ninme

First of all, this is funny:

NY Times (sorry, sorry) - First Lady Raising Her Profile Without Changing Her Image

At the United Nations General Assembly in late September, Mrs. Bush was in the audience while her husband criticized the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators by the military junta in Myanmar, formerly Burma. But three weeks earlier it had been the first lady, not the president, who picked up the phone to call the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.

She is now the administration’s leading voice on the matter, denouncing the junta in official statements, Congressional testimony and, last week, an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal.

“I think that this is sort of one of those myths,” she told reporters after the call to the secretary general, sounding surprised at the stir she created, “that I was baking cookies and then they fell off the cookie sheet and I called Ban Ki-moon.”

This next one I saw the first day we were in Canada, so it’s old news by now, but since the world doesn’t seem to be exactly falling all over with itself in concern for the Burmese, there’s no harm in linking to it:

The Times (Oct 6) - Activists defy generals in their fight to death for democracy

Burmese pro-democracy activists vowed to fight “to the death” to overthrow the military junta yesterday, even as the generals continued their crackdown against the protesters.

Two activists who spoke to The Times from their hideout in Burma’s southern Mon state called on the international community to apply greater pressure to the military Government of General Than Shwe to release their leaders, who were snatched from their homes during the demonstrations.

They denounced the United Nations, and its special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, for cosying up to the junta. “We hoped for so much and what we feel is that he achieved nothing,” said a female activist, who identified herself by the name Khaind.

“He should have visited the places of the demonstrations — like Pakkoku [where Burmese monks first demonstrated] and the Shwedagon Pagoda. He should have visited Insein Prison [in Rangoon], then he would have seen the truth.

“He should have demanded that our leaders, the political prisoners, were released. We’ve made a lot of sacrifices and many people have been killed and it’s not right for him to come and see just what the junta wants him to see.”

Speaking of the UN:

The Times (Oct 8) - Junta hunts dissidents on UN computers

Burma’s ruling junta is attempting to seize United Nations computers containing information on opposition activists in the latest stage of its brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, The Times has learnt.

UN staff were thrown into panic over the weekend after Burmese police and diplomats entered its offices in Rangoon and demanded hard drives from its computers.

The discs contain information that could help the dictatorship to identify key members of the opposition movement, many of whom have gone underground. UN staff spent much of the weekend deleting information.

And in a seamless transition from the UN, here’s the word “furnaces”:

The Sunday Times (Oct 7) - Secret cremations hide Burma killings

THE Burmese army has burnt an undetermined number of bodies at a crematorium sealed off by armed guards northeast of Rangoon over the past seven days, ensuring that the exact death toll in the recent pro-democracy protests will never be known.

The secret cremations have been reported by local people who have seen olive green trucks covered with tarpaulins rumbling through the area at night and watched smoke rising continuously from the furnace chimneys.

They say they have watched soldiers in steel helmets blocking off roads to the municipal crematorium and threatening people who poke their heads out of windows overlooking the roads after the 10pm curfew.

Their accounts have been volunteered to international officials and aid workers in Rangoon, Burma’s main city. The consensus in the foreign community is that the consistency of the stories makes them credible.

The Sunday Times (just yesterday) - Fear reigns in Burma’s city under siege

EVERY night the curfew falls like a cloak across Mandalay, Burma’s second city and the heartland of its monkhood, hiding a reign of terror unseen by the outside world.

The trishaws vanish from the streets. The lamps of temples and mosques dim. People lurk in pools of light on their doorsteps, some brazenly cradling radios to their ears, but soon retreat indoors. Then come the sounds of dread.

Sitting on the roof of a deserted $15-a-night hotel, you can hear the growl of engines carried by an easterly breeze that sighs out of the Shan hills. Doors slam in the distance. There are shouts as motors rev up and recede. A hush descends.

Thousands of people are incarcerated in four detention centres around Mandalay controlled by the 33rd division of the Burmese army. Its commanders have broken the political power of the 200 monasteries here and shattered the Buddhist clergy as an organised force.

They have instituted the severest repression inflicted upon this city for two decades.

These are the conclusions of a covert visit to Mandalay in which students, intellectuals, monks and local business people took the risk of speaking to a foreign reporter, sometimes in whispers, to tell of their ordeal.

And speaking of tourists:

The Times (Oct 10) - Fearful tourists desert Burma after protests – and the economy withers

“There were many tourists in the beginning of September but then, after this Saffron Revolution, very few,” says Le Le (a pseudonym is used to protect her identity). “October to November is our peak season, but all the reservations have been cancelled. It’s not just hotels and restaurants which are affected, but all the tourist businesses.”

Apart from coping with the brutal junta under which they have lived for 45 years, Burmese have faced two economic blows in two months. In August enormous price rises were caused by the sudden removal of government subsidies on fuel, which triggered small demonstrations and then mass marches. But the protests themselves have had their own economic effects, not least of which is to have scared away the foreign tourist trade.

And here’s another one I read before I left:

The Times (Oct 5) - Boycott the boycotters: get that flight to Burma, by Cath Urquhart

At a clandestine theatre show in Mandalay, banned by the Burmese Government, three brave comedians performed skits and dances in English to a small group of backpackers. One of them, Par Par Lay, had just been released from a seven-year prison sentence imposed for telling an anti-government joke.

I asked fellow performer Lu Maw if I could write about the show, or would it get them into trouble? “We want tourists to come and spread the word,” he said. “Take our photograph and put it on the internet! Foreigners are our protection.” Par Par Lay said he was released 18 months early because foreign visitors had publicised his plight.

That was six years ago, when I travelled through Burma as a tourist, marvelling at the beauty of its sights and the gentleness of its people. I found a country thirsty for news of the outside world, where locals – rather than being terrified to talk to me – would pursue me down the street to practise their English, and who would come up to me at Rangoon’s peerless Shwedagon Paya to thumb through my Lonely Planet guidebook.

None of them had heard of Aung San Suu Kyi’s plea for tourists to boycott Burma; all were shocked when I told them of it, for while she is revered, the people are desperate for the income tourism brings. And it’s not true that all tourist money goes to the regime. I stayed in locally run guesthouses where my money went directly to the owner.

So now all the tourists have abandoned Burma. Natch.