No Fear—The Tiger’s Toothless

No Fear—The Tiger’s Toothless

Thursday, 24 January 2008, 22:04 GMT

Thursday, 24 January 2008, 22:04 GMT

Western powers make Burma appeal

The foreign ministers of the US, France and UK have appealed to global leaders to press the government of Burma to respect the basic rights of its people. The rare joint statement - at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland - urged the world not to forget Burma. The three foreign ministers said the regime had met none of the list of demands made by the UN Security Council in October. The demands included the release of all political prisoners. The Burmese junta bloodily suppressed pro-democracy protests in September. 'Horrified' David Miliband, Condoleezza Rice and Bernard Kouchner said in their statement that "the urgent need for progress towards a transition to democracy and improved human rights in Burma" was a priority for this year's meeting. "It is now more than four months since the world was horrified by the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations in Burma," they said. "We must convince the Burmese regime to meet the demands of the international community and respect the basic rights of Burma's people." The Security Council called on the junta, among other things, to free all political prisoners - including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been kept under house arrest for 12 out of the past 18 years.

January 21, 2008 (Monday)

Burma monk still testing the military

Aging storyteller uses allegory to remind people rotten regimes have fallen before

Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times

In one of his most talked-about lectures, Buddhist monk Ashin Nyanissara tells the legend of a king who ruled more than 2,500 years ago. The king believed that spitting on a hermit brought him good fortune.

At first, it worked like a charm, but before long his realm was annihilated under a rain of fire, spears and knives.

Today's audiences easily find the hidden message: The assault by Burma's military government on monks leading protests during the fall looks like a modern version of the ancient monarch's abuse. And they hope the ruling generals will suffer the same fate.

In the recent crackdown, many monks were beaten and defrocked in prison. Human rights activists say several monks were among the 31 people the United Nations says were killed by the government.

It was a traumatic wound to a mainly Buddhist society, one that forced a lot of soul searching among people who practice one of the oldest forms of the religion, which emphasizes critical thought and reasoning over blind faith.

The stern-faced Nyanissara, a 70-year-old monk in owlish glasses and a maroon robe, is able to stare down generals with chests full of medals by stepping carefully through the minefield that makes free speech lethal in Burma.

Shielding himself with allegory, he crisscrosses the country giving lectures that draw on history and legend to remind people that rotten regimes have fallen before. As the generals try to crush the last remnants of resistance, he is cautiously keeping the fire alive.

But he knows it isn't the first time in 45 years of military rule that the government has attacked monks who challenged its absolute authority. In at least four previous crackdowns, dating to 1965, the military rounded up thousands of monks, killing some, defrocking others, while closing monasteries and seizing property.

Each time, the brutal repression outraged many people, but in the end they felt powerless to do anything about it, the crises passed and the generals continued to oppress with an iron fist.

It's the nature of any government's leaders to "strongly test their political power. They don't want to lose it," he said in a recent interview at the International Buddhist Academy, which he founded in this riverside town whose forested hills the faithful believe Buddha walked on his path to enlightenment.

"But in any faith, when politics and religion come into competition, religious leaders always defeat anything. Religion is the leader. Jesus Christ was killed, but which was more powerful? Religion or politics?"

The institute sits in a valley beneath the Sagaing Hills, where hundreds of golden spires, stupas, rise like spiritual beacons from monasteries and pagodas that dot the hillsides, 12 miles southwest of Mandalay.

The first monks to demonstrate against the government last year took to the streets in Pakokku, 60 miles southwest of Sagaing.

Still trapped in the latest cycle of political turmoil, many of Burma's people are looking to Nyanissara for more than spiritual guidance.

At midday recently, he had just returned from addressing hundreds of the faithful in a village pagoda and was hurrying to leave for an afternoon lecture, a daily routine that keeps him on the move to meet the demand for his wisdom.

Barefoot in a corridor of the university where student monks and nuns are trained for missionary work, the monk ran a disposable razor over his tonsured head and down across his face and neck, removing the faintest midday stubble as he spoke.

Then, flanked by young aides and walking as straight and sure-footed as a man half his age, the monk got into his black sport utility vehicle, which sped on a 110-mile journey to his next stop.

Nyanissara draws large, rapt audiences wherever he goes, whether they are poor villagers crowded into small monasteries or city residents sitting in orderly rows on a side street.

On a recent night, a few thousand people filled a street in Rangoon, Burma's largest city, sitting quietly as they waited for the monk to arrive.

When he emerged from his SUV, people bowed their heads to the ground as he made his way to a stage, where he sat cross-legged on a gilded chair as big as a throne.

In large public gatherings such as these, when the generals' spies lurk in the audience and listen for any hint of trouble, his lectures often are built around the same lesson: Cruel rulers create bad karma. And they will suffer for what they have done.

That's a moral not easily shrugged off by a government whose leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, is intensely superstitious: He consults astrologers to make important decisions.

The ruling generals also churn out propaganda images portraying themselves as devoted Buddhists, receiving the blessing of sympathetic monks. If their faith is true, they know their actions will determine their next life in reincarnation's endless cycle of death and rebirth.

"They have to be afraid they'll be coming back as cockroaches," wisecracked one Western envoy.

Several of Nyanissara's lectures have been burned onto DVDs, with titles including "Last Days of Empire." The generals have arrested people caught selling them, but they are still widely available across Burma, also known as Myanmar.

To most people, the pain of seeing monks beaten in the streets is more than just an insult to religious faith. To many, it's as if the military had harmed their own family, and the anger does not ease quickly.

Almost any Buddhist with a son has watched with pride as his head is shaved to make him a novice monk in an initiation ceremony called shin-pyu, a moment as life-defining as a baptism, christening or bar mitzvah.

It is a religious duty for Buddhist boys to become novice monks from age 7, and most youngsters in Burma answer the calling, Nyanissara said.

Just as Buddha left his own family to seek enlightenment, they live in a monastery for a few weeks, during which they are allowed to have only eight possessions: a robe, a belt, footwear, a razor, an umbrella, a glass for water, a begging bowl and a filter to make sure no living thing slips into their food to be eaten.

"They learn morality and how to pay respect to their elders, and Buddhist monks, too," said U Kondala, abbot of a monastery with a library of 16th century copies of Buddha's laws and philosophy, handwritten on palm fronds folded like Chinese fans. "After understanding the ways of the Buddha, they are more polite and clever, and consider the welfare of other people."

Novices return to normal life with a profound respect for monks who were their teachers. When thousands joined protest marches last fall, their chants gave comfort to people who had known them since childhood.

"All of the monks who came out of the monasteries into the streets only recited verses from the teachings of the Buddha," Kondala said. "The people are suffering, they are getting poorer and poorer, so the monks wanted to protect them against any danger."

Nyanissara said the region surrounding Sagaing is now home to 1 out of every 10 of Burma's 400,000 monks, robed legions that listen carefully to his lectures to see the right path ahead.

"It's a very big army," the monk said, and he laughed a little. But he wasn't smiling.

This article appeared on page A - 19 of the San Francisco Chronicle

January 21, 2008 (Monday)

Indo-Burma Kaladan project to be inked in April

Nava Thakuria, 21 January 2008, Monday
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The agreement on the much-awaited Indo-Burma Kaladan project will be signed in April. The project will allow the northeast states of India to access commercial sea routes to ASEAN nations.

THE GOVERNMENT of India has gearing up for an agreement with its neighbour

Burma (Myanmar) for the widely discussed Kaladan project. New Delhi has been planning to develop a port in Sittwe, the capital of northwest Burma province of Rakhine (earlier known as Arakan). Called the Kaladan Multi-modal Project, it includes developing the Kaladan river to connect northeast India (through a road link from Kalewa in Burma to Aizawal) with the Bay of Bengal. The Sittwe is nearly 400 km from Mizoram’s capital Aizawal.

"The Kaladan project with a budget of $120 million will be a ’Build, Transfer and Use’ (BTU) project and will be financed by a grant by the government of India to its neighbour," said Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for Commerce. Speaking to journalists recently, Ramesh also added that a final agreement on the project is likely to be signed during a high-level Burmese delegations visit to India during April this year.

"New Delhi wants to connect the Northeast with the commercial sea routes. Moreover, with the development of Sittwe port and the Kaladan River as navigation efficient, the region is expected to have another viable access to the Association of South East Asian Nations," Ramesh had said during an earlier visit to the Northeast. He also said arrangements would allow the movement of cargo ships from Sittwe to any Indian port.

The Northeast - comprising Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Sikkim - is surrounded by Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet (now a Chinese territory), Burma and Bangladesh. With a population of nearly 50 million, the region is connected to the mainland by the Chicken’s Neck in North Bengal. More precisely, only two per cent of the region’s territory is attached to the country.

Conceived and proposed by the Indian External Affairs ministry in 2003, the project - having obtained approval from the Planning Commission - has also been given the green signal by the Burmese government. The Kaladan flows from Mizoram to Sittwe (formerly Akyab) through another Burmese state called Chin (the capital city is Haka), and is the biggest waterway in the locality. The coastal region in western Burma is separated from the mainland by the Rakhine Yoma mountain range. Sittwe port, at the mouth of the Kaladan on the Rakhine coast, is an important harbour that emerged as a centre for rice export after British occupation in 1826. Earlier, it had a small fishing and farming community.

The Kaladan project that will include shipping, riverine and road transport, and is anticipated to be completed within four years and will include the construction of roads from Kalewa to Saiha (Mizoram border). Later, this road will be connected to India’s National Highway 54 in Mizoram. The project will be executed by India’s public sector organisation RITES (Rail India Technical Economic Services) and is expected to be commissioned by 2009.

New Delhi’s move to invest in a Burmese port assumes significance in view of Dhaka’s reluctance to give India access to Chittagong port, which is nearer the Northeast. Moreover, the Bangladesh government has been showing unwillingness to provide space to run a gas pipeline from Burma to the mainland India (Kolkata) through its territory. The Bangladeshi seaport in Chittagong is less than 200 km away from Agartala, the capital of Tripura.

However, India’s growing engagement with Burmese military government has turned out to be bitter-sweet for the Burmese pro-democracy movement. Burmese pro-democracy politicians want to see India’s involvement in Burma as a glimmer of hope for stopping Communist China’s ever increasing, but unwelcome influence on Burma. But on the other hand, Indian government’s current realpolitik approach towards Burma is causing disappointment among Burmese democrats who used to regard India as a good and reliable friend of democracy.

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