation called ‘Tents4Peace - International Inc’. This will ensure proper and legal auditing of your donations
Donate on line on our website www.tents4peaceinternational.com
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Tents4Peace Team
Anna Crotty
Ngaire Green
Jane Byrne
Fazila Hajeb
Tony,
Yeah, I bought a four-gallon can of red paint for the PYM, in early 1970. Halcyon days ! But I don’t remember the police being all that neutral, not at all. Not there or in Adelaide later, right up to 1973 at least. I don’t remember the platoon that you mention either: that would have been terrific.
Those Auckland surveys: of course, I was trying to plumb the extent of the opposition to the War, or more particularly to conscription for it. It worked out at about 90 % against, which is about what I had found earlier in Ballarat. The PYM wasn’t quite so grass-roots, but they had some really great people, Bill and Barry and Anna Lee especially.
Iona,
This is exactly the sort of action that we should be supporting and I’m sure that Tony would agree. Best of luck with a great initiatiave !
Joe Lane
Tony Ryan,
I love your enthusiasm and your hudspah and I hope very hard that you never lose it.
GV
My wife was just saying, don’t any of the Burmese soldiers have relations, brothers and sisters and even spouses and children, who have died, or are now starving and suffering, right in front of them ? How fascist can people get to allow their own people to suffer like this ? This is not a conveniently distancing situation of Nazis and Jews [or as Arthur Koestler would have said, Goths and Khazars, ethnic brothers], but of Burmese and Burmese.
There are reports of the Army seizing aid supplies and sending them to army camps, and selling them on the black market. How low can people go ? Is it possible to put pressure on China, the minder for the junta, to get rid of this bunch of murderers ? Or will we have to campaign for a boycott of the Olympics ? Will that have any difference ? Clearly, China is very sensitive to outside scrutiny - notice how concerned the Chinese premier was in the earthquake area, for the benefit of the media. Can pressure be maintained on China, to put the muscle on their Burmese stooges ?
Joe Lane, Adelaide
Thanks George. While I breathe, mate.
Joe
Small world. A bit of nostalgia. My brother and I were with Bill, Anna and the gang for a couple of years. We were on the bus to the opening of parliament when the cop cars tried to force the bus over a cliff during the night. That was scary.
That must have been the red paint that went into the egg bombs to splatter the Skyhawks. Bill and Barry were pretty hard core, and were trained in Albania. We learned a lot from them; amazing techniques.
As I recall, it was Anna appeared on TV, but Ralph Hunt was expecting a long haired bearded commo and went straight for the jugular; thereby alienating the entire nation when beautiful Anna just looked up at him with those big dark eyes and told NZ how she was fighting for democracy and freedom for all peoples, just like her dad, uncle and brother had, who died in other wars.
The nation was in tears over her, and Hunt got booed and demoted. Brilliant strategy. Naturally, I fell in love with Anna that night, but she liked short hair. That was typical 60s.
Bill and Barry organised us to dress in black suits and ties and, as we all had done military, we precision marched as a platoon out of the inky black bush opposite the Ak museum and swung into the dawn parade. The soldiers later told me they thought it was the new SAS. The RSA bosses were so impressed they sat down and talked with Bill and Barry; who won them over to the cause.
Winning over the young cops was my job and they ended up in a punch up riot with their senior officers in the police HQ building. We PYM didn’t get beaten up any more after that, but dumb uni students did.
It was my brother who rode his Triumph in front of Agnew at the Intercontinental with a half furled stars and stripes, which he opened half way across the intersection to reveal a big black swastika on it. Did that start a riot.
’
Ironically, that was when I organised the campaign for age pensioners (remember the flyers with dog food on it?) and the mayor, Sir Dove Meyer Robinson backed it to the hilt, and then supported our anti war effort. He also stopped the Zionist extremists from turning me into a torch.
That was when we had the big split up with PYM. Bill and co were only interested in the revolution, whereas we wanted out of the war.
Reform versus revolutionaries. As you say, Joe, those were the days.
Anna, Ngaire, Jane and Fazila
All power to you girls. That is practical help and I think you have a bunch of fans here; albeit (I’m guessing) penniless ones.
Burma
Kinda looks like we are timing out. Sorry people. I think it would have been easier to get past the Burmese Army than our piss weak government.
Hi Tony,
yeah, I was working in a pug mill out at New Lynn at that time, then at Westfield, supporting a wife and two babies. So not much time to socialise with the Lees, more’s the pity. We didn’t think they were grass-roots enough. Yes, there were radicals, and also fruit-cake radicals like us.
Perhaps more pressure can be put on the Burmese fascist junta now that China is occupied with its own tragedy, but perhaps more in a frame of mind to understand the urgency of getting aid in. Perhaps not.
Joe
‘Perhaps more pressure can be put on the Burmese fascist junta now that China is occupied with its own tragedy, but perhaps more in a frame of mind to understand the urgency of getting aid in. Perhaps not’.
Good thinking agent Joe.
I wonder if our lame brain government will think of that? I doubt it.
It is quite interesting. The only politician I have observed say anything intelligent and constructive in the past few months has been Senator Siergert of the Greens, a party I normally detest for their mind-boggling hypocrisy.
I refer to her comments on the Federal Intervention, which were startlingly perceptive. What was your take, Joe?
And on Burma, I can think of nothing more to say. The logistics of launching UN intervention at this late stage would probably make the venture counter-productive.
By now, in desperation, people will be drinking bad water and dodgy food. By tomorrow they will all be shitting through the eye of a needle and the flies will spread lethal bowel diseases that, in their weakened condition, with no means of restoring electrolyte imbalance, will kill children and the elderly in less than 24 hours. The incredible gut pain they will suffer has to be experienced to be appreciated.
These will be people who cannot even help themselves, and aid groups will not be able do the labour themselves. Being a clan/village society, the soldiers will confiscate all the food and provide for their own families. In their culture, this is entirely consistent with prevailing values; something westerners never seem to understand or become reconciled to. To you multiculturalists out there, this is what culture-clash really means.
Meanwhile, ASEAN countries will adopt the position that all of this is none of their business; but they will scream ‘neo-colonialism’ if any country acts unilaterally.
I hate to say it, but we have well and truly missed the boat on this one. Our failure to act is a direct result of representationalism, a system of government in which we elect corrupt politicians to do our thinking for us.
Until we reclaim democracy, political self interest will shape our future.
Yes, I know I have said this before, but unless we repeat these things ad nauseum people just don’t start thinking. Possibly a million people may die horribly because we were to gutless to do the right thing.
Senator Siewert had an article on New Matilda a couple of weeks ago, Tony, and I made a few deservedly modest contributions to the discussion.
Yes, without international action, ‘backed’ by China and India, many more thousands of people will die in Burma. And aid agencies would have to demand the responsibility of handing out the aid directly, no fascist army involvement.
Yes, as you say, ‘community’ can mean ‘only our community and stuff anybody else’ - that’s what give the concept of community both its warm, fuzzy aura and its close-knit organisation, which have as many bad sides as good, perhaps more.
If a regime brutally oppresses its own people and clearly has no intention of letting up, then all the talk about non-interference is hypocrisy. Such a regime does not deserve to rule, period. How to stop the Yanks using that as an excuse to invade is yet another problem.
So do you mean democracy as direct involvement, not as distant representation ? How do you do that across three million square miles and twenty million people ? Sorry, just asking, I don’t mean to be difficult. And it’s all a bit irrelevant in the present crisis.
Joe
I find the above comments to be nauseatingly smug and self-congratulatory, not to mention foolish, but that is just my opinion.
What is inexcusable is how irrelevant they are to dealing with the humanitarian disaster in Burma. NewMatilda does itself no favours by highlighting the views of the intellectually inadequate and self-indulgent.
Ahh see Joe? Cartman lives! AKA Australiana, a fitting nom de plume for a spineless supercilious pedant.
But back to your question, Joe… it didn’t occur to me that what I said could be applied to Burma.
I meant Australia. That if all we Australians voted on what to do about the Burma crisis, it would have had an entirely different outcome, to what self-serving and corrupt politicians will decide.
Pseudosophisticated hierarchists like Cartman will argue that the people are stupid and leaders should think for them.
The 1967 referendum proves this very convenient theory wrong.
At the time, politicians were as divided on the issue as they were a decade before. However, certain ordinary citizens, including some excellent Aboriginal activists, traveled the country and informed the people about the real implications of the issue. Consequently, when the referendum was eventually launched, 90% of the people said a resounding Yes. But the politicians were still divided.
An alternative focus on real democracy is Kevin Andrews Church-backed campaign to overturn the NT’s Voluntary Euthanasia Act. Surveys at the time showed that 90% of Territorians supported the measure.
In an insult to democracy, the politicians decided the issue for themselves, resulting in equal division. It was left to the Aboriginal MLA for Arnhem to cast the deciding vote; and he supported it.
Thus, it should have survived as the manifest will of the people.
But NT politicians stand condemned for ignoring the electorate’s consensus, and Kevin Andrews should be imprisoned for life for his coup de gras against democracy in Australia.
If we examine any instance in which the people have had access to all relevant information about an issue, their conclusion is always near unanimous and correct.
Burma is basically a Chinese colony. Invading Burma, without UN Security Council sanction (Russia & China would surely Veto), to implement humanitarian militarism would surely set an extremely bad precendent. It would break the established conventions around the neutrality of aid in war and peace time disaster. You might also want to read Naomi Kleins Shock Doctrine, before you send in the jedi knights.
I agree its totally outrageous, but military humanitarianism is an extremely risky and difficult process and in the case of Burma could easily do more harm than good and perhaps even start a world war.
Burma: a 24th province for China
http://mondediplo.com/2006/11/07burma
Niccolo,
Yes, the interventions into Kosovo and East Timor were much easier, just as justified in the face of blatant oppression and abdication of government responsibilities, but without very large super-powers to contend with (Russia rattled its sabres but did little to back up its Serbian puppets, and Indonesia after all, had to comply with the vote of the Timorese people). An intervention into Burma would not get UN support, not just from China and Russia and India but from a host of other semi-client-states like Serbia and Sudan and - it must be said - most South American and Middle Eastern countries, mindful of the possibility of US invasion. So that’s out.
Can NGOs go in, unarmed and escorted, to do what has to be done ? Would they have the ability, the coordination and organisation, to get to work quickly enough ? Again, can they get some backing, at least implicit, from China, anxious to demonstrate its humanitarian spirit ?
Perhaps Australiana can come up with something else ?
Joe Lane
Anyone who uses term such as "Pseudosophisticated hierarchists" is a half-educated, pompous dill who should stop wasting people’s time with their ridiculous blatherings.
To go back to your original article and its confused mutterings about the Trilateral Commission. This stuff is the product of the American far right and has a not very covert anti-semitic agenda. In fact, it is closely related to Nazi propaganda about Jewish finance capital. It is the stock-in-trade of conspiracy nuts the world over and has no place in any decent or serious publication.
I state again that NewMatilda demeans itself by highlighting material from authors who clearly do not have the intellect to put forward a reasoned proposal.
Anyone who uses term such as "Pseudosophisticated hierarchists" is a half-educated, pompous dill who should stop wasting people’s time with their ridiculous blatherings.
To go back to your original article and its confused mutterings about the Trilateral Commission. This stuff is the product of the American far right and has a not very covert anti-semitic agenda. In fact, it is closely related to Nazi propaganda about Jewish finance capital. It is the stock-in-trade of conspiracy nuts the world over and has no place in any decent or serious publication.
I state again that NewMatilda demeans itself by highlighting material from authors who clearly do not have the intellect to put forward a reasoned proposal.
Anyone who uses term such as "Pseudosophisticated hierarchists" is a half-educated, pompous dill who should stop wasting people’s time with their ridiculous blatherings.
To go back to your original article and its confused mutterings about the Trilateral Commission. This stuff is the product of the American far right and has a not very covert anti-semitic agenda. In fact, it is closely related to Nazi propaganda about Jewish finance capital. It is the stock-in-trade of conspiracy nuts the world over and has no place in any decent or serious publication.
I state again that NewMatilda demeans itself by highlighting material from authors who clearly do not have the intellect to put forward a reasoned proposal.
my guess is the Burmese junta’s dubious allies will do something, a kind of oppressive relief-reform effort. Again, see Shock Doctrine. Authoritarian regimes love a disaster. The people are so helpless.
The fact is, these kinds of natural disasters are going to get worse under climate change and the global community needs to have a better system than the current WW2 zombie institutions.
I think we need to go way beyond the military-industrial sustainment complex. Kosovo and East Timor are now have low-intensity democracy and are part of the US global system with all of its limits and flaws. Better than genocide, but not independent development.
I dont see anything we can do directly in the case of the current Burmese dusaster.
Bring-on the First Earth Battaliion and the Permaculture First Responders.
Australiana,
I guess we are all still waiting for a reasoned proposal, then.
Niccolo,
Not really much help, mate. Can the NGOs push the door open a bit more, and just keep pushing ? It’s unfortunately not a matter of all or nothing, but what aid agencies can do, hour by hour, to persuade the junta to let more aid in. Wait and see.
Joe
Australiana, could you demonstrate, for the benefit of the less educated, the nexus between the Trilateral Commission and anti-semitism?
Also, how is the Trilateral Commission "closely related to Nazi propaganda" and what "Jewish finance capital" does this propaganda refer to?
Far right conspiracy theories that see the Trilateral Commission and the like as secretly ruling the world and conspiring to create a nefarious world government using the UN as their tool are a staple of far right ‘thinking’, if it can be called that. These ‘ideas’ are born out of the same pool of thinking that believed that Jewish finance capital secretly ran the world, pulling strings behind the scenes.
Needless to say, these ideas are bigoted, ugly and stupid and are more akin to a mental disease than a respectable school of thought. NewMatilda should not be propagating such nonsense.
Australiana, I know exactly how you feel.
Speaking of mental diseases, have you heard the outlandish conspiracy theory about the mystical man who managed to conduct intelligent conversations with burning bushes and who entered into a real estate contract with an all powerful and invisible being who undertook to transfer exclusive ownership of huge tracts of real estate to a specific identifiable group of people and who allegedly also held the power and the authority to grant to those same people the exclusive right to commit genocide in order to better evict the indigenous people already living in that territory?
As a further specific term of this outlandishly unlikely contract, and to ensure the continued validity of the deal with this invisible being, whom, I might add, nobody has ever actually personally interviewed, these same people were contractually obligated to mutilate the genitalia of their infant male children and to continue to do so, from one generation to the next, in perpetuity, or until the occurrence of some future event on a future but unspecified date!
How do you like THAT for an outlandish conspiracy theory?
At least people have actually interviewed members of the CFR and so it should be theoretically possible to scrutinise the activites of that organisation in order to test the validity of any conspiratorial claims made about the CFR or any other entity named in the theory.
I suppose the trick, really, is to figure out WHICH conspiracies are real and which are simply outlandish theories. Did somebody say anything about empirical evidence?
What a really sick world we all live in!
You seem to imagine that I am Jewish and that a bit of Jew-baiting might be in order. Wrong on both counts.
You appear to imagine that I am not Jewish and that a few shallow and unfounded accusations of anti-semitism might be in order. You are also wrong on both accounts.
To get back to this thread, what has some anti-semitic plot like this Trilateral Commission bullshit got to do with Burma ? I’m not Jewish, and not a supporter of a Zionist state and I’m a bit slow, but even I can recognise the old Protocols fraud dressed up in ‘Jews control all the banks’ disguise. Give it a rest, and let’s get back to what we might be able to suggest about Burma.
Joe Lane
Oh I say, Cartman, I really don’t think it’s fair to blame NewMatilda, just because I indulge in the occasional blath. That’s what we uneducated dills do. I think it’s jolly tolerant of NewMatilda to let all of us voice an opinion; even my ridiculous mutters. This is one of the few freedoms we have left. Left to you, we would lose this too.
And, speaking for myself, from almost every participant on this site, I learn something, sometimes big facts; other times little facts; and it all adds up. I call this education.
And, unrepentent, I feel another mutter coming on.
I’m afraid Joe has summed up the position succinctly; we can now only hope the aid door opens a little wider. But we must not give up. We clods and proles have run to the genetic limit of our ability. But perhaps Cartman can use his superior intellect and education to contact the oil corporations who carry great influence in Burma. They may bend the general’s arms and use their vast resources and local knowledge to force the aid in.
Show us how it’s done, Cartman.
Tony, you are, of course, entitled to express your opinions but that is not what I was arguing against. I was arguing that NewMatilda made a mistake by publishing your views as an article. To have your views published as an article they have to pass an editor’s test of cogency, accuracy and logic. Your article fails all those tests so therefore there is a need for the publisher to re-examine their editorial practice.
I notice that you make no defence of the far right Trilateral Commission conspiracy theories in you article. Do you stand by them and, if so, could you enlighten us further about the arcane delights of this nonsense?
This phrase from Rockjaw - "mutilate the genitalia of their infant male children" - is sufficient evidence of his anti-semitism.
What can be done about the Burmese regime? The less than satisfactory answer is this: more of the same. That is, more diplomatic and sanctions pressure. Unlikely to gain all the results we would wish but talk of invasion is sheer flatulence.
Australiana, the notion that criticism of the Trilateral Commission is the "product of American far right" with an "anti-semitic" agenda was presented by yourself and nobody else. Not only that but you also failed to present us with reference to any authority to support your views.
"Nazi propaganda" and "Jewish finance capital" were additional terms introduced by yourself in a failed attempt to prop up your rather weak argument that Tony’s piece was the "stock-in-trade" of "conspiracy nuts" and anti-semites.
Have you considered the possibility that it is perhaps you who is unable to bring to this debate sufficient measures of "reason" and "intellect" to demonstrate that your assertions are accurate, or do you rely, instead, on the popular and mistaken view that those institutions named with disfavour by Tony are incapable of evil.
Since you also accuse me of anti-semitism perhaps you could enlighten us about how expressed repugnance to the practice of infant mutilation could be deemed "sufficient evidence of anti-semitism" given that genital mutilation of both male and female children occurs in large numbers of non-jewish cultures and tribes on every continent of this planet.
Genital mutilation is one monopoly we jews cannot claim exclusively.
GV
I suggest that you google ‘Trilateral Commission’ and you will have all the conspiracy nut material that you could ever wish for complete with its links to anti-semitism.
I will take you at your word that you are Jewish, bearing in mind though that, as the famous cartoon said, on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog. If so, you would not be the first Jewish person to be afflicted by anti-semitism. Your description of circumcision as "genital mutilation" is an emotive distortion typical of anti-semites and lumps it with practices of a totally different character. The fact that also, in this context, you chose to select the Jewish religion, out of all the world’s religions, for attack, is also highly suspect.
Myanmar’s military junta has been accused of hoarding relief goods to feed its 400,000 strong military at the expense of the local population. Brian McCartan of the Asia Times reports that the country’s military leaders are afraid of dissent within the rank and file, which occurred during last September’s demonstrations. He goes on to state that falling morale remains a problem with notable levels of desertion and discontent within the ranks before the cyclone hit. Now with severe food shortages looming, the possibility of mutiny is a distinct possibility. The military regime has consistently said it wants relief supplies but not the relief workers who go with it.
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1501&thisvi…