http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090126/LOCAL/301269987
Jeff WieheThe Journal Gazette
Writing a poem can land you in jail, they tell you, or even worse. It can get you beheaded.
Aung Naing and Maugn Soe say that back home, in the southeast Asian country they still call Burma, there is no such thing as the free sharing of ideas.
You don’t say what you really want to say; you can’t always get together and dance or celebrate how you want; you’re lucky to get your daily intake of bread; and you definitely can’t criticize a military government that now calls the country Myanmar.
You don’t even risk jotting down something very simple on a piece of paper – like a poem.
So, it was a special moment Sunday for both men as they watched several ethnicities of Burmese come together – a rarity in Myanmar – at the downtown library in a celebration of that country’s culture. There was dancing, pomp, music, genuine dress and food, all for anyone who wanted to take it in.
“This would be very unique,” Naing said of such an event in Myanmar.
Mapped out by the local Phi Theta Kappa chapter of Ivy Tech Community College, the event was designed to celebrate the mixed culture of the more than 5,000 Burmese refugees who now call Fort Wayne their home and to educate a curious public who may be critical of why any Burmese are here at all.
“Our goal became to raise awareness,” said Sheri Dunlavy, coordinator of the Indiana Region for Phi Theta Kappa, the International Honor Society of the Two-Year College.
For Soe, who said he came to the United States in 1997 and became an American citizen in 2003, the event showed a unity he hopes will one day help his country out from the shadow of a military regime that has drawn criticism from many developed countries around the globe – including the U.S.
“This is important,” said Soe, instrumental in bringing together the different ethnicities and affiliations in the area for the event. “This shows we are united.”
Soe said he was part of a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that some national news organizations have reported led to the deaths of 3,000 protesters at the hands of the country’s military. He said for a pro-democracy movement to succeed, there needs to be financial support from the United States, like the $1 billion America pledged to the Republic of Georgia after its fight against Russia last year.
Plus, he and Naing said, there should be a concerted effort to free Myanmar from its current regime instead of constantly finding homes for refugees.
“We need to end the regime,” Soe said. “Day 1, we end the regime. Day 2, we make democracy.”
With President Obama taking the reins in the United States, Soe said he hopes the end of the regime in Myanmar can happen soon. He said he liked President Bush, but found where that administration stood on issues hard to fathom based on the history of his secretary of state.
Condoleezza Rice, who served in that position for Bush, spent about 14 years on the board of energy and oil giant Chevron Corp., which has done lucrative business as one of the few Western-based businesses operating in Myanmar.
The United States at one point banned new investments in Myanmar, but Chevron was allowed to operate there because it was there before the ban.
Though Rice left the board when she accepted her position as secretary of state, Soe still couldn’t understand how an administration that talked tough on making democracy for Myanmar did not press harder for Chevron to leave the country.
“We stay confused about U.S. policy,” he said.
Amid criticism about its presence there, Chevron last summer did donate $2 million for relief in the wake of a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
jeffwiehe@jg.net
Friday, January 30, 2009
Burmese celebration ‘shows we are united’
29-01-2009-ေန ့တြင္JAM အဖဲြ ့ႀကီး၏ပန္ ့ပိုးမႈျဖင့္ FWUBC အဖဲြ ့ကဂ်ပန္သမဂၢမ်ားနွင့္ပူးေပါင္း၍ အလုပ္သမားမ်ားအေရးေတာင္းဆိုခဲ့
Victorious Mon party from 1990 election supports NMSP refusal to compete in 2010
http://www.monnews-imna.com/newsupdate.php?ID=1302
Mon 26 Jan 2009, IMNA/Kaowao
The Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF) supports the New Mon State Party’s (NMSP) recent announcement that it will not participate in the 2010 election, say sources in Burma and Thailand. Their reluctance to participate, however, raises questions about who will represent Mon people in Burma’s soon-to-be-formed parliament.
After over two weeks of deliberations in the NMSP’s 7th Party Congress, in the third week of January the NMSP announced it will not participate in the election. It left a small potential for participation, however, contingent on revision of Burma’s constitution by Burma’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) junta. The constitution was approved by a referendum in May 2008, though both the document and the referendum process have been roundly condemned as undemocratic.
Speaking from Rangoon, MNDF vice chairman Nai Ngwe Thein voiced his party’s support for the NMSP decision. “The NMSP and MNDF have the same goals now,” he said. “For the MNDF, the election committee has not distributed rules about the election. So we are not sure if we will participate in the election or not. If the Burmese government uses the 2008 constitution, we will not participate in the election. But if the SPDC enters into tripartite dialogue and drafts a new constitution, we will participate.”
It is unclear, however, whether the SPDC will be willing to enter into tripartite dialogue or amend its constitution before 2010, when Burma is scheduled to hold its first elections in two decades. Burma’s last election took place in 1990, though the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), pre-cursor to the SPDC, annulled the results. The MNDF won five seats in the 1990 election, though it saw most of its elected members of parliament imprisoned rather than sat in parliament.
Lack of participation by the NMSP and MNDF leaves a vacuum in politics in Mon areas, raising questions about who will compete for the seats and, eventually, represent Mon people.
For some, participation in the election is to do the bidding of the SPDC. “We welcome the NMSP decision not to participate in the 2010 election,” said MNDF-Liberated Area (MNDF-LA) general secretary Nai Aut Dhar. An MNDF member of parliament-elect who fled arrest formed the MNDF-LA in Thailand during September 2008. Any group in a democracy has a right to form a party, added Nai Aut Dhar, but it will not benefit the Mon people.
Important Mon monks in Mon State also said they support the NMSP decision, with reservations. “The NMSP and MNDF have the same goals, and Mon monks mostly agree with them,” said one of Mon State’s most widely respected senior monks, who is a member of both the Mon Affairs Union and the All Mon Monks Association. His identity is being withheld for security reasons. “But Mon people need Mon parliament members so they can work on behalf of Mon people,” he added. The monk said that his viewpoints were widely held by monks he had spoken with, 3 of who are equally respected members of the sangha in Mon State. The identities of these monks are also being withheld for security.
The senior monk felt that the Maha Sangha Nayaka Council provides indication of the need for Mon representation in Burma’s incipient parliament. The Maha Sangha Nayaka Council is an association of 47 monks that determines much of official SPDC policy on religious affairs. There is only one Mon member of the Sangha Nai Yaka, the senior monk said, but he has been able to ensure that monastery examinations can be conducted in the Mon language.
A member of a Mon culture association in Thanbyuzayat Township, however, questioned whether Mon representatives in a parliament formed under the current constitution would have any real ability to look after the interests of Mon people. Even if a Mon party participates in the election, he said, they could only win a limited number of seats and would have nothing but very limited power.
A Mon resident in Thailand, near Three Pagodas Pass, meanwhile, dismissed the importance of the NMSP’s decision on the election entirely. “Although the NMSP has had a ceasefire for over 13 years, they have not protected the Mon people,” he said. “They did just a few things in education, health and regional development. But the NMSP is not able to talk about political problems with the SPDC. If they participate in the election or not, it will not matter. The NMSP can just hold their ceasefire, they cannot do anything else.”
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