I've been following the situation in Burma since its government jacked up fuel prices in mid-August, but for some reason haven't started a thread on it. This morning, driving to work, NPR had a piece on it. I may be mistaken, since I only hear about 40 minutes of NPR news coverage a day, but I think that today is the first time they've given the story much attention (outdated attention--they were reporting that violence was immenent, but hadn't yet broken out, when in fact it has--but attention nonetheless). I wonder what the tipping point was, in terms of attracting their attention.
In any case, I don't know if other American news sources have been reporting on the story or not, but for anyone who isn't aware of going on, but BBC has a nice summary of the situation. There is also a lot of good coverage and analysis of what's going on on the site, much of it linked in the sidebars on that page.
I don't really have a whole lot to say about what's happening there right now, but I thought that there needed to be a thread about it.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Here is another BBC piece that talks about the way the internet is being used to let the world know what's going on. Definitely an interesting read.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Looks like the government finally hit its' threshold for tolerance. I had hoped it would not come to this.
I hope other countries follow this up with sanctions although I must confess I am not sure that in Myanmar's case this is the best course. It could just make the leadership accept higher levels of poverty and maintain them with higher levels of inhuman conduct.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I was hoping that it wouldn't come to this, but I didn't see a way that it could fail to do so.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Noemon: I was hoping that it wouldn't come to this, but I didn't see a way that it could fail to do so.
Hmm I dunno maybe the people in government thinking, "You know the lives of our citizens are more important than us retaining so much power unto ourselves."
Killing peaceful (I'm assuming they were peaceful) monks can only make the government look VERY bad.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Hmm I dunno maybe the people in government thinking, "You know the lives of our citizens are more important than us retaining so much power unto ourselves."
This is not a government that is particularly prone to valuing the lives of its citizens.
quote:Killing peaceful (I'm assuming they were peaceful) monks can only make the government look VERY bad.
The fact that it's monks leading this wave of protests is the only reason why the government hasn't slaughtered the protesters. I suspect, though that it has less to do with piety or public perception on the world stage than it does the fact that the monks have enormous popular support, and they've likely been afraid that directly attacking the monks would galvanize the population against them.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I've been hearing about this story on NPR for the past week. They had a half hour interview with someone from the 1988 protests (I think, yesterday).
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quote:I was hoping that it wouldn't come to this, but I didn't see a way that it could fail to do so.
If this spurs an effective revolt/response from other countries that ends in removing the government, it could be seen, from a certain perspective, as a better situation than many others.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I've been hearing about this story on NPR for the past week. They had a half hour interview with someone from the 1988 protests (I think, yesterday).
Good to know; that's definitely more coverage than I thought they'd devoted to it.
quote:
quote:I was hoping that it wouldn't come to this, but I didn't see a way that it could fail to do so.
If this spurs an effective revolt/response from other countries that ends in removing the government, it could be seen, from a certain perspective, as a better situation than many others.
Agreed.
And who knows; it's always possible that the Burmese government will (relatively) peacefully allow a civilian government to take power. It seems extraordinarily unlikely, but then again, so did ending Apartheid without a massive bloodbath.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)