Clipmarks | invictus's Asia collection

Five Women Buried Alive - and the Media Ignore It

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:43:15 GMT

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Last month, the U.S. media were full of stories about the resignation of Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan. But another event that same week in Pakistan -- that tribesmen buried five young women alive for wanting to choose their own husbands -- got almost no coverage.

According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, the women's "crime" was that they defied tribal elders and arranged marriages to men of their own choosing in a civil court. They were abducted at gunpoint by some men and dragged off to a remote field, where they were beaten, shot, thrown into a ditch, and then, while still breathing, smothered to death with rocks and mud.

Yet not even when a member of the Pakistani parliament, Israr Ullah Zehri, defended these barbaric killings as "century-old traditions" -- when he said that killing women who defy male control by wanting to chose their own husbands is necessary to "stop obscenity" -- was there international outrage.

Tags: pakistan, human rights, murder, traditions, women, democracy

Myanmar's fascist junta extends Suu Kyi house arrest

Tue, 27 May 2008 21:38:47 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Those who showed their incompetence to aid the cyclone victims, proving their determinism to oppress Myanmar people. If this knave, filthy junta still holds the power and dares to extend Suu Kyi's arrest arrogantly, only one thing can be said: Shame on the world.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, a move that dismayed some of the Western nations who promised millions of dollars in aid after Cyclone Nargis.

Officials drove to the Nobel laureate's lakeside Yangon home to read out an extension order in person, said a government official, who asked not to be identified.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who just returned to New York from a weeklong aid mission in Myanmar, expressed disappointment but refrained from sharp criticism.

"I regret the decision of the government of Myanmar to extend for a second consecutive year the detention and the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi," Ban said.

The 62-year-old Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won a 1990 election by a landslide only to be denied power by the army, has now spent nearly 13 of the last 18 years under some form of arrest.

Tags: myanmar, aung san suu kyi, fascism, asia, junta

Burma, Chevron, slave labor, Rice and more

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:51:21 GMT

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clipper's remarks:

The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military. The original pipeline partner, Unocal, was sued by EarthRights International for the use of slave labor. As soon as the suit was settled out of court, Chevron bought Unocal.

Chevron’s role in propping up the brutal regime in Burma is clear. Rice served on the Chevron board of directors for a decade. She even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her. While she served on the board, Chevron was sued for involvement in the killing of nonviolent protesters in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Like the Burmese, Nigerians suffer political repression and pollution where oil and gas are extracted and they live in dire poverty. The protests in Burma were actually triggered by a government-imposed increase in fuel prices.

Clip Source: www.zmag.org

The Bush administration is making headlines with its strong language against the Burmese regime. President Bush declared increased sanctions in his U.N. General Assembly speech. First lady Laura Bush has come out with perhaps the strongest statements.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said, “The United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place.” Keeping an international focus is essential, but should not distract from one of the most powerful supporters of the junta, one that is much closer to home. Rice knows it well: Chevron.

Fueling the military junta that has ruled for decades are Burma’s natural gas reserves, controlled by the Burmese regime in partnership with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm.

The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military.

Tags: burma, chevron, capitalism, condoleezza rice, imperialism, hypocrisy

"Musharraf Coup" in Pakistan: Emergency Rule

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:30:41 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Breaking news... More to come.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Police and troops have sealed off the city's political and judicial core

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has declared emergency rule and suspended the country's constitution.

Troops have been deployed inside state-run TV and radio stations, while independent channels have gone off air.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who condemned the moves, has been replaced and is being confined to the Supreme Court with 10 other judges.

It comes as the court was due to rule on the legality of Gen Musharraf's re-election victory in October.

The court was to decide whether Gen Musharraf was eligible to run for election last month while remaining army chief.

The BBC's Barbara Plett reports from Islamabad that fears have been growing in the government that the Supreme Court ruling could go against Gen Musharraf.

Tags: pakistan, pervez musharraf, military coup, asia

Satellites confirm reports of Myanmar violence

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:06:37 GMT

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Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Satellite images confirm reports earlier this year of burned villages, forced relocations and other human rights abuses in Myanmar, scientists said on Friday.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science said the high-resolution photographs taken by commercial satellites document a growing military presence at 25 sites across eastern Myanmar, matching eyewitness reports.

"We found evidence of 18 villages that essentially disappeared," AAAS researcher Lars Bromley said in an interview.

"We got reporting in late April that a set of villages in Karen state had been burned. We were actually able to identify burn scars on the ground -- square-shaped burn scars the size of houses."

Myanmar, formerly Burma, is suffering its worst unrest since a 1988 rebellion by students and monks.

The military government in the poor and isolated Southeast Asian country has long been accused of repression.

Tags: asia, burma, myanmar, democracy, human rights, oppression, satellite images

Key activists arrested in Burma

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:00:35 GMT

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Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Htay Kywe has been in hiding since the crackdown

Burma's military rulers have arrested three of the last remaining leaders of the recent pro-democracy protests which were violently suppressed.

Among those detained was Htay Kywe, who led some of the first marches and was a prominent activist in a 1988 uprising.

The arrests came as thousands attended a pro-government rally in Rangoon, many of them apparently under duress.

The arrests are going on, despite assurances given by the authorities to the UN

Daniel Alberman, Amnesty International

Following the latest arrests, few, if any, leaders of the 1988 generation of former student activists are thought to remain at large.

Other leaders detained overnight included Thin Thin Aye, also known as Mie Mie, and Aung Htoo, according to human rights group Amnesty International.

Amnesty fears the detainees are at risk of torture and ill treatment.

Tags: burma, myanmar, asia, democracy, human rights

Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:37:07 GMT

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Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Benazir Bhutto made a dramatic return to Pakistan on Thursday, ending eight years of exile to launch an ambitious political comeback, as tens of thousands of supporters gathered to greet her amid massive security.

Bhutto, who is expected to seek the premiership for an unprecedented third time and partner in ruling Pakistan with U.S.-backed President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was in tears as she descended the steps of a commercial flight that brought her from Dubai to Karachi, where jubilant crowds of flag-waving, drum-thumping supporters waited to give her a rousing welcome.

"I counted the hours, I counted the minutes and the seconds, just to see this land, to see the grass, to see the sky. I feel so emotionally overwhelmed," said Bhutto, who wore a white headscarf and clutched prayer beads in her right hand.

"And I hope that I can live up to the great expectations which people here have," she said.

Tags: benazir bhutto, pakistan, asia

Global Hypocrisy on Burma

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:59:03 GMT

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clipper's remarks:

As for the Burmese people themselves what the world’s wilful impotence in dealing with their brutal rulers indicates is that ultimately they will have to achieve democratic rule in Burma entirely on their own strength.

The people of the world will of course support them in whatever way they can but to expect governments around the globe to help topple the Burmese military regime is as unrealistic as asking the regime to step down on its own. There is no option but to keep the struggle going.

Clip Source: www.zmag.org

As the Burmese military brutally cracks down on a popular uprising of its citizens demanding democracy the question on many minds is – so what is the world going to do about it?

From the trend visible so far the answer is simple- nothing at all.

Nothing, that is, beyond the usual condemnations and pious appeals for ‘peaceful dialogue’ and the posturing at international forums in support of the Burmese people.

It is not that nothing can be done at all – to begin with, how about kicking the illegitimate military regime out of the UN seat it continues to occupy and replacing it with the country’s elected government-in-exile? Why should Burma continue to be a member of ASEAN or for that matter, by default, also of the Asia-Europe Meeting or ASEM?

The answers to these elementary questions are quite elementary too- it is Burma’s abundant natural resources and investment opportunities that really matter.

Tags: burma, myanmar, world, hypocrisy

Burma: Raiding homes in the darkness

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:02:00 GMT

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Clip Source: www.irrawaddy.org

In the dead of night, Burma's security forces are hunting down pro-democracy protesters in Rangoon, checking on residents and pulling people out of their homes.

Residents say military trucks patrol neighborhood streets during the night with loudspeakers broadcasting warnings: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!"

In Burma, figures on the number of dead, injured, disappeared or arrested varying widely depending on who is reporting the numbers.

While the official government figure for dead and injured demonstrators in Rangoon is 10 dead and 11 injured, two leading advocacy groups say the number of dead nationwide is probably at least 130 and people imprisoned during the course of the protests could exceed 3,000.

The opposition group said at least 2,000 people—including 135 women and nuns; 80 elderly monks and 50 novice monks believed to be age 5 to10—are detained in a windowless building on the campus of the Government Technical Institute in Insein Township in Rangoon alone.

Tags: burma, myanmar, democracy, human rights

Where are Myanmar's monks?

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:49:34 GMT

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Clip Source: www.buddhistchannel.tv

After paying a heavy price for their uprising, Myanmar's monks are nursing their wounds and hoping for international action against the military junta that crushed their peaceful protests with bullets and tear gas.

A new estimate by a well-connected dissident group has concluded that 138 people were killed and about 6,000 detained, including about 2,400 Buddhist monks, when the regime smashed the anti-government protests last week.

Those numbers were issued by the Democratic Voice of Burma, a dissident news group based in Norway with close ties to pro-democracy activists.

The monks' strategy seems to be based on a faith that the world will take action against the regime that showed its brutality in the crackdown last week. But early signs suggest that the junta will escape any serious consequences from key neighbouring states.

Tags: myanmar, burma, buddhist monks, democracy

Monks keep up protests from prison

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:44:09 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Thanks to Sahara for the source link.

Clip Source: www.buddhistchannel.tv

Even in a makeshift prison, stripped of their crimson robes, Myanmar's monks are still defying the orders of the military regime that smashed their protests last week.

Many of the imprisoned monks are refusing to touch food from their military captors, symbolically maintaining their boycott of the Myanmar regime, according to reports emerging yesterday from unofficial sources in the isolated country.

Tags: burma, myanmar, buddhist monks, resistance, democracy

Suu Kyi’s Unhappy Face

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:48:04 GMT

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Clip Source: www.irrawaddy.org

UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari’s four-day shuttle diplomacy between Burma’s top generals and the country’s detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi concluded on Tuesday.

Several of the photographs of the special envoy’s meeting with Suu Kyi appeared in the international media. In some of the photographs, her face expressed grave unhappiness and sent a clear message to the world community: the generals' crack down on the Buddhist monks’ peaceful demonstrations prove UN action on Burma is urgently needed.

Unfortunately, the body has no power to help the oppressed people of Burma by sending a mission to investigate the regime’s brutal killings, as requested by more than 200 human rights and civil society organizations in 17 countries.

How long will the civilized world ignore the notorious generals' slaughter of innocent people?

Many people now believe that democracy will come only with the sacrifice of tens of thousands of lives.

Tags: burma, myanmar, aung san suu kyi

More arrests in Burma

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:45:40 GMT

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Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Myanmar's junta arrested more people on Wednesday hours after the departure of a U.N. envoy who came to the country to try to end a ruthless crackdown on protests which sparked international outrage.

At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Yangon, the former Burma's biggest city and center of last week's monk-led protests against decades of military rule and deepening economic hardship, witnesses said.

In one house near the Shwedagon Pagoda, the holiest shrine in the devoutly Buddhist country and starting point for the rallies, only a 13-year-old girl remained. Her parents had been taken, she said.

"They warned us not to run away as they might be back," she said after people from rows of shop houses were ordered onto the street in the middle of the night and many taken away.

Tags: burma, myanmar, asia, democracy, human rights, junta

Monks to be sent to prisons in Burma

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:14:14 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Myanmar dictatorship tries to curb the resistance by pushing the oppression further. Now monks, disrobed and shackled, will be sent to prisons, according to rumours.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Monks are absent, but people in Rangoon are going about their lives

Thousands of monks detained in Burma's main city of Rangoon will be sent to prisons in the far north of the country, sources have told the BBC.

About 4,000 monks have been rounded up in the past week as the military government has tried to stamp out pro-democracy protests.

They are being held at a disused race course and a technical college.

Sources from a government-sponsored militia said they would soon be moved away from Rangoon.

The monks have been disrobed and shackled, the sources told BBC radio's Burmese service. There are reports that the monks are refusing to eat.

Tags: burma, myanmar, monks, resistance, oppression, asia, human rights, democracy

Burma's struggle, Aung San Suu Kyi's role

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:21:37 GMT

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Clip Source: www.opendemocracy.net

Since the terrible events of “8-8-88”, millions of Burma's people have endured continuing repression, suffering, hunger and hardship under a pitiless dictatorship. But if they do not give in to the temptation of despair, much of the reason lies in the fortitude and constancy of Aung San Suu Kyi herself, who in surviving three periods of house arrest (of which the current one is the most severe and isolating) has proved herself an inspiration to her people.

Daw Suu (Daw = “auntie” in Burmese, a prefix of respect for a mature lady) is the daughter of independence hero Aung San and the recipient of the Nobel peace prize in 1991. Today, she will not be able to join her friends and colleagues to mark this melancholy anniversary. But in her Rangoon confinement, she must know that all Burmese who care for their country's freedom and future are connected to each other partly through the living presence of The Lady.

Tags: aung san suu kyi, burma, democracy, freedom