http://www.greeknewsonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9500&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Posted on Monday, December 01 @ 00:47:58 EST by greek_news
The pursuit of oil through war is not unique to the George Bush. Empires require imperial politics and leaders. Bush I declared the New World Order in the early 1990s in the dessert (oil) fields in Saudi Arabia, with the collapse of the former Soviet Union. This New World Order was like the Old World Order, with one exception. The US was the only superpower, with a license to plunder the world for spheres of influence, raw materials, markets, even encircle Russia with new NATO allies and bases. Will President-elect Obama escape this scourge of war? Most of his predecessors since the 1960s, except the accidental President Ford and the Iran-hostage President Carter, either inherited a war or declared war on an enemy, real or manufactured.
Obama, though committed to ending the war in Iraq and restoring US credibility in the world, will escalate the war in Afghanistan, even inside Pakistan, to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Escalating the war in Afghanistan and carrying out his economic and social agenda for change at home would be difficult, to say the least, if not impossible. This difficulty is reflected in the selection of the men and women who will form his administration and plan domestic and foreign policies. This selection was more on the side of ʽexperienceʼ than policy orientation. Experience is laudable, even necessary, as long as the policy makers in Washington are tuned into the new direction, which is projected to benefit the American people and the world.
We have a plethora of experts on the economy and foreign policy in Washington, in academic and think-tank institutions, Republicans and Democrats, whose only vision is to promote the ideas of Adam Smith to the world and to carry out their domestic policies in line with the free market dogma, including the privatization of the social security or subject any reforms on health to the laws of the market (Ronald Reagan and John McCain). More than two hundred years of preaching and practicing Adam Smithʼs gospel to the world did not offer even a hint to these ideologues that the market is very good for those who benefit, the capitalists, with millions of workers in the United States and the world falling through the cracks of competition, or waiting for the breadcrumbs to fall off the tables. Joe Lieberman, aside from his despicable comments trailing behind McCain, put his finger on this problematic of the market when he was the running mate of Albert Gore. He said, ʽthis is how the market works. If you want to feed the birds, you give more oats to the horsesʼ. The market fed the CEOs. We know the results.
Obama is committed to the market as well, but not as the formula for all economic and social ills in the society. Obama is also committed to a new agenda, for change, to end politics as usual. His head is in the right direction. That is why so many of us ʽpolitical junkiesʼ took this progressive message and run with it. Of course, there is the need for patience. Elected officials are not magicians. There are no miracles in Washington, only political paralysis, deadlocks, and bureaucratic incompetence—all systemic to what was structured by the founding fathers--the separation of powers, checks and balances (statements?), and the blaming of others for the failure of each administration or politician to deliver on the promises.
Formulating a progressive policy is easy. Walking it through the legislative maze and implementing it through the bureaucratic rigmarole (which is ¾ of the legislative process) is difficult enough. But, how does this progressive project square with the other Obama commitment to transfer the war from Iraq to Afghanistan, which seems to be the political mood in the ascending Democratic White House and Congress?
The war in Afghanistan brings to mind Santayanaʼs comment: “those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.” Hegel was more to the point: “the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn anything from history.”
All one needs to do is to take stock of what happened to British imperialism in 1840s, 1880s, and 1920s. Follow this with the experience of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. If 160,000 Soviet troops and 240,000 Afghan soldiers sympathetic to the pro-Soviet government in Kabul did not defeat the mujaheedin, nor did the current 40,000 or 50,000 US-NATO forces in the eight years of the Bush administration turn the tide around (in fact it went the other way), how would the increase of the US military presence to even 100,000 (which will include NATO forces) succeed in ending the civil war and the controlling power of the warlords? How would this change the centuries-old tribal culture in Afghanistan into a democratic and free market society through the force of arms, plundering, death, and maiming of combatants and civilians, men, women, and children?
To win a guerrilla war, as the British learned the hard way in Malaysia and the United States in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, it requires knowledge of the culture of the enemy, support from the local population, including a desire for democratic rule, prevent the guerrillas from having a safe heaven and sanctuary in the neighboring countries (or the Islamic world?), avoid bombing indiscriminatingly (with unmanned planes?) causing collateral damage to property and innocent men/women/children, avoid fighting a war with a volunteer military force, with the rest of the population going about their private affairs, and attend to the needs of those returning with physical and psychological problems. Every one of these rules was violated in the last eight years!
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are due to failed US policies and manufactured lies by the Bush White House. In the 1980s, Washington subsidized the Saddam Hussein war against Iran and the Taliban war against the Soviet Union, at the tune of $5-6 billion each, respectively. The events leading to the invasion of Iraq are well-known, yet 46 million Americans voted for McCain and the continuation of this war, until victory. The US involvement in Afghanistan is less known, or rather farther removed from memory. The first bombing of the Twin Towers in 1993 was referred to in an article “Blowback,” The New York Times Magazine (March 13, 1994) by Tim Weiner.
The words of Charles G. Cogan, the CIAʼs operations chief for the Near East and South Asia from 1979 to 1984 speak for themselves: “Itʼs quite a shock. The hypothesis that the mujahedeen would come to the United States and commit terrorist actions did not enter into our universe of thinking at the time. We were totally preoccupied with the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It is a significant unintended consequence.”
Weiner continues: “In the five years since the Soviets withdrew, tens of thousands of Islamic radicals, outcasts, visionaries and gunmen from some 40 nations have come to Afghanistan to learn the lessons of the jihad, the holy war, to train for armed insurrection, to bring the struggle back home. For nearly a generation, blood and bones were sown into the Afghan dust by the weapons of the superpowers, and now the land bears a harvest of holy war and heroin. The sole field of victory for CIA-backed “freedom fighters” in the 1980s has become an international center for the training and indoctrination of terrorists. The veterans of the jihad have taken their war abroad to Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Burma, China, Egypt, India, Morocco, Pakistan, Sudan, Tadzhikistan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Yemen—and the United States. Yes, the whole country is a university for jihad, exactly as they say,” Noor Amin declares proudly. As in any outlaw culture, guns, drugs and money are interchangeable here. Nonetheless, the unfailing wellspring of cash is the cultivation, sale and processing of opium from fields and labs controlled by rebel commanders.”
The majority of Americans have been reduced to ʽpay-as-you-goʼ living standards and expect a relief, a bailout, with the ending of the costly Iraqi war. Transferring this war to Afghanistan would be madness. If the Obama administration escalates the war in Afghanistan, it can be only for one reason: prepare the ground for a diplomatic solution to the conflict and a face-saving exist strategy. To get mired in a civil war, with more military personnel and more targets for the mujahedeen, more body bags and soldiers maimed physically and psychologically for life bound for home, and billions of dollars wasted at a time of a major economic crisis is a guarantee that the agenda for change will remain a campaign promise.
****George Gregoriou, Professor Emeritus
Critical Theory and Geopolitics, Political Science Department
The William Paterson University, Wayne, N.J. 07470
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Commentaries: The Politics of Oil, War and Terrorism: Towards a New Obama Policy?
invitation to the PFB Regular Meeting(Dec. 6)
Flag this messageinvitation to the PFB Regular Meeting(Dec. 6)Monday, 1 December, 2008 19:34
From: "PFB"
PFB will have The 53th Regular Meeting on Dec. 6th from 6:30PM to 8:30PM.
We hope to see you there!
Best Regards,
MIYAZAWA (PFB)
pfb@xsj.biglobe.ne.jp
on behalf on Mr. Shogo Watanabe
--------------------------------------------------------------
*Date& Time : December, 6th(SAT), 2006 PM6:30-PM8:30
*Place: Bunkyo Civic Hall, 4F ,Room: silver hall Marunoushi-sen, Korakuen-station, Exit 4b or 5 (3min.)
Map; http://www.b-academy.jp/b-civichall/access/access.html
*Entrance Fee: 200yen(PFB Member), 500yen(Non-Member)
(1) Video ( a video on situation in Burma-1988 will be put on the screen for 45min.) (2)Burmese History 1988-2008
...........Ms. Kei Nemoto(PFB's S.C.M./ Professor) (60min.)
(2) Update: Situation on Burmese refugee applicants in Japan-2008 (20min.)
..............Mr. Shogo Watanabe
------------------------------------------------------------
People's Forum on Burma(PFB)
------------------------------------------------------------
c/o Izumibashi Law Office
Yotsuya 1chome West Bldg. 1-18-6, Yotsuya, shinjuku-ku, Tokyo JAPAN
160-0004
TEL:03-5312-4817 FAX:03-5312-4543
URL:http://www1.jca.apc.org/pfb/ E-mail: pfb@xsj.biglobe.ne.jp
------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. should move beyond just using sanctions in its relations with Burma
The China Post
BY NEHGINPAO KIPGEN
Special to The China Post
In an apparent shift from the
policy of traditional sanctions, the
U.S. Congress created a post for
policy chief for Burma to increase
pressure on the military junta.
In response to this unprecedented
action, the White House
announced the nomination of
Michael Green for the post on Nov.
10. Whether this maneuver brings
vigor to the Burmese democratic
movement is a question that
remains to be seen.
Green, who has served as a
senior director for Asian Affairs
under the Bush administration,
should have noticed the quandary
over the Burmese political
imbroglio, especially the futility of
conflicting approaches by the international
community.
According to this legislation, the
policy chief will consult with the
governments of China, India, Thailand
and Japan, members of
Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), and the European
Union to coordinate
international strategy.
Years of sanctions after sanctions,
this is a new birth in the
American policy toward Burma.
Sanctions, however, still remain the
popular way of punishing the rogue
regimes and governments around
the world.
When it comes to Burma, sanctions
have little impact on the
military regime due to engagements
by neighboring countries,
notably China, India and members
of ASEAN.
A solution to Burma’s problems
greatly lies in two possible ways:
Popular Uprising and Intervention.
Popular uprising have been tasted
twice in 1988 and in 2007. Both
events were brutally crushed by the
military with force.
The word intervention can be
engagement or sanction. There is
no doubt about the U.S. sanctions
hurting the military generals and
also the general public. Had there
been a coordinated international
approach, Burma could have been
different today.
It must be difficult for the U.S.
government to abandon its traditional
policy of isolating the
Burmese generals and start
engaging with them. But they have
to realize that sanction alone is not
effective in resolving Burma’s crisis
when there is engagement on the
other end.
While sanctions are in place, the
new envoy can start initiating a
“carrot and stick” policy by working
together with key international
players. The one similar to the
North Korean six-party talk model
should be given emphasis on
Burma.
The six-party talks involving the
United States, European Union,
ASEAN, China, India, and Burma
should be initiated. In the beginning,
the military generals and
some other countries might resist
the proposal, but we need to
remember that the North Korean
talk was also initially not supported
by all parties.
The hard work of the U.S. in
North Korea is now paid off with
North Korea being removed from
the State Department’s list of terrorists,
and in return, North Korea
promised to shut down and dismantle
its nuclear facilities.
It was not only the sticks that
worked but also the carrots. The
U.S. offered energy and food assistance
to the North Korean
leadership. A similar initiative
could convince Burma’s military
generals to come to the negotiating
table.
Now that the U.N. Secretary General
is heavily involved in the
process, the U.S. can garner
stronger support from the international
community. Without such
move from the U.S., Ban Ki-moon’s
‘Group of Friends of the Secretary
General on Myanmar’ will yield
little.
The most effective U.N. intervention
would happen when the
Security Council decides to take
action. This scenario is bleak with
China and Russia vetoing the move,
and likely to do again if Burma
issue comes up in the Council’s
agenda.
The creation of U.S. special
envoy and policy chief for Burma is
a widely welcome move. With this
new position coming into place, the
U.S. should start moving beyond
imposing sanctions.
Nehginpao Kipgen is the General
Secretary of U.S.-based Kuki
International Forum
(www.kukiforum.com) and a
researcher on the rise of political
conflicts in modern Burma (1947-
2004).
Myanmar to promote its traditional medicine
http://balita.ph/2008/12/02/myanmar-to-promote-its-traditional-medicine/
December 2, 2008 4:44 pm by pna
By Feng Yingqiu
YANGON, Dec. 2 — A two-day 9th Traditional Medicine Practitioners Conference of Myanmar is due to open in the country's new capital of Nay Pyi Taw later on Tuesday, aimed at promoting the development of the country's traditional medicine and its medical practices.
Myanmar traditional medicine is recognized as one of the principal contributors to the public health and a genuine legacy left by ancestors.
As the Myanmar traditional medicine is playing a more and more important role in treating diseases in the country, the government places more emphasis on the aspects, calling on traditional medicine practitioners to protect and preserve them from depletion and extinction and to ensure their perpetual existence.
At the same time, the practitioners are also urged to harmoniously strive for the promotion of the standard of Myanmar traditional medicine to reach international level.
According to the health authorities, Myanmar has made arrangements for the development of the traditional medicine in line with the set standards, opening diploma courses and practitioner courses to train out skilled experts in the field.
A decade before, Myanmar's Institute of Traditional Medicine conferred diplomas on traditional medicine to those who had completed two-year theoretical course and one-year practical course.
In 2001, Myanmar established its University of Traditional Medicine in Mandalay, the second largest city, where traditional medicine, anatomy and physiology, microbiology and medicine and Chinese acupuncture are taught.
Meanwhile, Myanmar has set up the first national herbal park in the new capital of Nay Pyi Taw to grow herbal and medicinal plants used in producing medicines for treating various diseases.
The 81-hectare National Herbal Park, aimed at becoming an international-level one, was established by the Ministry of Progress of Border Areas and National Races and Development Affairs.
Over 20,000 herbal and medicinal plants of over 700 species from some 10 states and divisions for producing medicines used in treating diseases like cholera, dysentery, hypertension, diabetes, malaria and tuberculosis are being grown in the park.
Encouragement has also been made to set up large traditional medicine industries with the private sector to produce potent drugs for common diseases, herbal gardens for medicinal plant conservation and find means to treat patients with the combined potency of the Western and Myanmar traditional medicine.
There are 12 traditional medicine hospitals and 214 such clinics in the country with services provided by nearly 10,000 practitioners, earlier statistics show.
The Myanmar traditional medicine, composed of such ingredients as roots, tubers, bulbs, natural items and animal products, has in a historical perspective, represented the typical Myanmar culture and traditional value and norms.
Meanwhile, practitioners in the country are also being urged to make efforts for the promotion of Myanmar traditional medicines through cooperation with the international community.
"To be able to uplift the health standard of the people, Myanmar will cooperate on approval of Beijing Declaration on traditional medicine," official media said
The Congress of Traditional Medicine of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in Beijing, China in early November.
The Myanmar delegation to the WHO congress discussed matters on Myanmar traditional medicine including measures being taken for conducting research on treatment of six major diseases — diabetes, hypertension, malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhea and dysentery through traditional medicine. (PNA/Xinhua)
ALM/ebp
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http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1972
Dec 1, 2008 (DVB)泡n Thailand-based organisation providing shelter, healthcare and education to HIV-positive Burmese migrant women is one of 25 community-based organisations selected to receive the Red Ribbon Award.
Social Action for Women works in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border, where it runs a centre providing treatment and shelter for women with HIV, a safe house for children orphaned by AIDS and a sex education programme aimed at Burmese migrants.
The Red Ribbon Award is presented by the United Nations Development Programme and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS.
The award highlights the work of organisations who have taken innovative and sustainable approaches to HIV prevention and treatment and give valuable support to people living with HIV/AIDS.
Twenty-five organisations from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas were selected for the 2008 award, including two based in Thailand.
As well as Social Action for Women, the Thailand-based Empower Foundation was also selected for the award to its work on HIV prevention and promoting the rights of sex workers.
Aye Aye Mar, director of Social Action for Women, said the group would receive their award from UNDP in Thailand on 1 December, World AIDS Day.
"We offer assistance to women affected by the HIV virus as well as looking after children orphaned by AIDS," she said.
Aye Aye Mar said many women and children from inside Burma who were affected by HIV/AIDS had been coming to the border to seek assistance at the Mae-Tao clinic.
"We would like to give our respect to HIV/AIDS activists such as Ma Phyu Phyu Thin who are doing all they can to provide assistance to AIDS victims and raise awareness on how to prevent the disease as well as fighting against it," she said.
"We also hope the world community can do more to help AIDS victims in Burma."
When the recipients were announced in June, UNDP痴 HIV/AIDS Practice Director Jeffrey O樽alley said it was an opportunity to raise the profile of the work done by community-based groups around the world.
展e have brilliant examples of community action and leadership across the globe,・O樽alley said.
滴owever, most of them are unheard and unsung. The Red Ribbon Award is a way to recognise and honour them.・p>
Reporting by Yee May Aung
Printer Friendly Version | Send to a Friend
Red Ribbon Award honours Burmese migrant organisation
http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=1972
Red Ribbon Award honours Burmese migrant organisation
Dec 1, 2008 (DVB)泡n Thailand-based organisation providing shelter, healthcare and education to HIV-positive Burmese migrant women is one of 25 community-based organisations selected to receive the Red Ribbon Award.
Social Action for Women works in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burma border, where it runs a centre providing treatment and shelter for women with HIV, a safe house for children orphaned by AIDS and a sex education programme aimed at Burmese migrants.
The Red Ribbon Award is presented by the United Nations Development Programme and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS.
The award highlights the work of organisations who have taken innovative and sustainable approaches to HIV prevention and treatment and give valuable support to people living with HIV/AIDS.
Twenty-five organisations from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas were selected for the 2008 award, including two based in Thailand.
As well as Social Action for Women, the Thailand-based Empower Foundation was also selected for the award to its work on HIV prevention and promoting the rights of sex workers.
Aye Aye Mar, director of Social Action for Women, said the group would receive their award from UNDP in Thailand on 1 December, World AIDS Day.
"We offer assistance to women affected by the HIV virus as well as looking after children orphaned by AIDS," she said.
Aye Aye Mar said many women and children from inside Burma who were affected by HIV/AIDS had been coming to the border to seek assistance at the Mae-Tao clinic.
"We would like to give our respect to HIV/AIDS activists such as Ma Phyu Phyu Thin who are doing all they can to provide assistance to AIDS victims and raise awareness on how to prevent the disease as well as fighting against it," she said.
"We also hope the world community can do more to help AIDS victims in Burma."
When the recipients were announced in June, UNDP痴 HIV/AIDS Practice Director Jeffrey O樽alley said it was an opportunity to raise the profile of the work done by community-based groups around the world.
展e have brilliant examples of community action and leadership across the globe,・O樽alley said.
滴owever, most of them are unheard and unsung. The Red Ribbon Award is a way to recognise and honour them.・p>
Reporting by Yee May Aung
Printer Friendly Version | Send to a Friend
Live Coverage: Clinton as Secretary of State
Barack Obama announces his foreign policy team today, including Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
The Great Land Giveaway: Neo-Colonialism by Invitation
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11231
Colonial style empire-building is making a huge comeback
by James Petras
Global Research, December 1, 2008
"The deal South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics is negotiating with the Madagascar Government looks rapacious…The Madagascan case looks neo-colonial…The Madagascan people stand to lose half of their arable land." Financial Times Editorial, November 20, 2008
"Cambodia is in talks with several Asian and Middle Eastern governments to receive as much as $3 billions US dollars in agricultural investments in return for millions of hectares of land concessions…" Financial Times, November 21, 2008
"We are starving in the midst of bountiful harvests and booming exports!: Unemployed Rural Landless Workers, Para State, Brazil (2003)
Introduction
Colonial style empire-building is making a huge comeback, and most of the colonialists are late-comers, elbowing their way past the established European and US predators.
Backed by their governments and bankrolled with huge trade and investment profits and budget surpluses, the newly emerging neo-colonial economic powers (ENEP) are seizing control of vast tracts of fertile lands from poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, through the intermediation of local corrupt, free-market regimes. Millions of acres of land have been granted – in most cases free of charge – to the ENEP who, at most, promise to invest millions in infrastructure to facilitate the transfer of their plundered agricultural products to their own home markets and to pay the ongoing wage of less than $1 dollar a day to the destitute local peasants. Projects and agreements between the ENEP and pliant neo-colonial regimes are in the works to expand imperial land takeovers to cover additional tens of millions of hectares of farmland in the very near future. The great land sell-off/transfer takes place at a time and in places where landless peasants are growing in number, small farmers are being forcibly displaced by the neo-colonial state and bankrupted through debt and lack of affordable credit. Millions of organized landless peasants and rural workers struggling for cultivatable land are criminalized, repressed, assassinated or jailed and their families are driven into disease-ridden urban slums. The historic context, economic actors and methods of agro-business empire-building bears similarities and differences with the old-style empire building of the past centuries.
Old and New Style Agro-Imperial Exploitation
During the previous five centuries of imperial domination the exploitation and export of agricultural products and minerals played a central role in the enrichment of the Euro-North American empires. Up to the 19th century, large-scale plantations and latifundios, organized around staple crops, relied on forced labor – slaves, indentured servants, semi-serfs, tenant farmers, migrant seasonal workers and a host of other forms of labor (including prisoners) to accumulate wealth and profits for colonial settlers, home country investors and the imperial state treasuries.
The agricultural empires were secured through conquest of indigenous peoples, importation of slaves and indentured workers, the forcible seizure and dispossession of communal lands and the rule through colonial officials. In many cases, the colonial rulers incorporated local elites (‘nobles’, monarchs, tribal chiefs and favored minorities) as administrators and recruited the impoverished, dispossesed natives to serve as colonial soldiers led by white Euro-American officers.
Colonial-style agro-imperialism came under attack by mass-based national liberation movements throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, culminating in the establishment of independent national regimes throughout Africa, Asia (except Palestine) and Latin America. From the very beginning of their reign, the newly independent states pursued diverse policies toward colonial-era land ownership and exploitation. A few of the radical, socialist and nationalist regimes eventually expropriated, either partially or entirely, foreign landowners, as was the case in China, Cuba, Indochina, Zimbabwe, Guyana, Angola, India and others. Many of these ‘expropriations’ led to land transfers to the new emerging post-colonial bourgeoisie, leaving the mass of the rural labor force without land or confined to communal land. In most cases the transition from colonial to post-colonial regimes was underwritten by a political pact ensuring the continuation of colonial patterns of land ownership, cultivation, marketing and labor relations (described as a ‘neo-colonial agro-export system). With few exceptions most independent governments failed to change their dependence on export crops, diversify export markets, develop food self-sufficiency or finance the settlement of rural poor onto fertile uncultivated public lands.
Where land distribution did take place, the regimes failed to invest sufficiently in the new forms of rural organization (family farms, co-ops or communal ‘ejidos’) or imposed centrally controlled large-scale state enterprises, which were inefficiently run, failed to provide adequate incentives for the direct producers, and were exploited to finance urban-industrial development. As a result, many state farms and cooperatives were eventually dismantled. In most countries great masses of the rural poor continued to be landless and subject to the demands of local tax collectors, military recruiters and usurious money lenders and were evicted by land speculators, real estate developers and national and local officials.
Neo-Liberalism and the Rise of New Agro-Imperialism
Emblematic of the new style agro-imperialism is the South Korean takeover of half (1.3 million hectares) of Madagascar’s total arable land under a 70-90 year lease in which the Daewoo Logistics Corporation of South Korea expects to pay nothing for a contract to cultivate maize and palm oil for export.1 In Cambodia, several emerging agro-imperial Asian and Middle Eastern countries are ‘negotiating’ (with hefty bribes and offers of lucrative local ‘partnerships’ to local politicians) the takeover of millions of hectares of fertile land.2 The scope and depth of the new emerging agro-imperial expansion into the impoverished countryside of Asian, African and Latin American countries far surpasses that of the earlier colonial empire before the 20th century. A detailed account of the new agro-imperialist countries and their neo-colonial colonies has recently been compiled on the website of GRAIN3.
The driving forces of contemporary agro-imperialist conquest and land grabbing can be divided into three blocs:
The new rich Arab oil regimes, mostly among the Gulf States (in part, through their ‘sovereign wealth funds).
The newly emerging imperial countries of Asia (China, India, South Korea and Japan) and Israel
The earlier imperial countries (US and Europe), the World Bank, Wall Street investment banks and other assorted imperial speculator-financial companies.
Each of these agro-imperial blocs is organized around one to three ‘leading’ countries: Among the Gulf imperial states, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; in Asia – China, Korea and Japan are the main land grabbers. Among the US-European-World Bank land predators there are a wide range of agro-imperialist monopoly firms buying up land ranging from Goldman Sachs, Blackstone in the US to Louis Dreyfuss in the Netherlands and Deutschbank in Germany. Upward of several hundred million acres of arable land have been or are in the process of being appropriated by the world’s biggest capitalist landowners in what is one of the greatest concentration of private landownership in the history of empire building.
The process of agro-imperial empire building operates largely through political and financial mechanisms, preceded, in some cases, by military coups, imperial interventions and destabilization campaigns to establish pliable neo-colonial ‘partners’ or, more accurately, collaborators, disposed to cooperate in this huge imperial land grab. Once in place, the Afro-Asian-Latin American neo-colonial regimes impose a neo-liberal agenda which includes the break-up of communal-held lands, the promotion of agro-export strategies, the repression of any local land reform movements among subsistence farmers and landless rural workers demanding the redistribution of fallow public and private lands. The neo-colonial regimes’ free market policies eliminate or lower tariff barriers on heavily subsidized food imports from the US and Europe. These policies bankrupt local market farmers and peasants increasing the amount of available land to ‘lease’ or sell-off to the new agro-imperial countries and multinationals. The military and police play a key role in evicting impoverished, indebted and starving farmers and preventing squatters from occupying and producing food on fertile land for local consumption.
Once the neo-colonial collaborator regimes are in place and their ‘free market’ agendas are implemented, the stage is set for the entry and takeover of vast tracts of cultivable land by the agro-imperial countries and investors.
Israel is the major exception to this pattern of agro-imperial conquest, as it relies on the massive sustained use of force against an entire nation to dispossess Palestinian farmers and seize territory via armed colonial settlers – in the style of earlier Euro-American colonial imperialism.4
The sellout usually follows one of two paths or a combination of both: Newly emerging imperial countries take the lead or are solicited by the neo-colonial regime to invest in ‘agricultural development’. One-sided ‘negotiations’ follow in which substantial sums of cash flow from the imperial treasury into the overseas bank accounts of their neo-colonial ‘partners’. The agreements and the terms of the contracts are unequal: The food and agricultural commodities are almost totally exported back to the home markets of the agro-imperial country, even as the ‘host country’s’ population starves and is dependent on emergency shipments of food from imperial ‘humanitarian’ agencies. ‘Development’, including promise of large-scale investment, is largely directed at building roads, transport, ports and storage facilities to be used exclusively to facilitate the transfer of agricultural produce overseas by the large-scale agro-imperial firms. Most of the land is taken rent-free or subject to ‘nominal’ fees, which go into the pockets of the political elite or are recycled into the urban real estate market and luxury imports for the local wealthy elite. Except for the collaborationist relatives or cronies of the neo-colonial rulers, almost all of the high paid directors, senior executives and technical staff come from the imperial countries in the tradition of the colonial past. An army of low salary, educated, ‘third country nationals’ generally enter as middle level technical and administrative employees – completely subverting any possibility of vital technology or skills transfer to the local population. The major and much touted ‘benefit’ to the neo-colonial country is the employment of local manual farm workers, who are rarely paid above the going rate of $1 to 2 US dollars a day and are harshly repressed and denied any independent trade union representation.
In contrast, the agro-imperial companies and regimes reap enormous profits, secure supplies of food at subsidized prices, exercise political influence or hegemonic control over collaborator elites and establish economic ‘beachheads’ to expand their investments and facilitate foreign takeover of the local financial, trade and processing sectors.
Target Countries
While there is a great deal of competition and overlap among the agro-imperial countries in plundering the target countries, the tendency is for the Arab petroleum imperial regimes to focus on penetrating neo-colonies in South and Southeast Asia. The Asian ‘Economic Tiger’ countries concentrate on Africa and Latin America. While the US-Europe Multinationals exploit the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as well as Latin America and Africa.
Bahrain has grabbed land in Pakistan, the Philippines and Sudan to supply itself with rice. China, probably the most dynamic agro-imperial country today, has invested in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia to ensure low cost soybean supplies (especially from Brazil), rice production in Cuba (5,000 hectares), Burma, Cameroon (10,000 hectares), Laos (100,000 hectares), Mozambique (with 10,000 Chinese farm-worker settlers), the Philippines (1.24 million hectares) and Uganda.
The Gulf States are projecting a $1 billion dollar fund to finance land grabs in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Japan has purchased 100,000 hectares of Brazilian farmland for soybean and maize. Its corporations own 12 million hectares in Southeast Asia and South America. Kuwait has grabbed land in Burma, Cambodia, Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Laos, Sudan and Uganda. Qatar has taken over rice fields in Cambodia and Pakistan and wheat, maize and oil seed croplands in Sudan as well as land in Vietnam for cereals, fruit, vegetables and raising cattle. Saudi Arabia has been ‘offered’ 500,000 hectares of rice fields in Indonesia and hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile land in Ethiopia and Sudan.
The World Bank (WB) has played a major role in promoting agro-imperial land grabs, allocating $1.4 billion dollars to finance agro-business takeovers of ‘underutilized lands’. The WB conditions its loans to neo-colonies, like the Ukraine, on their opening up lands to be exploited by foreign investors.5 Taking advantage of neo-liberal ‘center-left’ regimes in Argentina and Brazil, agro-imperial investors from the US and Europe have bought millions of acres of fertile farmlands and pastures to supply their imperial homelands, while millions of landless peasants and unemployed workers are left to watch the trains laden with beef, wheat and soy beans head for the foreign MNC-controlled port facilities and on to the imperial home markets in Europe, Asia and the US.
At least two emerging imperial countries, Brazil and China, are subject to imperial land grabs by more ‘advanced’ imperial countries and have become ‘agents’ of agricultural colonization. Japanese, European and North American multinationals exploit Brazil even as Brazilian colonial settlers and agro-industrialists have taken over wide swathes of borderlands in Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia. A similar pattern occurs in China where valuable farmlands are exploited by Japanese and overseas Chinese capitalists at the same time that China is seizing fertile land in poorer countries in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Present and Future Consequences of Agro-Imperialism
The re-colonization by emerging imperialist states of huge tracts of fertile farmland of the poorest countries and regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America is resulting in a deepening class polarization between, on the one hand, wealthy rentier Arab oil states, Asian billionaires, affluent state-funded Jewish settlers and Western speculators and, on the other hand, hundreds of millions of starving, landless, dispossessed peasants in Sudan, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Palestine, Burma, China, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Paraguay and elsewhere.
Agro-imperialism is still in its early stages – taking possession of huge tracts of land, expropriating peasants and exploiting the landless rural workers as day laborers. The next phase which is currently unfolding is to take control over the transport systems, infrastructure and credit systems, which accompany the growth of agro-export crops. Monopolizing infrastructure, credit and the profits from seeds, fertilizers, processing industries, tolls and interest payments on loans further concentrates de facto imperial control over the colonial economy and extends political influence over local politicians, rulers and collaborators within the bureaucracies.
The neo-colonized class structure, especially in largely agricultural economies are evolving into a four tier class system in which the foreign capitalists and their entourage are at the pinnacle of elite status representing less than 1% of the population. In the second tier, representing 10% of the population are the local political elite and their cronies and relatives as well as well placed bureaucrats and military officers, who enrich themselves, through partnerships (‘joint ventures’) with the neo-colonials and via bribes and land grabs. The local middle class represents almost 20% and is in constant danger of falling into poverty in the face of the world economic crises. The dispossessed peasants, rural workers, rural refugees, urban squatters and indebted subsistence peasants and farmers make up the fourth tier of the class structure with close to 70% of the population.
Within the emerging neo-colonial agro-export model, the ‘middle class’ is shrinking and changing in composition. The number of family farmers producing for the domestic market is declining in the face of state-supported foreign-owned farms producing for their own ‘home markets’. As a result market vendors and small retailers in the local markets are falling behind, squeezed out by the large foreign-owned supermarkets. The loss of employment for domestic producers of farm goods and services and the elimination of a host of ‘commercial’ intermediaries between town and country is sharpening the class polarization between top and bottom tiers of the class structure. The new colonial middle class is reconfigured to include a small stratum of lawyers, professionals, publicists and low-level functionaries of the foreign firms and public and private security forces. The auxiliary role of the ‘new middle class’ in servicing the axis of colonial economic and political power will make them less nation-oriented and more colonial in their allegiances and political outlook, more ‘free market’ consumerist in their life style and more prone to approve of repressive (including fascistic) domestic solutions to rural and urban unrest and popular struggles for justice.
At the present moment, the biggest constraint on the advance of agro-imperialism is the economic collapse of world capitalism, which is undermining the ‘export of capital’. The sudden collapse of commodity prices is making it less profitable to invest in overseas farmland. The drying up of credit is undermining the financing of grandiose overseas land grabs. The 70% decline in oil revenues is limiting the Middle East Sovereign Funds and other investment vehicles of Gulf oil foreign reserves. On the other hand, the collapse of agricultural prices is bankrupting African, Asian and Latin American elite agro-producers, forcing down land prices and presenting opportunities for imperial agro-investors to buy up even more fertile land at rock-bottom prices.
The current world capitalist recession is adding millions of unemployed rural workers to the hundreds of millions of peasants dispossessed during the expansion period of the agricultural commodity boom during the first half of the current decade. Labor costs and land are cheap, at the same time that effective consumer demand is falling. Agro-imperialists can employ all the Third World rural labor they want at $1 dollar a day or less, but how can they market their products and realize returns that cover the costs of loans, bribes, transport, marketing, elite salaries, perks, CEO bonuses and investor dividends when demand is in decline?
Some agro-imperialists may take advantage of the recession to buy cheaply now and look forward to long-term profits when the multi-trillion dollar state-funded recovery takes effect. Others may cut back on their land grabs or more likely hold vast expanses of valuable land out of production until the ‘market’ improves – while dispossessed peasants starve on the margins of fallow fields.
The new agro-imperials are banking on the new imperialist states committing resources (money and troops) to bolster the neo-colonial gendarmes in repressing the inevitable uprisings of the billions of dispossessed, hungry and marginalized people in Sudan, Ethiopia, Burma, Cambodia, Brazil, Paraguay, the Philippines, China and elsewhere. Time is running out for the easy deals, transfers of ownership and long-term leases consummated by local neo-colonial collaborators and overseas colonial investors and states. Currently imperial wars and domestic economic recessions in the old and emerging imperial countries are systematically draining their economies and testing the willingness of their populations to sacrifice for new style colonial empire building. Without international military and economic backing, the thin stratum of local neo-colonial rulers can hardly withstand sustained, mass uprisings of the destitute peasantry allied with the downwardly mobile lower middle class and growing legions of unemployed university-educated young people.
The promise of a new era of agro-imperial empire building and a new wave of emerging imperial states may be short-lived. In its place we may see a new wave of rural-based national liberation movements and ferocious competition between new and old imperial states fighting over increasingly scarce financial and economic resources. While downwardly mobile workers and employees in the Western imperial centers gyrate between one and another imperial party (Democrat/Republican, Conservative/Labor) they will play no role for the foreseeable future. When and if they break loose…they may turn toward a demagogic nationalist right or toward a currently invisible (at least in the US and Europe) ‘patriotic nationalist’ socialist left. In either case, current imperial pillage and the subsequent mass rebellion will start elsewhere with or without a change in the US or Europe.
NOTES
Financial Times November 20, 2008 page 3
Financial Times November 21, 2008 page 7
http://www.grain.org (November 22, 2008)
Stephen Lendman, "Another Israeli West Bank Land Grab Scheme", Counterpunch. Org. October 10, 2008; Guardian.co.uk, October 10, 2008.
See GRAIN.org, op.cit.
James Petras is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by James Petras
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'Burma VJ' wins Amsterdam prize
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=story&id=1061&articleid=VR1117996616&cs=1
Documentary looks at uprising in SE Asia
By IAN MUNDELL
Posted: Mon., Dec. 1, 2008, 10:34am PT• MORE FESTIVAL ARTICLESStephenson takes legal fight to U.K.
All News >> BRUSSELS — Anders Ostergaard's "Burma VJ — Reporting from a Closed Country" took top prize at the Intl. Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the world’s top event for docu features.
The pic, which describes the work of a group of citizen reporters who secretly filmed the uprising against the military dictatorship in Burma in September 2007, also picked up the fest's Movies that Matter human rights prize at a ceremony Saturday night.
A special jury award went to German team Rick Minnich and Matthew Sweetwood for "Forgetting Dad," about the sudden memory loss suffered by Minnich's father.
Kudos for medium-length docu went to Dutch helmer Aliona van der Horst, whose "Boris Ryzhy" explores the life of a little-known Russian poet.
A special jury award in this category went to Ibtisam Mara'ana for "Lady Kul el Arab," about a beauty pageant for Arab women in Israel.
Canada’s "RiP — A Remix Manifesto" by Brett Gaylor won the audience award with its argument against penalizing people who cross copyright boundaries to make music.
Fest organizers report a 9% rise in visitor numbers compared with last year, with at least 157,500 tickets sold. However, international guests attending fell from 2,700 to 2,469.
Two-thirds of Myanmar HIV cases involve youths: UNICEF
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081201/hl_afp/myanmarhealthaids_081201171936
Mon Dec 1, 12:19 pm ET AFP/File – Myanmar orphans infected with HIV with caregivers at a care center in Yangon in 2006. Youths in Myanmar … YANGON (AFP) – Youths in Myanmar are particularly at risk from HIV, with almost two thirds of the near quarter million people living with the virus in that country aged under 24, the UN Children's Fund said Monday.
About 100,000 women are also living with HIV in Myanmar and many newborns are at risk of being infected, Ramesh Shrestha, the UNICEF representative in Myanmar, said in a statement for World AIDS Day.
"Young people have a higher propensity for risk-taking behaviour which exposes them to avoidable risks including exposure to HIV," Shrestha said.
"It is estimated that there are approximately 240,000 people living with HIV in Myanmar, of which almost two thirds are young people under 24 years of age," the statement said.
International humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres has said that about 76,000 of those living with HIV in Myanmar are in urgent need of antiretroviral treatment (ART).
A senior Myanmar health ministry official said more funding was needed to prevent HIV spreading inside the country.
"More funds are needed not only ART for AIDS patients but also for prevention projects," Kyaw Nyunt Sein told AFP.
About 11,000 AIDS patients around the country are getting ART from the government and international NGOs, he said.
Only 170 administrative regions out of 325 around the country can implement 100 percent condom promotion to prevent the HIV virus spreading because of funding shortages.
"We cannot give complete prevention. The disease mostly occurs through sexual contact, that's why we want to do 100 percent condom promotion for youths," he said.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962 and the impoverished nation's healthcare system is in poor condition.
Thousands die because Myanmar's junta spends too little on AIDS, group says
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/02/healthscience/02glob.php
GLOBAL UPDATE
By Donald G. Mcneil Jr. Published: December 2, 2008
Thousands of people in Myanmar are dying needlessly of AIDS each year because too little money is allocated to treating them, the international charity Doctors Without Borders said last week.
About 240,000 people in Myanmar are infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and about 76,000 are sick enough to need antiretroviral treatment, the group said. But only about 15,000 are getting it, and Doctors Without Borders is paying for 11,000.
The nongovernmental organization, which is allowed to work in only some parts of the country, is overwhelmed and is having to turn new patients away.
"It is unacceptable that a single NGO is treating the vast majority of HIV patients in a crisis of this magnitude," said Joe Belliveau, the charity's operations manager for Myanmar.
Many Burmese cannot afford the $30 a month for the cheapest antiretroviral regimen from private doctors. Myanmar's government, run by a secretive military junta, has a long record of watching indifferently as its citizens die. In May, after a cyclone swept through the Irrawaddy Delta, leaving up to one million people homeless, it refused to let foreign aid workers in. Last year, it brutally put down antigovernment demonstrations by monks.
Today in Health & Science
A new picture of the early earthDelay in cancer treatment is found to raise recurrenceArrogant, abusive and disruptive — and a doctorAccording to Doctors Without Borders, the Myanmar government spends only 70 cents per citizen for health care each year. Money for AIDS drugs is available from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, but governments, not charities, must apply for it, and they must prove that the money will not be diverted to corrupt ends.
An unnatural disaster in Burma
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/12/02/an_unnatural_disaster_in_burma/
By Chris Beyrer and Frank Donaghue
December 2, 2008
Email| Print| Single Page| Yahoo! Buzz| ShareThisText size – + IN THE FIELD of disaster relief studies it is a truism that the first responders, whether in an earthquake or a cyclone, are generally ordinary people in the affected area who have survived. They are the first to start digging out the rubble or tending the wounded. Civilian volunteers are the backbone of the later phases of emergency responses too - people who bring food and water, volunteer at shelters, give what they can. Only in a system as profoundly inhumane as Burma would such good Samaritans be punished for their compassion. But that is precisely what happened last week.
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At least four civilian volunteers who tried to help the victims of Burma's ferocious Cyclone Nargis were sentenced to 15- to 59-year prison terms for their efforts. Among those jailed was the beloved comedian and satirist Zarganar, who was sentenced to 59 years in some of the world's most deadly prisons. Burmese journalists reporting on the cyclone were also sentenced.
These sentences have come among a wave of others, including decades-long sentences for monks who led last year's Saffron Revolution demonstrations; members of the National League for Democracy, the party that won Burma's last elections but was never allowed to govern; and the leaders of the 88 Generation, the students who supported Aung San Suu Kyi in her nonviolent struggle for social change.
Why imprison civilian volunteers in the midst of a humanitarian crisis? Before his arrest, Zarganar said, "I want to save my own people. But the government doesn't like our work. It is not interested in helping people. It just wants to tell the world and the rest of the country that everything is under control and that it has already saved its people."
Perhaps the clearest indication of the junta's priorities was its insistence on holding a national referendum on the new constitution in the still-devastated Delta region less than three weeks after the storm. The ruling generals placed survival of military rule over saving Burmese lives. This is tragically consistent with their past behavior: Burma has among the lowest levels of public funding in healthcare worldwide, less than $1 per person in 2006, according to the World Health Organization. The people of Burma are impoverished, but the junta is rich and richly armed.
Despite these harsh realities and the extraordinary price Burmese citizens who oppose the generals must pay, many in the international community have called for expansion of aid to Burma. The International Crisis Group said last month, "Aid should rather be seen by international policymakers as valuable in its own right as well as a way of alleviating suffering, but also as a potential means of opening up a closed country, improving governance and empowering people to take control of their own lives." But with their show trials and these latest brutal prison terms, the generals have made it clear that improving governance and empowering the people of Burma is precisely what they are most unwilling to do.
Of course aid should be increased to the people of Burma, but not on the generals' terms, which include tight control on information, the denial of Burmese citizen participation in the response, and markedly limited access to the rest of the impoverished country not affected by the cyclone.
Those arguing that stepped-up international aid can deliver on political change have precious little evidence for this, especially since the political space has just abruptly narrowed. The incoming Obama administration may well increase assistance to Burma, but this should be coupled with more pressure on the junta and its allies, especially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, and Russia, for political reform.
The longer-term development and well-being of the Burmese people is not simply dependent on levels of foreign aid, but on true political development and a return to democratic rule. There can be no "apolitical" humanitarian aid in places like Burma, however much we'd wish to see it. Just ask Zarganar.
Chris Beyrer is director of the Center for Public Health and Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Frank Donaghue is CEO for Physicians for Human Rights.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
မိမိကုိယ္ကုိ မိမိ ေမးျပီး ရုိးသားစြာေျဖပါ -From: "Little Tiger" Add sender to Contacts
font: Zawgyi-One
မိမိကုိယ္ကုိ မိမိ ေမးျပီး ရုိးသားစြာေျဖပါ
ညီညြတ္ေရး ဆုိတဲ႔အသံေတြ က်ယ္က်ယ္ေလာင္ေလာင္ ေနရာတုိင္းေလာက္နီးနီးမွာ ၾကားေနရတယ္။ ေကာင္းေသာ အသံေတြလုိ႔ ေယဘုယ်အားျဖင့္ ယူဆလုိ႔ရပါတယ္။ "ထုိင္ေနေတာ့ အေကာင္းသား ထသြားမွ က်ိဳးမွန္းသိ" ဆုိသလုိမ်ိဳးအျဖစ္ေတြလည္း ၾကားေနရပါတယ္။ တစ္ေတာ တစ္ဘုရင္ မင္းမူေနေသာ နာမည္ရအဖြဲ႔မ်ားမွ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ၾကီးမွာေတာ့ မ်ိဳးတူသံလုိက္ဓါတ္ခ်င္း ဇိကုတ္ဆြဲကပ္လုိက္သလုိ နီးေအာင္အတင္း ေပးကပ္လုိက္ေတာ့မွ နဂုိလ္ရွိရင္းထက္ပုိေဝးေသာ ေနရာကုိ အရိွန္ျပင္းစြာ ေက်ာခုိ္င္းသြားေနၾကတာကိုလည္း ျမင္ေနရပါတယ္။
ဘယ္လုိေခါင္းစဥ္ေအာက္မွာ ညီညြတ္ၾကမလည္း ေပါင္းစည္းၾကမလည္းဆုိတာကုိ မဆုိထားနဲ႔ ညီညြတ္ၾကဘုိ႔ ေပါင္းစည္းၾကဘုိ႔ လုပ္ဘုိ႔လုိတယ္ဆုိတာ
ၾကားတာနဲ႔တင္ တီေကာင္ဆားနဲ႔ေတြ႕သလုိ တြန္႔သြားၾကတာေတြလည္း ရွိပါတယ္။
မတူတာေတြ ခြဲလုပ္ျပီး တူတာေတြေပါင္းလုပ္ၾကတာေပါ့လုိ႔ ေျပာသူေတြ အေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားရိွပါတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ျမင္းအလုပ္ျမင္းမလုပ္ဘဲ ေခြးအလုပ္ကုိ သြားလုပ္ေပးမိလုိ႔ အရိုက္ခံရတဲ့ ပုံျပင္ကုိလည္း ေမ့ထားလုိ႔မရပါဘူး။
ဒီေတာ့ ေပါင္းစည္းေရး ညီညြတ္ေရးကုိ ခဏ အသာထားလုိ႔ မိမိကုိယ္တုိင္ ဘာလုိခ်င္သလည္း ဘာျဖစ္ခ်င္သလည္း ဆုိတာ မညွာတမ္း မညာတမ္း မိမိကုိယ္မိမိ ေမးျပီး အေျဖတခု ထုတ္ဘုိ႔လုိပါတယ္။
ဘယ္သူေတြ ဒီအေျဖကုိ ရေအာင္လုပ္ဘုိ႔လုိသလည္း နုိင္ငံေရးသမားေတြလား၊ ေတာ္လွန္ေရးသမားေတြလား၊ ျပည္သူေတြလား၊ ျမန္မာျပည္ထဲက ဗမာေတြလား၊ တုိင္းရင္းသားေတြလား၊ ျပည္ပေရာက္ တတိယနုိင္ငံေရာက္ ဗမာေတြလား တုိင္းရင္းသားေတြလား၊ စီးပြားေရးသမားေတြလား၊၊
"လူအားလုံး" ဗမာျပည္နဲ႕သက္ဆုိင္တယ္လုိ႔ ထင္တဲ့လူအားလုံး ေျဖဘုိ႔တကယ္ကုိလုိအပ္ပါတယ္။
ပထမေမးရမယ့္ေမးခြန္းက စစ္အာဏာရွင္မ်ားနဲ႕ စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ အျမစ္ျပတ္ အမွန္တကယ္ ခ်ဳပ္ျငိမ္းေစခ်င္သလား။ အျပန္ျပန္ အလွန္လွန္စဥ္းစာျပီး သုံးၾကိမ္ သုံးခါ အေျဖထြက္သည္အထိ ရင္ထဲက အေျဖကုိ ေျဖပါ။
"ဟင့္အင္း" သူ႔ဘာသာသူေန ငါ့ဘာသာေနတာ သူ႔ဟာသူ ခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္၊ မခ်ဳပ္ခ်ဳပ္ "ေနသာသပ ေလညွာက" ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ ဘာမွဆက္ျပီး စဥ္းစားေနစရာမလုိေတာ့ပါဘူး။ ကုိယ့္သေဘာကုိယ္ေဆာင္ျပီး ကုိယ့္အက်ိဳးစီပြားကို ေနျမဲအတုိင္းဆက္လုပ္ေနပါ။
"ဟုတ္ကဲ့" ဒီအာဏာရွင္ စစ္ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေတြနဲ႔ အာဏာရွင္စနစ္၊ အာဏာရွင္ေတြက တရားနည္းလမ္းမရွိ အဓမၼေရးဆြဲထားတဲ့ အေျခခံဥပေဒ ေတြ မရွိမွျဖစ္မယ္၊ ခ်ဳပ္ျငိမ္း ပေပ်ာက္မွျဖစ္မယ္ဆုိရင္ေတာ့ ေနာက္ထပ္ေမးခြန္းေတြကို ကုိယ့္ဘာသာကုိယ္ဆက္ျပီး ေမးသင့္တယ္။
တခုခု လုိခ်င္ရင္ တခုုခုနဲ႔ ေပးဆပ္ရတာ၊ အလဲအလွယ္လုပ္ရတာ သဘာဝ ထုံးစံတခုပါ။ အဲဒီေတာ့ ကုိယ္လုိခ်င္တာရဘုိ႔ ျဖစ္ဘုိ႔ ကုိယ္ဘာေတြ ေပးဆပ္နုိင္သလည္း။ ကုိယ့္မွာရွိတဲ့ ဘယ္အရာေတြနဲ႔ လဲလွယ္နုိင္သလည္း။ ကုိယ္ဆီမွာရွိေနတဲ့ ရပုိင္ခြင့္ေတြ အခြင့္အေရးေတြကုိ အစေတးခံ အဆုံးရႈံးခံျပီး လုိခ်င္တာကုိ လဲလွယ္ရယူုနုိင္မလား။
ရွိေနတဲ့ဟာေတြ ရပုိင္ခြင့္ေတြ အခြင့္အေရးေတြကိုေတာ့ နဲနဲမွ အဆုံးအရႈံးမခံနုိင္ဘူး မေပးဆပ္ခ်င္ဘူး။ စစ္အာဏာရွင္ေတြ ပေပ်ာက္သြားတာကိုဘဲ လုိခ်င္တယ္ဆုိရင္ ရနုိင္ပါ့မလား ရပါ့မလား။
လုိခ်င္တဲ့ ရလဒ္ကုိ ရဘုိ႔႔ ကုိယ္က်ိဳးစြန္႔ေပးဆပ္ဘုိ႔လုိတယ္ ဆုိရင္ျဖင့္ ကုိယ္က ဘာေတြကိုျပည္သူ႔အတြက္ ေပးဆပ္ စြန္႔လႊတ္နုိင္မလည္းဆုိတာကို စီစစ္သင့္ပါတယ္။ ဘာျဖစ္လုိ႔လည္းဆုိေတာ့ ပါရမီ အနုအရင့္ကုိလုိက္ျပီး စြန္႔လႊတ္နုိင္မႈက တူမွာမဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ အခ်ိဳ႕က အမ်ားအတြက္ အသက္ကုိစြန္႕နုိင္တယ္၊ တခ်ိဳ႕က အခိ်န္ကိုစြန္႔ုနုိင္တယ္၊ တခ်ုိဳ႕က ေငြေၾကးကုိစြန္႔နုိင္မယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ဒီေနရာမွာ နည္းနည္းရင္းျပီး မ်ားမ်ားအျမတ္လုိခ်င္လုိ႔ေတာ့ ရနုိင္မွာမဟုတ္ဘူးဆိုတာ သေဘာေပါက္ၾကဘုိ႔ေတာ့ လုိလိမ့္မယ္လုိ႔ ထင္ပါတယ္။
ေနာက္တခုက ငါဘာေကာင္လည္း ငါဘာေကာင္ျဖစ္ခဲ့ဘူးတာဘဲ ငါဘာလုပ္ခဲ့တာဘဲ အစရွိတဲ့ ေရႊထီးေဆာင္းခဲ့ေသာ ကာလ ေရႊထီးေဆာင္းေနေသာကာလတုိ႔ကို ေမ့ထားျပီး ျပည္သူအတြက္ငါဘာေတြ လုပ္ေပးနုိင္သလည္း ငါဘာေတြလုပ္ေပးသင့္သလည္းဆုိတာ အေလးအနက္စဥ္းစားၾကေစလုိပါတယ္။ ငါဘာေတြလုပ္ခ်င္သလည္း မဟုတ္ဘူး။ လုပ္နုိင္သလည္း၊ လုပ္သင့္သလည္း။
အတုိက္အခံမ်ားနဲ႕ အတုိက္အခံေခါင္းေဆာင္မ်ားအားလည္း အၾကံျပဳလုိသည္မွာ မိမိတုိ႕မွာရွိတဲ့ စည္းစိမ္ ဥစၥာ၊ အာဏာ၊ ရာထူးေတြက နအဖစစ္ဗုိလ္ခ်ုဳပ္မ်ား၏ စည္းစိမ္ ဥစၥာ၊ အာဏာ၊ ရာထူးေတြေလာက္ မမ်ား၊ မၾကီးက်ယ္၊ မခမ္းနား ေသာ္လည္း ၎ ရာထူး၊ အာဏာ၊ ဥစၥာမ်ားကုိ အလြယ္တကူ မစြန္႔နုိင္လွ်င္ နအဖ စစ္အာဏာရွင္ ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္မ်ားက သူတုိ႔၏ ရာထူး၊ အာဏာ၊ ဥစၥာမ်ားကုိ ေရာ့၊ အင့္ ဟုဆုိျပီး လြယ္လင့္တကူ ေပးအပ္နုိင္ပါမည္လား။
အႏွစ္ ၂၀၊ အႏွစ္ ၂၀ ဆုိတာေတြလည္း နားမဆန္႕ေအာင္ၾကားရပါတယ္ အဲဒီအနွစ္ ၂၀ ဆုိတဲ့ဟာၾကီးက ကၽြန္ုပ္တုိ႔ ေရွ႕ေလ်ာက္ရမယ့္ ခရီးကုိ အဟန္႔အတားျပဳေနတာကုိလည္း သတိျပဳၾကေစလုိပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ နွစ္ ၂၀ က အျဖစ္အပ်က္ေတြကို ခဏ ေမ့ထားျပီး အေရးတၾကီး လုပ္စရာရွိတာကို အားလုံး တညီတညြတ္တည္း စလုပ္နုိင္မယ့္ ေန႔ကို နံပါတ္တစ္ေန႔လုိ႔ သတ္မွတ္ျပီး စျပီး လုပ္နုိင္ၾကဘုိ႔ အဲဒီလုိမ်ိဳးစိတ္ကုိေမြးၾကဘုိ႔ လုိပါတယ္။ အဲဒီလုိစိတ္မိ်ဳး မေမြးနုိင္ၾကေသးရင္ေတာ့ အခုလုိဘဲ သူ႕ငါစြပ္စြဲ ငါ့သူစြပ္စြဲ။ ဟုိလူကထေျဖရွင္းလုိက္ ဒီလူကထေျဖရွင္းလုိက္။ မိမိလုပ္တာေတြ မိမိေပါင္းအပါလုပ္တာေတြ မွန္တဲ့အေၾကာင္း ေထာက္ခံေျဖရွင္းလုိက္ ကန္႕ကြက္ေျဖရွင္းလုိက္။ သူမ်ားမေကာင္းေၾကာင္း ကုိယ္ေကာင္းေၾကာင္းေျပာလုိက္နဲ႔ လုိရာခရီးကုိ ေရာက္လိမ့္မယ္လုိ႔ မထင္ပါဘူး။
ယေန႕ျပည္သူမ်ားသိရမွာကေတာ့ ငါတုိ႔ကေတာ့ဘာမွ လုပ္ဘုိ႔မလုိဘူး နုိင္ငံေရးစိတ္ဝင္စားသူေတြ နုိင္ငံေရးပါတီက ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြ ေက်ာင္းသားေတြ လုပ္ၾကမယ္ သူတုိ႕ကငါတုိ႔အတြက္လုပ္ေနတာဘဲ သူတုိ႔ေနာက္က ေအးေအးလူလူ လုိက္သြားရင္ ငါတုိ႔လုိခ်င္တဲ့ ဒီမုိကေရစီပန္းတုိင္ကို တေန႔ေတာ့ေရာက္သြားမွာဘဲ ဆုိျပီးေနာက္ကလုိက္ေနလုိ႕မရေတာ့ဘူး ကေန႔ ျမန္မာေတြမွာ အာားကုိးေလာက္တဲ့ေခါင္းေဆာင္မရွိဘူး ဒီေတာ့ ကုိယ္လုိခ်င္တာကုိ ကုိယ္ကုိယ္တုိင္ အနဲနဲ႕အမ်ားေတာ့ အားစုိက္ျပီး လုပ္ၾကရမယ္၊ ေပးဆပ္ၾကရမယ္။ ျပည္သူ႕ေခါင္းေဆာင္ေတြဆုိတာ မိုးေပၚကက်လာတာမဟုတ္ပါဘူး ျပည္သူထဲကေပၚလာတာပါ။
ဤေနရာမွေနျပီး ယေန႔ ကၽြန္ုပ္ စိန္ေခၚေျပာၾကားလုိပါတယ္ ယေန႔ထိ နအဖ ျပဳတ္သြားနုိင္ေလာက္ေအာင္ စြမ္းနုိင္ေသာအဖြဲ႕မဆုိထားနွင့္ နအဖကို ေလာက္ေလာက္လားလား တန္းတူရည္တူ ျခိမ္းေျခာက္နုိင္ေသာ လူႏွင့္ အဖြဲ႕မရွိေသး မေပၚေသးဟုယုံၾကည္ပါသည္။ အကယ္၍မ်ား ရွိခဲ့သည္ရွိေသာ္ လုပ္ရပ္ျဖင့္ သက္ေသျပၾကပါ။ နာမည္ရ အဖြဲ႕မ်ား ကမၻာေက်ာ္အဖြဲ႔မ်ားကို မ်ားစြာ အားနာမိေသာ္လည္း ဆုိေရးရွိလာ၍ ဆုိရေပသည္။
နိဂုံးခ်ဳပ္ရေသာ္
စစ္အာဏာရွင္မ်ားနဲ႕ စစ္အာဏာရွင္စနစ္ အျမစ္ျပတ္ အမွန္တကယ္ ခ်ဳပ္ျငိမ္းေစခ်င္သလား။
ကုိယ္ကုိယ္တုိင္က ဘာေတြ (မိမိရဲ႕ပုိင္ဆုိင္မႈ နဲ႔ ရရွိေနတဲ့ အခြင့္အေရးမ်ား) ကို ျပည္သူ႔အတြက္ ေပးဆပ္ စြန္႔လႊတ္နုိင္မလည္း။
ဆုိတဲ့ ေမးခြန္း ၂ ခု ကုိ အေျဖထုတ္နုိင္ေအာင္ မိမိကုိယ္ကုိ မိမိအရင္ေမးၾကပါ။ ရုိးသားစြာေျဖၾကည့္ၾကပါ။
No Pain, No Gain.
အိမ္လြမ္းသူ။ ၁၂၊ ၂၀၀၈။
FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN JAPAN AND ASEAN
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FTA between Japan, ASEAN begins
Kyodo News
A comprehensive free trade agreement between Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations entered into force Monday, Japanese officials said. The FTA begins with Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam, which have already completed domestic ratification procedures, they said. This is Japan's first multilateral FTA and its eighth FTA after bilateral agreements with Singapore, Mexico, Malaysia, Chile, Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei. The government is hoping the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, signed in April, will help Japanese firms seize larger business opportunities in the fast-growing region. "We hope it will become the foundation for deepening economic integration in East Asia," said Nobuo Katsumata, chairman of the Japan Foreign Trade Council. The Japan Times: Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008 (C) All rights reserved Go back to The Japan Times Online
ျမန္မာစာ ျမန္မာစကားနဲ ့ကၽြန္ေတာ့္အျမင္(2)
Re: [freeburma] Re: ျမန္မာစာ ျမန္မာစကားနဲ ့ကၽြန္ေတာ့္အျမင္-RE: [8888peoplepower] to Ko Nyo Ohn Myint-Crying for PoliciesTuesday, 2 December, 2008 21:38
From: "phone hlaing"
(၁) အဂၤလိပ္စာကို လူတိုင္းေတာ္ေအာင္လုပ္သင့္ပါတယ္။
(၂)အဂၤလိပ္လိုအားနဲတဲ့ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံသားေတြကို မိမိတို ့သိတာတတ္တာေတြေဝမ်ွေပးဖို ့အတြက္ေတာ့ျမန္မာစာနဲ ့ေရးသားတင္ျပဖို ့လိုမယ္လို ့ထင္ပါတယ္။
ဘာျဖစ္လို ့လဲဆိုေတာ့လူေတာ္ေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားကအဂၤလိပ္လိုအားနဲႀကေတာ့အဂၤလိပ္လို ေခါင္းစဥ္ေတြ ့တာနဲ ့ကိုဆက္ျပီးမဖတ္ႀကေတာ့ဘူးလို ့ေျပာႀကပါတယ္။က်ြန္ေတာ့္အျမင္ကေတာ့မတတ္ရင္လဲအဂၤလိပ္လိုေရးထားတဲ့ေဆာင္းပါးသတင္းကိုႀကိဳးစားျပီး အဘိဓာန္ေဘးခ်ျပီးဖတ္ႀကည့္ေစခ်င္ပါတယ္။အဂၤလိပ္စာမ်ားမ်ားတတ္ေလ ကိုယ့္ရဲ့အသိဥာဏ္နယ္ပယ္ကပိုက်ယ္ျပန္ ့လာေလျဖစ္မွာပါႀကိဳးစားႀကည့္ႀကေစခ်င္ပါတယ္။ေအာက္မွာေရးထားတဲ့စာစုေလးေတြကကိုယ္ဘာသာစာေပကိုေလးစားဖို ့ထိန္းသိမ္းဖို ့ရည္ရြယ္ပါတယ္။အဂၤလိပ္စာကိုပစ္ပယ္ဖို ့မရည္ရြယ္ပါဘူး။က်ြန္ေတာ္ကိုယ္တိုင္လဲအျမဲတန္းေလ့လာသင္ယူေနပါတယ္။
ေလးစားစြာျဖင့္-
ဘုန္းလိႈင္
- On Tue, 2/12/08, BNyein@aol.com
From: BNyein@aol.com
Subject: [freeburma] Re: ျမန္မာစာ ျမန္မာစကားနဲ ့ကၽြန္ေတာ့္အျမင္-RE: [8888peoplepower] to Ko Nyo Ohn Myint-Crying for Policies
To: MAYKHA-L@listserv. indiana.edu, WorldwideBurmanet@ yahoogroups. ca, freeburma@yahoogrou ps.com, Democracy_forBurma@ yahoogroups. com.au, 8888peoplepower@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Tuesday, 2 December, 2008, 7:25 PM
အဂၤလိပ္လား၊ ဗမာလား မိတ္ေဆြတို႕ေရ အဂၤလိပ္က ုအထင္ႀကီးတာနဲ႕အဂၤလိပ္စာကိုေလ႕လာျပီးကြ်မ္းက်င္ေအာင္ေလ႕က်င္႕တာကိုခြဲျမင္ေစခ်င္ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္႕ကိုႀကိဳက္သလိုေ၀ဖန္လို႕ရတယ္။ က်ေနာ္တို႕ႏိုင္ငံကိုကြ်န္လုပ္ခဲ႕တဲ႕ေမ်ာက္ျဖဴေတြကို အခုထိမုန္းတယ္။ စိတ္Bွိတိုင္းသာျဖစ္မယ္ဆိုရင္အဲလီစဖက္ဘုရင္မႀကီးကိုကတံုး၊တံုးျပီးမႏၱေလးကနနးး္ေတာ္ေရွ႕မွာလက္်ာရစ္ပတ္ေစျပီးႀကိမ္နဲ႕ရိုက္လိုစိတ္ရွိတာေပါ႕။ဆရာစံ ကိုသတ္ခဲ႕တာေတြ၊ဒဂံုျမိဳ႕ကို၊ကိုမိုဒိုလမ္ဘဒ္စစ္သေဘၤာနဲ႕လာလူပါး၀သြားတာေတြအ မ်ားႀကီB 8ပါ။ကမၻာမေႀကစတန္းေပါ႕။(ဘာေႀကာင္႕စစ္တပ္ရဲ႕ျပစ္မွုုေတြေႀကာင္႕တိုင္းရင္းသားေတြဗမာဆိုရင္မုန္းႀကတာလဲဆိုတာကိုလဲနားလည္ႏိုင္စရာေပါ႕) ဒါေပမဲ႕အမ်ိဳးသားစိတ္ကိုထိပ္တန္းတင္ျပီး၊ကိုယ္႕စကားAကိုယ္စာေပကိုဘဲဦးစားေပးမယ္ဆိုခဲ႕တဲ႕ႏိုင္ငံေတြကိုႀကည္႕ႀကရေအာင္။ ေ၀းေ၀းႀကည္႕စရာမလိုပါ။ ထိုင္း၊ဂ်ပန္နဲ႕တရုတ္ႏိုင္ငံေတြဟာအ၈ၤလိပ္စာကိုဦးစားမေပးခဲ႕ႀက ဖူး။ ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံဟာတႏွစ္ကို(၁၆)ဘီလ်ံခန္႕တိုရစ္ေတြစီက၀င္ေငြ ရွိတယ္။ ႏွစ္ေပါင္း(၂၀)ခန္႕ ႀကာတာေတာင္တႏိုင္ငံလံုးအေနအထားနဲ႕ေျပာရရင္အဂၤလိပ္စကားေျပာမွာခိ်ဳ႕တဲ႕တယ္လို႕ ေျပာလို႕ရႏိုင္တယ္ေပါ႕။က်ေနာ္အျမင္အရထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံမွာလူမ်ိဳးေရးစိတ္ျပင္းတယ္။ (ခြန္ထိုင္း)ဆို ျပီးဂုဏ္ယူႀကတယ္။ထိုင္းစာကိုအ ေလးေပးတာေတြ႕ရတယ္။ က်ေနာ္အေတြ႕အႀကံဳအရဂ်ပန္ ေရာတရုတ္ျပည္မွာပါတက္စီသမားေတြအတြက္စာေရးေပးထားရတယ္။အဂၤလိပ္လိုေျပာမရ ေတာ႕အခက္အခဲရွိတယ္ေပါ႕။
--ဂ်ပန္ကတိုးတက္ျပီးႏိုင္ငံျဖစ္တာေႀကာင္႕တိုးတက္မွဳ အေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားကိုဘာသာျပန္ႏိုင္ေပမဲ႕ထိ0င္းႏိုင္ငံႀကေတာ႕အခက္အခဲရွိတယ္ေေပါ႕။ယေန႕လုိအင္တာ နက္ ေခတ္မွာအဂၤလိပ္ဘာသာဟာကမၻာ႕ဘာသာစကားျဖစ္လာေတာ႕အဂၤလိပ္လိုမကြ်မ္းရင္ ကိုယ္ကတဖန္းရွဳံးတာေပါ႕။ ကမၻာမွာဘာသာစကားနဲ႕ပတ္သက္လာရင္လူပါးအ၀ဆံုးကျပင္သစ္ေတြဘဲ။ခုထိယူအ9 4္မွာျပင္သစ္စကားကိုဦးစားေပးတံုးဘဲ။ပဲရီမွာအဂၤလိပ္လိုတတ္ေပမဲ႕ျပင္သစ္လိုမေေျပာရင္ျပန္မေျဖႀကဘူး။ ဒါေတာင္(၂)ႏွစ္ေလာက္ကဘရပ္(စ္)စယ္မွာျပင္သစ္စီအီး၀ိုကျပင္သစ္သမၼတအေရွ႕မွာ အ၈ၤလိပ္လိုမိန္႕ခြန္းေပးလို႕ပြက္ေလာရိုက္သြားခဲ႕တယ္။ အေျဖကအင္တာနက္ေခတ္မ=E 1ာ အဂၤလိပ္စကားဟာစီးပြားေရးသမားေတြရဲ႕ဘာသာစကားျဖစ္သြားျပီမို႕လို႕ေျဖခဲ႕တယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံတိုင္းတိုးတက္ဖို႕အတြက္အဂၤလိပ္စာကိုအျပိဳင္အဆိုင္သင္လာႀကရတယ္။ Native Speakerဆိုရင္အေရွ႕ေတာင္အာရွႏိုင္ငံေတြမွာအလုပ္လြယ္လြယB 9အဂၤလိပ္စာသင္ခြင္႕ရႀက တယ္။ ဗမာႏိုင္ငံမွာဦးေန၀င္းရဲ႕မဆလေခတ္ကစျပီးပညာေရးစံနစ္ႀကီးပ်က္စီးလာတာေတာင္ လမ္းေပၚကလူတေယာက္ဟာယူႏိုးအုိင္ႏိုးေတာ႕ေျပာႏိုင္ႀကတယ္။ အေမရိကႏိုင္ငံစီလီကြန္ဗယ္လီမွာကုလားေတြေအာင္ျမင္တာအသံထြ ္မွာကုလားသံနဲ႕ထြက္ေပမဲ႕ကုလားေတြဟာအဂၤလိပ္စာႏိုင္တာေႀကာင္႕တရုတ္ေတြထက္ေအာင္ျမင္ႀကတယ္။၁၉၅၀ခုႏွစ္ေတြကရန္ကုန္ေကာလိပ္မွာအဂၤလိပ္လိုစာပို႕ခ်တယ္။ဒါကြ်န္စိတ္မကုန္္လို႕လား၊မဟုတ္ ဖူး။အဆင့္ျမင္႕စာေတြ (Advance Learning) အတြက္ႀကေတာ႕အဂၤလိပ္လိုမ တတ္လို႕မွမရ ေတာ႕ဘဲ။အင္ဂ်င္နီယာ၊ဆရာ၀န္ေတြရဲ႕ျပထန္းစာအုပ္ေတြဟာအမ်ားအားျဖင္႕အဂၤလိပ္ လိုေေရးထားတဲ႕စာအုပ္ေတြဘဲမဟုတ္ဖူးလား။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေအာင္ဆန္းတို႕ေခတ္လူငယ္ေတြဟာအဂၤလိပ္ကိုုေေတာ္လွန္ႀကေပမဲဲ႕အဂၤလိပ္စာ ေတာ္ေအာင္2ကိဳးစားႀကတယ္။ဘာေႀကာင္႕လဲ။ အဂၤလိပ္ဘာသာကို Communications Tools ဆက္သြယ္ေရးလက္နက္အျဖစ္သံုးႏိုင္ေအာင္အဂၤလိပ္စာေတာ္ေအာင္ႀကိဳးစားႀကတယ္။ ေတာ္ခ်င္ရင္ဘယ္ဟာမဆုိေလ႕က်င္႕ရပါတယ္။ အခ်င္းခ်င္းေျပာတာေလ႕က်င္႕တာလို႕ယူဆ ႏိုင္ရင္အျမင္ႀကည္ႏိFင္မယ္လုိ႕ထင္ပါတယ္။ အဂၤလိပ္နဲ႕ဗမာစာေရးျခင္းဟာအေရွ႕နဲ႕အေနာက္ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ အဂၤလိပ္က I Love You. ဗမာက - မင္းကိုငါခ်စ္တယ္။ မင္းနဲ႕ငါေနရာေျပာင္းျပန္ေပါ႕။ဒါေႀကာင္႕ဗမာလိုေတြးျပီးအဂၤလိပ္ လိုေရးရင္ခက္ေနတယ္။ ဒါေႀကာင္႕အက်င္႕မရွိဘဲ9လြယ္ကူလွပါ။ ဗမာစကားနဲ႕ဗမာစာဟာက်ေနာ္တို႕အတြက္သဘာ၀ Mother Tongue စကားပါ။ က်ေနာ္အစကစာရိုက္ရတာလြယ္လို႕အဂၤလိပ္လိုေရးတယ္။ လြန္ခဲ႕တဲ႕(၂) ႏွစ္ေလာက္ကဂ်ပန္ျပည္ေရာက္ေတာ႕မွအဂၤလိပ္လုိေရးရင္ဖတ္ႏိုင8 0တဲ႕သူနည္းတာေတြ႕ရ တာေႀကာင္႕ဗမာလို ေျပာင္း ေရးျဖစ္တယ္။ျပသနာကလက္ေရးနဲ႕ ခ်ေရးျပီးမွေနာက္ တေယာက္္ကဗမာလိုရိုက္ေပးရ တယ္။ညံ႕လွခ်ီလားဗ်ာဆိုရင္လဲခံရမွာဘဲေပါ႕။ အက်င္႕မရွိေတာ႕မကြ်မ္းဘူးေပါ႕။ တခ်ိဳ႕ကေတာ႕ယူႏိုးအုိင0ႏိုးေလးတတ္ရင္ဘဲအဟုတ္ႀကီးထင္ျပီးႀကြားခ်င္သူေတြရွိမွာပါ။ သည္ညည္းခံလိုက္ပါလို႕ေတာင္းပန္ပါရေစ။ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရာက္မွ ဗမာလိုမေျပာေတာ႕တဲ႕သူေတြလည္းေတြ႕ဖူးတာဘဲ။ တိုင္းျပည္နဲ႕လူမ်ိဳးကို ခ8 0စ္တဲ႕စိတ္ရွိရင္ဗမာစကားတြင္မကဗမာဆိုတာရင္ထဲမွာအျမဲရွိတာပါ။ ႏိုင္ငံျခားေရာက္မွွဗမာစိတ္ေပ်ာက္သြားသူေတြရွိသလိုဗမာစိတ္ျပင္းတဲ႕ကျပားေတြလဲအမ်ား ႀကးီဘဲ။ တခ်ိဳ႕တေလဘ၀ေမ႕တာနဲ႕အမ်ားကိုမထိခိုက္ေစခ်င္ပါ။ ေစတနာမွန္ေပမဲ႕အယူလြဲသြားျပီးအေတြးလြန္သြားႏိုင္တဲ႕အႏၱရာယ္ရွိပါတယ္။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္တို႕ေခတ္ကလည္းေကာလိပ္ေက်ာင္းထြက္ေတြကရြွပ္ရွက္ဒြပ္ဒက္လုပ္ႀကေတာ႕ အဂၤလိပ္စာမတတ္တဲ႕သခင္ေတြကႀကည္႕မရျဖစ္ခဲ႕ဖူးပါတယ္။0D အတိုကေတာ႕အင္တာနက္ေခတ္ႀကီးမွာအဂၤလိပ္စာဟာအေရးႀကီးပါတယ္။ ဗမာလူငယ္ေလးေတြကမၻာမွာျပိဳင္ႏိုင္ေအာင္အဂၤလိပ္စာကြ်မ္းေစခ်င္တာက်ေေနာ္႕ေစတနာပါ။ ၀ိုင္းေလွာင္ႀကရင္၊ 8 0ေျပာ၊မေရး၊မက်င္႕ရင္၊ ကိုယ္ဘဲရွံဳးတာေပါ႕။ က်ေနာ္႕အျမင္ကိုအရိုးသားဆံုးတင္ျပတာပါ။ လက္ခံတာ၊လက္မခံတာ၊စာဖတ္သူအတြက္ပါ။ အားလံုးကိုေလးစားလ်က္ ဘိုေက်ာ္ျငိမ္း To Ko MZW and like-minded friends,You said most of you do not know even how to type Burmese. If you can't, learn how to type it since Burmese is your mother tongue or the country's central (official) language. Nowadays everyone is using and praising Zawgyi font (I don't use it. Even Win Myanmar is not working properly with Mac.), and there are many and all are not that difficult to learn.I have been learning English for more than four decades to improve my language skill and I never denounce English language itself, but what I am talking about is most of us think or believe if we write in English, oh, it gives us a sort of intelligentsia feelings or greatness. I said in my letter that English is only tool, but nothing more, to communicate with someone who could not speak Burmese or to learn knowledge through books and multi media.?As you have said, yes we have many ethnicities, but you must learn and master the first (official, central) language. You can even get better chance or opportunity finding jobs than Burmans if you excel in both languages. English as second official language doesn't mean instantly that English must be a medium of communication among the entire citizens.?Please change your mindset if you can. I am not a 'mahabamar type', but to compare with other ethnic languages, Myanmar/Burmese is well-developed language and it has rich literature both classic and modern. If you are an ethnic guy, you have to adapt it to reap all the benefit connecting with it. Myanmar/Burmese language is in fact in any sense no inferior to any language. If you agree or not, our religions (Buddhism, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim) have taught us to thank our benefactors. I guess you have acquired your basic or higher education from Myanmar/Burma. Your parents and your country of origin are true benefactors for you. No excuse will do replacing our main language.************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *****8
-----Original Message-----
From: phonekyaw
To: 8888peoplepower@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 7:11 pm
Subject: Re: ျမန္မာစာ ျမန္မာစကား နဲ ့ကၽြန္ေတာ့္အျမင္-RE: [8888peoplepower] to Ko Nyo Ohn Myint-Crying for Policies
ေလးစားအပ္ပါေသာ ျမန္မာမိတ္ေဆြမ်ား-
နက္ေပၚတြင္ ျမန္လုိေရးတက္၊ရုိက္တက္၊ ဖက္တက္ေစရန္ ရည္ဇူး၍ လင့္ခ္ တခုေပးလုိက္ပါသ ္။
http://blog. mghla.com/ 2007/07/blog- post_31.html
8888peoplepower တြင္ ပါ၀င္ေသာ members အားလုံးတုိ႔မွာ English စာမတက္သူမ်ား အျမားအျပား ပါ၀င္သျဖင့္၊ မိမိေဆြးေႏြးလုိေသာ အေၾကာင္းအရာမ်ားကုိ ျမန္မာလုိ ေရးႏုိင္လွ်င္ ပုိမုိအဆင္ေျပႏုိင္ပါသည္။ အထက္လင္ခ္တြင္ ပါရွိေသာ Instruction ကုိ Follow လုပ္ပါက မိမိကြန္ျပဴတာတြင္ ျ9 9န္မာလုိေကာင္းေကာင္းရုိက္ႏုိင္ပါေၾကာင္း....
အားလုံးခ်မ္းေျမ႕ပါေစ
ဘုန္ေက်ာ္(လူ႔ေဘာင္သစ္)
--- On Mon, 12/1/08, hein naing
From: hein naing
Subject: Re: ျမန္မာစာ ျမန္မာစကားနဲ ့ကၽြန္ေတာ့္အျမင္-RE: [8888peoplepower] to Ko Nyo Ohn Myint-Crying for Policies Reform
To: 8888peoplepower@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Monday,20December 1, 2008, 10:10 AM
သူမ်ားေျပာျပလို႕ၾကားဘူးတဲ႕အေျခအေနေလးေျပာျပတာပါ။ အဲဒါကေတာ႕က်ေနာ္တို႕ေတာ္လွန္ေရးအင္အားစုေတြထဲမွာပါပဲ။ အဂၤလိပ္တပိ0င္းျမန္မာတပိုင္းေျပာေျပာလာေတာ႕ၾကားေနရသူကေနျပီးျပန္ေမးသတဲ႕၊ မင္းတို႕က ေတာ္လွန္ေရးေအာင္ျပီးလို႕ တိုင္းျပည္အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ရရင္။ တို႕တိုင္းျပည္ရဲ႕ ရုးံသုးံဘာသာကို အဂၤလိပ္ဘာသာကိုျပဌာန္းမွာလားလို႕ ေမးသတဲ႕၊၊ က်န္တာေတာ႕ မိမိကိုယ္မိမိျပန္ေမးျပီး၊ ျပန္ေျဖၾကည္႕ေစခ်င္ပါတယ္။ က်ေနာ္ကအဂၤလိပ္စာ မတတ္ေတာ႕ အဲဒီေမးခြန္းေလး သေဘာက်လို႕ လက္ဆင္႕ကမ္းလိုက္တာပါ၊ ၾကည္ၾကည္လင္လင္ျမင္ႏိုင္ပါေစ။ ဟိန္းႏိုင္
--- On Mon, 12/1/08, phone hlaing
From: phone hlaing
Subject: ျမန္မာစာ ျမန္မာစကားနဲ ့ကၽြန္ေတာ့္အျမင္-RE: [8888peoplepower] to Ko Nyo Ohn Myint-Crying for Policies Reform
To: 8888peoplepower@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Monday, December 1, 2008, 3:23 AM
ကၽြန္ေတာ္ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းျမန္မာဘေလာက္ကိုလုပ္ျပီး ပို ့စ္ေတြစတင္ကာစကမိတ္ေဆြေတြကဝိုင္းေျပာႀကပါတယ္ ျဖ0္နိုင္ရင္ ျမန္မာလိုဘာသာျပန္ျပီးတင္ေပးဖို ့ေျပာႀကပါတယ္။သတင္းကေတာ့အဂၤလိပ္သတင္းေတြမ်ားလို ့အခ်ိန္မေပးနိုင္လို ့အဂၤလိပ္လိုတင္ေပမဲ့အားလုံးအတြက္ေကာင္းမယ္ထင္တဲ့ျမန္မာေဆာင္းပါးေတြကို ျမန္မာတိုင္းဖတ္နိုင္ေအာင္ျမန္မာလိုဘဲ ရိုက္တ င္ေနပါတယ္။ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို ့ရဲ့မိခင္ဘာသာစကားကျမန္မာစာဆိုေတာ့ျမန္မာစကားနဲ ့ျမန္မာလို ေျပာတာေဆြးေႏြးတာကပိုျပီးနားလည္မႈရိွနိုင္မယ္ထင္ပါတယ္ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို ့သမဂၢမွာ ဂ်ပန္ေတြနဲ ့ေဆြးေႏြးရင္ဂ်ပန္လိုေျပာပါတယ္၊အေမရိကနဲ ့ဥေရာပကပဂိၢဳလ္ေတြနဲ E1ေဆြးေႏြးရင္ အဂၤလိပ္လိုေျပာပါတယ္။ျမန္မာလူမ်ိဳးျခင္းကေတာ့ျမန္မာလိုဘဲေျပာပါတယ္။ အသိပညာအတတ္ပညာဆိုတာ ဖေယာင္းတိုင္မီးကူးသလိုမ်ိဳးမွ်ေဝေပးႀကရတာဆိုေတာ့ ကိုယ့္နိုင္ငံအေႀကာင္းေဆြးေႏြးတာေကာင္းပါတယ္၊ျမန္မာလူမ်ိဳးတိုင္းကို မ်ွေဝေပးနိ=E 1င္ေအာင္ ျမန္မာလို ေဆြးေႏြးေရးသားႀကရင္ေတာ့အေကာင္းဆုံးလို ့ယူဆပါတယ္။ဥပမာေျပာရရင္ တရုတ္လူမ်ိဳးေတြဟာဘယ္ေနရာဘယ္ေဒသမွာဘဲအေျခခ်ခ် သူတို ့ရဲ့မိခင္ဘာသာစကားနဲ ့စာကိုတေလးတစားသင္ယူႀကပါတယ္။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို ့တေတြအေျခအေနအရပ္ရပ္ေႀကာင့္နိုင္ငံ ျခားေရာက္ေနႀကေပမဲ့ကိုယ့္လူမ်ိဳး ကိုယ့္စာေပ ကိုယ့္ဘာသာစကားကို မေမ ့သင့္ဘူးလို ့ထင္ပါတယ္။အေမရိကမွာအေျခက်ေနတဲ့(နိုင္ငံသားျဖစ္ေနတဲ့)ကၽြန္ေတာ့္ဆရာဆိုရင္သူ ့ကေလးနွစ္ေယာက္စလုံးကို ျမန္မာလိုသင္ေပးထားပါတယ္၊ ထိုင္းဝမ္းက ကၽြနေတာ့္သူငယ္ခ8 0င္းဆိုရင္ ျမန္မာျပည္ကျမန္မာစာေက်ာင္းသုံးစာအုပ္ေတြကို မွာယူျပီးကေလးေတြကိုစာသင္ေပးေနပါတယ္။သူတို ့တေတြဟာတရုတ္ႏြယ္ဖြားျမန္မာျပည္ေပါက္ေတြပါ။ ျမန္မာစာရိုက္ဖို ့အခက္အခဲရိွရင္ခြင့္လႊတ္ေပးလို ့ရပါတယ္။ဒါေပမဲ့ အဂၤလိပ္လိုေရးမွ ဂုဏ္ယူစ ာလို ့ယူဆမယ္ဆိုရင္ေတာ့မွားသြားနိုင္ပါတယ္။ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို ့ငယ္ငယ္တုံးက အိမ္မွာအဂၤလိပ္လိုေျပာႀကပါတယ္။အေဖကသားသမီးေတြအဂၤလိပ္စာေတာ္လာေအာင္လို ့ရည္ရြယ္တာပါ၊ အဲ့ဒီအခ်ိန္တုံးက ဂလိုဘယ္လိုက္ေဇးရွင္းဆိုတာေတြမရိွေသးပါဘူး၊ ဒါေပမဲ့အဖိုးက မ4္းတို ့ဘာလူမ်ိဳးလဲလို ့ေျပာပါတယ္။ ျမန္မာဆိုရင္ျမန္မာလိုေျပာဖို ့ေျပာလို ့အဲ့ဒီအခ်ိန္ကစျပီး ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို ့အိမ္မွာ မာမီေတြ ဒယ္ဒီေတြေဟာင္းဒူးယူဒူးေတြ ေပ်ာက္သြားပါေတာ့တယ္။ကိုယ္ပိုင္အယူအဆကိုယ္စီနဲ ့ေဆြးေႏြးေနႀကတာကိုေတြ ့ရေတာ့ဝမ္းလ=E 1ဝမ္းသာပါတယ္။ Transparency ရိွတယ္လို ့ထင္ပါတယ္။လူျခင္းမတူကဲြျပားတဲ့အတြက္ကိုယ္ပိုင္အယူအဆကိုယ္စီရိွႀကတာကို လက္ခံေပးနိုင္ပါတယ္ဒါမွလည္း တေယာက္နဲ ့တေယာက္ေဆြးေႏြးလို ့ရမွာ ဒီလိုေဆြးေႏြးျပီး အေကာင္းဆုံးအေျဖကိုရွာႀကရမွာမဟုတ္လား။အခုေရးထားတာေတြ ကၽြန္ေတာ့္ရဲ့ကုိယ္ပိုင္အယူအဆပါ။ ဘယ္သူ ့ကိုမွလက္ခံပါလို ့မတိုက္တြန္းပါဘူး။ ကိုယ္ပိုင္စဥ္းစားဥာဏ္နဲ ့စဥ္းစားဆုံးျဖတ္ႀကပါ။ အားလုံးအမ်ားအက်ိဳး ကိုယ့္အက်ိဳးေဆာင္နိုင္ႀကပါေစဘုန္းလိႈင္
--- On Mon, 1/12/08, Ne Yaa Zaw
From: Ne Yaa Zaw
Subject: RE: [8888peoplepower] to Ko Nyo Ohn Myint-Crying f or Policies Reform
To: 8888peoplepower@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Monday, 1 December, 2008, 3:29 AM
Ko nyunt shwe
Most of us don’t know how to type in Burmese; and some of us don’t even apply for citizenship, and also I don’t think using English language to dialogue the Burmese politic is wrong, who care what they think of us. Beside, multi ethnic nation like Burma , English should be second official language, its nothing to do with stepfather’ language or not because English’ is the language accumulate all knowledge around the world. Take care,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: 8888peoplepower@ yahoogroups. com
From: nyuntshwe@hotmail. com
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:40:43 +0000
Subject: RE: [8888peoplepower] to Ko Nyo Ohn Myint-Crying for Policies Reform
You may open the attached pdf-file to read the same message.
&J&JawmufjrefrmrdwfaqGrsm; cifAsm;?
Thai court bans PM, flights to resume
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/081202/afp/081202100747asiapacificnews.html
Tuesday December 2, 6:07 PM
Photo: AFP
BANGKOK (AFP) - A Thai court stripped Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat of his post and outlawed the ruling party on Tuesday, prompting jubilant anti-government protesters to lift a blockade of Bangkok's main airport.
Party leaders quickly vowed to form another government under a new banner but without Somchai, who was barred from politics five years by the Constititional Court in a vote fraud case.
The move was welcomed by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which occupied Suvarnabhumi airport a week ago to cap a months-long campaign to oust Somchai, the brother-in-law of exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
"My duty is over. I am now an ordinary citizen," Somchai, 61, told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai from where he has been governing since the blockade began.
Under a military constitution adopted after a 2006 coup against then-premier Thaksin, any political party in which a single executive is convicted of vote fraud must be dissolved and all executives banned.
Somchai, a former lawyer, spent less than three months in power, beset by the royalist protesters who accused his government of acting as a proxy for their nemesis Thaksin and of being hostile to the monarchy.
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"As the court decided to dissolve the People Power Party (PPP), therefore the leader of the party and party executives must be banned from politics for five years," said Chat Chonlaworn, head of the nine-judge court panel.
"The court had no other option," he said.
Hours after the verdict, the PAD and airport authorities said they had reached an agreement to resume flights from Suvarnabhumi, although there was no mention of the blockade at the older Don Mueang domestic airport.
The airport seizure has stranded 350,000 passengers and caused massive economic losses to the kingdom.
"As of this moment the PAD has allowed flights to take off and land immediately, both passenger and cargo flights," senior PAD member Somkiat Pongpaiboon told reporters at the airport.
Vudhihaandhu Vichairatama, chairman of the board of Airports of Thailand, said flights may be able to resume within 24 hours if there were no "technical problems".
"They're going to leave now," he told AFP-TV.
All equipment at the airport would have to be checked over before full airport operations could resume, he said.
The decision came hours after a grenade blast killed one PAD protester and wounded 22 others at Don Mueang. The PAD ended a three-month sit-in at the prime minister's office in Bangkok following similar attacks.
The PAD, who dress in yellow which they say symbolises their devotion to Thailand's much-revered king, are backed by the Bangkok business elite and middle classes, along with elements in the military and the palace.
Thaksin, whose supporters dress in red, is hugely popular with Thailand's rural and urban poor, especially in the north, his native area.
Two of the PPP's coalition partners were also dissolved because some of their executives were convicted of vote fraud after elections in December 2007 -- the first since the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin.
But all six parties in the coalition vowed to make a comeback.
The PPP was ready to move lawmakers into a shell party called Pheu Thai (For Thais) formed in anticipation of the verdict and continue administering the country, spokesman spokesman Kudeb Saikrajang said.
The unrest has taken a heavy toll on travellers stranded in Thailand by the crisis, with two Canadians and a Dutchman dying in road accidents as they tried to flee the "Land of Smiles."
Airline passengers have been flooding to a naval base southeast of Bangkok and to the southern tourist town of Phuket to try to escape the country, along often dangerous roads.
The turmoil also forced Thailand to postpone a summit of the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN, which was due to be held in Chiang Mai in mid-December.
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