India-Myanmar relation

[ramana]

Op-Ed Pioneer, 10 Jan., 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Don't even think of sanctions



G Parthasarathy

Shortly after the demonstrations led by Buddhist monks were quelled in Myanmar, the aftershocks were felt in India. South Indians addicted to idli and saambar and their compatriots in the north looking for black pulses found that the price of dals in India had escalated. With dal production stagnant in India at around 13 to 14 million tonnes annually, the country is increasingly dependent on imports of pulses. <b>Myanmar supplies around one million tones -- half of India's total imports. This dependence on import of pulses, vital for protein content in the diet of millions of vegetarians in India, is set to grow, with Myanmar emerging as the second largest exporter of pulses in the world and its productivity in pulses bettering that of India. Interestingly, traders in India had upped dal prices in September, in anticipation of a cut-off in supplies from Myanmar.</b>

With the Americans and British demanding sanctions against Myanmar, the Foreign Ministers of Russia, China and India met at Harbin in China. Speaking at the Joint Press Conference on October 25, Mr Pranab Mukherjee said: "We believe that the Myanmar authorities should be encouraged to engage in the process of dialogue with the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General Ibrahim Gambari. The initiative which he has taken should be encouraged to take it to the logical conclusion and there should not be any sanctions at this stage."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said pressures and sanctions would only aggravate the situation in Myanmar. China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi asserted: "We hope the countries concerned will play a helping role instead of applying sanctions and applying pressures." With Myanmar's ASEAN neighbours opposing sanctions, encouraging the process of reconciliation being undertaken by Mr Ibrahim Gambari, is the only way to proceed with the process of bringing in greater democratic governance in Myanmar.

A number of Western scholars and diplomats are now coming around to the view that Western policies of threats and sanctions have been ineffective and counterproductive. Former British Ambassador to Myanmar Derek Tonkin has debunked recent EU sanctions against gems, jewellery and timber from Myanmar, noting that EU accounts for only three per cent of Myanmar's exports. Mr Tonkin observes that a substantial portion of the gems, jewellery and jade exports of Myanmar goes to China, its rubies are processed in Thailand and its teakwood is in great demand in Thailand and India. Moreover, the ban on Myanmar textile exports has been a mere flea bite, as far as the regime is concerned. It has, however, resulted in tens of thousands of Myanmar textile workers being rendered unemployed.

Mr Tonkin has added that EU sanctions on Myanmar businesses have only resulted in stifling the emergence of an entrepreneurial class, with European Parliament not even carrying out a study of the futility of measures it legislates. He has ridiculed the much hyped sanctions against the state-run Pagan Airlines in Myanmar, noting that while the airlines may have closed its loss-incurring services to Singapore, it has opened or will be opening services to South Korea, Kunming, Phnom Penh, Chennai and Dakar. Myanmar's foreign exchange reserves rose from $250 million a decade ago to over $2 billion presently, thanks in large measure to gas exports to Thailand, facilitated by collaboration with the French Company TOTAL.

<b>What caused the riots led by Buddhist monks an August-September 2007? </b>Both the uprisings in 1988 and 2007 in Myanmar were sparked by economic and not political events. <b>The 1988 uprising was caused by a sudden demonetisation of the currency, rendering millions impoverished. The riots of 2007 were triggered by a sudden rise of petroleum prices from highly subsidised to near market levels.</b> But less than five per cent of Myanmar's 500,000 monks participated in this manifestation of anger against the regime, triggered by an unimaginative move that made it impossible for ordinary citizens to afford travel by road. Not a single revered senior monk (Sayadaw), however, joined the protests. <b>But, for the first time, the relationship between the regime and the monkhood is strained.</b>

Recognising the international outrage it had provoked, the military regime agreed to receive Mr Gambari and permit him to meet Ms Aung San Suu Kyi. A senior military official was nominated for talks with Ms Su Kyi, though it is evident that the military rulers intend to move ahead on their "seven-point roadmap" to democracy. Like Gen Pervez Musharraf earlier in Pakistan, Senior Gen Than Shwe in Myanmar will hold a "referendum" and "elections" to give the Government a façade of democracy. In due course, led by China, Myanmar's neighbours will see this move as progress in a phased manner towards more representative Government.

In his meeting with Myanmar Foreign Minister U Nyan Win on January 2, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stressed the need for urgently forging a national consensus and political reconciliation in Myanmar. He noted that this process has to be broad-based, to include all sections of society, including Ms Suu Kyi and various ethnic groups. India is a member of the 14-member contact group set up by the UN Secretary General to develop international support for Mr Gambari's efforts.

India should actively pursue its agenda for change in Myanmar with members of the contact group, Myanmar's ASEAN neighbours and in its trilateral dialogue with China and Russia. At the same time, with China forcefully reiterating its irredentist territorial claims and moving closer through Bhutan to the strategic 'Chicken's neck' and Bangladesh still providing haven and support to separatist groups like ULFA, New Delhi should move ahead expeditiously in signing the agreement to develop the 'Multi-Modal Kaladan Strategic Corridor', linking its landlocked North-Eastern States to the port of Sittwe in Myanmar.

China has supplied Myanmar more than $1.6 billion of armaments since 1989. Other arms suppliers include Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, Israel and Pakistan. India has been proposing modest supply of arms and helicopters to Myanmar, primarily to facilitate interoperability between the two armed forces in dealing with cross-border insurgencies. There should be no compromise on issues of national security and India should not yield to external pressures on this score.

<b>Given the continuing assistance to Indian insurgent groups by Bangladesh and Pakistan, trans-border cooperation with Myanmar, which has been helpful in the past, should not be weakened. Efforts to facilitate moves for democratisation in Myanmar have to be combined with realism on issues of national security.</b>

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

After UPA came into power, MEA look east policy is 10 Janpath. They have no long term interest or vision for India.

[Guest]

Can the thread be renamed as India-Mynamar Relations?

<b>Govt okays Rs 535 cr Myanmar project to help North East</b>
Link
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Thu, Mar 27 03:21 PM

New Delhi,Mar 27 (PTI) Government today approved a Rs 535.91 crore multi-modal transit transport project in Myanmar, which India will use for improving access to the North-Eastern states.

<b>The Union Cabinet sanctioned the funds under the 'Aid to Myanmar' project for the upgradation of Sittwe Port and Kaladan Waterway. The money will also be used for construction of a road from Setpyitpyin (Kaletwa) to the India-Myanmar border.</b>

<b>"The project will provide an access to Mizoram and to other North-Eastern states as well as an outlet to the sea</b>," an official spokesperson told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

The project, to be executed by the Inland Waterways Authority of India, <b>also involves construction and improvement of 117 km road on the Indian side from India-Myanmar border.</b>

The government approved signing of the Framework Agreement and Protocol on Facilitation of Transit Transport and Protocol on Maintenance and Administration to facilitate the project.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[shamu]

Is there any Hindu organization that is doing relief work in Myanmar so that people who are interested in contribution can do so?

[dhu]

What is wrong with Chellaney. Laura Bush is just the smiling face. And why did they name it Hurricane Nargis, maybe there is some anti Mother India psyops.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Missionary Diplomacy
</b>

<i>
Laura Bush’s Burma crusade, driven by a moral and religious calling, has increasingly pushed that strategically located country into China’s strategic lap while undercutting Indian interests.
</i>

<i>Laura Bush meets Karen and other minority representatives</i>

Brahma Chellaney
Asian Age, May 24, 2008

A natural calamity is usually an occasion to set aside political differences and show compassion. But after a powerful cyclone tore into Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta on the night of May 2-3, that isolated country — ruled by ultra-nationalistic but rapacious military elites deeply distrustful of the sanctions-enforcing West — came under mounting international pressure to open up its devastated areas to foreign aid workers and supplies<b> or face an armed humanitarian intervention.</b>

<b>Such threats have helped lay a tentative framework for an ASEAN-led aid operation, a middle option that is supposed to end an impasse over the Burmese regime’s refusal to allow the entry of foreign relief teams other than from the Asian states it considers friendly, including India, China, ASEAN members and Japan. </b>But even as the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has toured the cyclone-wracked areas, the World Food Programme has brought in helicopters, and aid teams from India and other neighbouring nations continue their work, <b>the junta still faces intense pressure from the sanctions-applying states to throw open Burma’s borders to Western relief workers.</b>

The murky politics of international assistance has helped obscure the role of a key actor whose growing activism in recent years has helped turn up the heat on the Burmese generals. The increasingly outspoken Laura Bush, the first lady of the US, has emerged as the main driver of America’s Burma policy.

No sooner had Cyclone Nargis, packing winds up to 190 kilometres per hour, battered the Irrawaddy Delta than President George W. Bush’s wife stepped out in public to toss insults at Burma’s military rulers. In an unprecedented spectacle, the first lady showed up at the White House briefing room — normally the preserve of the president and secretary of state — and held forth on foreign policy, blaming the junta for the high death toll. The next day, as announced by Laura Bush, <b>President Bush presided at a ceremony awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the detained leader of Burma’s democracy movement, Aung San Suu Kyi.</b>

In the twilight of her husband’s presidency, the 61-year-old Laura Bush — a former librarian — has left no one in doubt on who directs Burma policy in Washington. In a prepared statement that she read out at the White House briefing room on May 5 before taking questions from reporters, she thanked “the European Union, Canada and Australia for joining the United States in imposing” sanctions, and went on to “appeal to China, India and Burma’s fellow ASEAN members to use their influence to encourage a democratic transition.”

<b>Last December, Laura Bush caught New Delhi by surprise by announcing that, “India, one of Burma’s closest trading partners, has stopped selling arms to the junta.” To date, New Delhi has made no such announcement.</b>

With China serving as a reliable weapon supplier for the past two decades and access to arms also available via Singapore and Russia, the junta has little need for India’s low-grade, mostly second-hand, arms. <b>But New Delhi has dared not say a word in contradiction to Mrs. Bush’s statement during a December 10, 2007, video teleconference on International Human Rights Day. Who can refute a first lady whose fury on Burma flows from a moral and religious calling?
</b>
It is easy to play the morality game against Burma, ranked as one of the world’s critically weak states.

<b>Slapping Burma with new sanctions every so often has become such a favourite Bush pastime </b>that just one day before the cyclone struck, the president announced yet another round of punitive actions. But no one in the world has suggested any penal measure, however mild, against China for its continuing brutal repression in Tibet because sanctions would bring job losses and other economic pain to the West.
<b>
In fact, egged on by his wife, Bush has signed more executive orders in the past five years to penalize Burma than any other country.</b>

<b>Mrs. Bush’s crusade against the Burmese military, which sees itself as the upholder of a predominantly Buddhist Burma’s unity and cultural identity, has been inspired by three separate elements: (i) information from some of the Christian churches that have sizable ethnic-minority adherents in that country; </b>(ii) a meeting she reputedly had with a Christian Karen rape victim; and (iii) the briefings she received from Elsie Walker Kilborne, a cousin of President Bush. By contrast, she and her husband have had little problem with the military’s intervention in politics in Burma-neighbouring Bangladesh and Thailand.

Such is Laura Bush’s activism that last September it was she, not the president, who telephoned Ban ki-moon and called for the UN to be more active on Burma. Earlier, in 2006, she moderated a roundtable discussion at the UN that sought to draw attention to the junta’s political repression. She has condemned the regime not just in official statements and congressional testimony, but also in two opinion articles published last year in the Wall Street Journal.

In an October 2007 article, titled “Stop the Terror in Burma,” she put forth her demand clearly: “Gen. Than Shwe and his deputies are a friendless regime. They should step aside to make way for a unified Burma governed by legitimate leaders. The rest of the armed forces should not fear this transition — there is room for a professional military in a democratic Burma. <b>In fact, one of Burma's military heroes was also a beloved champion of Burmese freedom: General Aung San, the late father of Aung San Suu Kyi.” </b>She added: “The regime's position grows weaker by the day. The generals' choice is clear: The time for a free Burma is now.” In an earlier June 19, 2007, op-ed, she said: “The Burmese regime poses an increasing threat to the security of all nations.”

In May 2007, Mrs. Bush enlisted 16 women Senators to join her in sending a signed letter to Ban Ki-Moon calling for the U.N. to pressure the Burmese regime to release Suu Kyi. And since last year, she has repeatedly met with the UN’s special envoy for Burma, Ibrahim Gambari.

After her phone call to the UN secretary-general created a public stir, she said: “I think that this is sort of one of those myths that I was baking cookies and then they fell off the cookie sheet and I called Ban Ki-moon.” That comment harked back to Hillary Clinton’s famous remark during her husband’s presidency that she was not one to stay home and bake cookies.

This week, as the junta still refuses to accept aid from four US naval ships that have been waiting in the Bay of Bengal with 1,000 Marines, 14 helicopters, and 15,000 water containers and purifying kits on board, Laura Bush went on the Voice of America — a US Congress-funded broadcaster with a Burmese language service — to tell the regime that it has nothing to fear and that “there would be absolutely no strings attached with this aid.”

The unpalatable fact is that her angry denunciations right after Cyclone Nargis had struck only contributed to the junta’s resistance to allowing Western relief workers to enter, deepening the aid crisis. As the Los Angeles Times reported on May 10, 2008, quoting several critics, “the administration’s harsh comments were poorly timed and risked reinforcing the government’s suspicions of the outside world and undermining the humanitarian effort.”

<b>Although the Burmese military seized power in 1962, the first substantive U.S. sanctions, tellingly, did not come until 1997, when a ban on further American investments to “develop Burma’s resources” was reluctantly clamped by President Bill Clinton. But it was only under Bush that Burma emerged as a major target of U.S. sanctions.</b>

Escalating sanctions have compelled a country whose nationalism has traditionally bordered on xenophobia to increasingly rely on China,<b> even as its rulers still suspect Chinese intentions.</b> Today, Burma finds itself trapped between U.S.-led sanctions and growing Chinese leverage over its affairs.

But with the devil close on its heels, Burma — which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has labelled an “outpost of tyranny” — has moved toward the deep blue sea of Chinese “benevolence.”

For a resource-hungry China, Burma has proven such a treasure trove that some northern Burmese provinces today stand stripped of their high-quality tropical hardwoods and precious gemstones. Beijing also has used Burma as a dumping ground for cheap Chinese products, besides running large trade surpluses with that impoverished country.

Aided by Western disengagement from Burma, Chinese entrepreneurs, traders, money lenders, craftsmen and others have flocked to that country, now home to between one to two million Chinese economic migrants. With their higher living standards setting them apart from the natives, these migrants constitute Burma’s new economic class.

<b>While unintentionally aiding Chinese interests, the US-led penal campaign has cost New Delhi dear, reflected in China’s setting up of listening posts and other moves in Burma that open a security flank against India. In the Bush years, India has been losing out even on commercial contracts.
</b>
By treating Burma as a pawn in a larger geopolitical game and seeking to drag it before the United Nations Security Council, the White House only increases the junta’s need for political protection from a veto-armed China, with the consequent Burmese imperative to reward Beijing for such defence.

One reward to China for stepping in twice last year to shield Burma in the Security Council has been a 30-year contract to take gas by pipeline from two offshore fields owned by an Indo-Korean consortium. <b>The junta first withdrew the status of India’s GAIL company as the “preferential buyer” of gas from the A-1 and A-3 blocks in the Bay of Bengal and then signed a production-sharing contract with China’s state-run CNPC firm.</b>

The U.S. penal measures and moves have not only forced Burma to shift from its traditional policy of nonalignment to alignment, but also driven U.S. policy to become dependent on Beijing for any movement on Burma.

This is apparent both from the way the US has pleaded with China this month to use all its influence to press the junta to open up the cyclone-battered areas to outside relief efforts, and from the secret mid-2007 US meeting with Burmese ministers that was held at America’s initiative in Beijing.

The Beijing meeting, held without prior US consultations with India, Japan and ASEAN states, came six months after China had torpedoed a Security Council draft resolution tabled by the US and Britain that called on the Burmese regime to halt military attacks on ethnic minorities, release iconic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, and begin a democratic transition. By taking China’s help to set up a meeting between its deputy assistant secretary of state and senior Burmese government representatives, the US only helped validate Beijing’s rationale for maintaining close contact with the junta.

Like on North Korea, Bush is blithely outsourcing to China parts of the US policy on Burma. But on Burma, US policy is also weighed down by Laura Bush’s missionary zeal.

Far from improving human rights in Burma, the blinkered activism has helped strengthen the military’s political grip. Recent threats of a humanitarian invasion of Burma indeed reeked of desperation, suggesting a callous willingness to employ food aid in a disaster situation to try and effect political change.

Today, an unelected, unaccountable woman holds US policy hostage to paradoxically promote free elections and public accountability in Burma. And her twice-elected, twice-born Christian husband — whom she persuaded to quit drinking at age 40 — attests to being under his wife’s sway through the “Laura and I” reference in his latest Burma-sanctions announcement. But as the Bible says, “There is none so blind as he who will not see.”<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[dhu]

Burma's Suu Kyi taken to prison
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A US man whose apparently uninvited visit to her home led to the charges, will also be tried on immigration and security offences, the lawyer added.

The American man, John Yettaw, was arrested after swimming across a lake to her house and staying there secretly for two days.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi 'intruder'


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Burmese state media said he was a psychology student living in the US state of Missouri.

..
Mr Yettaw is reported to be a father of six and a veteran of the Vietnam war. He is also believed to be a Christian, although some reports describe him as a Mormon.

Burma's New Light of Myanmar state media said Mr Yettaw was a psychology student from Falcon in the US state of Missouri, although US embassy staff in Rangoon say they have not been able to confirm these details.

A John Yettaw is listed in US public records as living in Falcon and in various places in California.

The Independent newspaper in the UK quoted a woman identified as Mr Yettaw's ex-wife as saying this was his second trip to Burma.

He is said to have told travellers he met in Asia that he was working on a project - one person told the Independent he was writing a book about human rights abuses, while other sources have said he was working on a faith-based book.

The circumstances which led to the arrest are unclear, but Burmese media reported that Mr Yettaw was detained as he swam away from Ms Suu Kyi's house.

They say he was carrying a large water bottle, presumably as a buoyancy aid, as well as a US passport, a torch, pliers, and US and local currency.

he BBC's Jonathan Head says it is unclear what Mr Yettaw's motives were for reaching the house and how he was able to spend so long in the compound.

A lawyer for Aung San Suu Kyi said Mr Yettaw had broken into her house once before, in December last year, and immediately been sent away by Ms Suu Kyi.

But this time he spent two nights sleeping on the floor.

Lawyer Kyi Win described the incident as a security breach, saying Ms Suu Kyi had not invited Mr Yettaw to the house and asked him to leave.

A US State Department spokesman said on 13 May that the embassy in Rangoon had stressed the US government's "strong interest" in the case and their concerns for Mr Yettaw's welfare and treatment. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
..

[Husky]

Concerning the above post and this bit:
<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Apr 27 2009, 03:50 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Apr 27 2009, 03:50 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sri Lanka’s war of attrition - Church ignited and fueled   
http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?optio...d=1088&Itemid=1
<b>Another country where the hand of the Church is blatantly visible is Myanmar, where the Christian Aung Sang Syu Ki – a woman married to a British Christian and whose two sons are British citizens – is sought to be foisted upon the nation. Here again, the Buddhist clergy has been infiltrated and has provided the crowds agitating for enthronement of a Christian ruler over Buddhist country.</b>
Radha Rajan,
24th April, 2009.
[right][snapback]96697[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayAr...spx?id=608
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Aung Sang Suu Kyi: just quit Myanmar</b>
Sandhya Jain
31 May 2009


Given the alacrity with which President Obama has called for “immediate and unconditional” release of Myanmar opposition leader <b>Aung San Suu Kyi, who became controversial when an American army veteran (read CIA agent) infiltrated her house detention from 3-5 May</b>, it may be appropriate for the West to relieve the military regime of its unwanted guest by offering her asylum in their lands. That way, the West can also satisfy itself that her health concerns are being properly addressed.

<b>Ms. Suu Kyi’s husband, late Michael Aris, was a white Briton and her two sons, Alexander and Kim, are British citizens</b>. Hence, the United Kingdom should have no problem in offering her permanent residence and relief from prolonged incarceration in a country where she is unwelcome, being legitimately regarded as an instrument of western imperialism.
(No one cares that he is 'white'. He is christian - as is Suu Kyi - of the christobritish variety. This is christowestern subversion.
Whereas SL president Rajapakse's wife Sharanthi is a SL christian; and that's still christo subversion.)

<b>With her entire family belonging to another nationality, and also another faith (Christian) Ms. Suu Kyi is a Myanmar citizen by formality only, being the daughter of Gen. Aung San.</b> With her sharply pro-western tilt, she has no right to aspire for political leadership of a country which the West desires to exploit for its mineral wealth, and reduce to a de facto colony.

In this connection, Myanmar’s Buddhist clergy must realise that dabbling in politics on behalf of western colonialists is both shameful and anti-national. Buddhist countries must realise that if they do not retain kinship with the Hindu-Indian roots of Buddhism, they will serve only as the doorway for penetration and takeover of their countries and societies by inimical monotheistic traditions. If medieval Islam swamped the Buddhist societies of Afghanistan and Central Asia, and India’s north western and north eastern flanks, it was Christianity that made inroads in Sri Lanka, South Korea, much of South East Asia, and Japan.

The still largely Buddhist populations of Thailand and Myanmar are currently under pressure, as are large parts of China. But whereas Beijing shows some signs of awakening to the threat by reviving the nation’s Confucian roots, there is little or no recognition of danger by the monasteries in Myanmar. Monks are easy to rent for pro-democracy (sic) demonstrations.

Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s presence in Myanmar is akin to the West’s imposing former Unocal executives in office in Afghanistan, and similar stooges in former Soviet Republics. <span style='color:red'>Mikheil Saakashvili, who became President of Georgia in January 2004 after a well-funded ‘Rose Revolution’ in November 2003, is married to Dutch-born Sandra E. Roelofs and, if memory serves me right, has an American passport.</span>

<b>This trend of imposing dual citizens (natives married to white Christians) upon the non-monotheistic world</b> that has barely recovered from the colonial depredations of the 19th and 20th centuries needs to be firmly rebuffed. Mercifully, the western-sponsored ‘coloured revolutions’ in former Soviet Republics seem to have faded, with Ukraine (‘orange revolution’) and Georgia sinking in to economic crisis, and Kyrgyzstan (‘tulip revolution’) firmly with Russia.
(Well, Myanmar and Russia do seem to detect western christianism - with which I mean catholicism-protestantism - better than India/SL ever could.)

The new Myanmar constitution rightly denies the right to contest elections to citizens married to foreigners; so Ms. Suu Kyi should call it a day. It does not lie in Mr. Obama’s mouth to cast aspersions on the Myanmar regime and direct it to release Ms. Suu Kyi and others, so they may wreak havoc on their natal societies.

<b>Prisoner without a conscience</b>

On 14 May 2009, it became known that American army veteran John Yettaw swam across a lake to enter the island home of Myanmar pro-democracy (read pro-West) leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and was ensconced there for two days before being detected. The news created a furore in Myanmar’s highly secretive regime (remember how the generals built the new capital, Naypydaw, in utter secrecy, to avert a foreign-funded ‘revolution’ or the ravages of a simulated tsunami?)

Naturally, the 63-year-old Suu Kyi is now on trial. If convicted, she could get another five year detention (her current term was to end on 27 May 2009).

Through most of her 19-year incarceration, Ms. Suu Kyi has been living in the comfort of her own home, rather than in a harsh prison cell. Even when Yettaw was found at her home – certainly the result of lax security or bribed guards – she and her two maids were taken to Insein Prison near Yangon (Rangoon), for trial. But even here, they have been accorded the facility of a guest house on the premises, rather than a jail cell.

This is in sharp contrast to the mysterious death of former Yugoslav President Slobodan  Miloševic in March 2006, while in western custody at The Hague, where he was being tried for alleged war crimes (highly disputed). The cause of death was allegedly a heart attack, and many believed this was deliberately triggered by wrong medication.

Myanmar officials say Yettaw has confessed to visiting Suu Kyi’s residence previously as well, in November-December 2008, though he claims he could not meet her then, which is peculiar to say the least. Anyway, these dual visits over the course of just six months certainly suggest that the army veteran is highly trained for such solitary and risky missions, which validates the suspicion that he is a CIA plant and that Suu Kyi is consciously in league with elements out to subvert the freedom and the economy of her native country.

Certainly, she was brash enough to acknowledge that “I did not inform them,” when the judge asked if she alerted Myanmar’s military authorities about the intrusion. She candidly admitted meeting Yettaw, giving him food, and allowing him to stay at her house: “I allowed him to have temporary shelter.”

Here is a remarkable prisoner without a conscience. The American stayed two days at her residence, leaving just before midnight on May 5. She claimed she did not know which way he went, and that she did not violate the terms of her house arrest by illegally entertaining an American citizen.

<b>Yettaw, who was arrested on the return journey, glibly maintained that he swam across the lake to her house to warn her of a vision he had that she would be assassinated.</b> This must be one of the most novel defence pleas in history!
(What, a vision like Constantine's labarum, Helena's dreams of where jeebus-never-walked and Paul's vision of jeebus? Very christian of Yettaw, the spy from the US army.)


<b>Nobel allurement</b>

<b>Like Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and politician José Ramos-Horta, who jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 and led oil-rich East Timor to separation from Indonesia in 2002, Aung Sang Suu Kyi was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, after her landslide victory in the 1990 elections was thwarted by a nationalist military leadership. The Nobel was clearly aimed at building her image among the simple folk of Myanmar, in order to install another puppet leader in Asia.</b> To briefly conclude the thread on East Timor, its first president and current prime minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão is married to Kirsty Sword, a former Australian spy!

The non-white, non-Christian world has now woken up to the danger of marriages of political leaders to foreign nationals, and is no longer impressed by awards and certificates – these are increasingly perceived as badges of intellectual slavery and political subordination. Myanmar plans to hold elections under its new constitution in 2010; ideally the lady should be removed from the nation before these are held.

Recently, Sri Lanka sternly rebuffed western interference and conducted brilliant army operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Christian-dominated force determined to partition the country. Here again, we find that LTTE’s chief political strategist and chief negotiator, late <span style='color:red'>Anton Stanislaus Balasingham, was a British citizen! In 1978, he married Adele Ann Wilby, an Australian citizen and nurse, who instantly rose to become an important member of the organisation’s women’s wing.</span>

<b>In Nepal, the Christian leadership of the Maoist guerillas led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda,</b> similarly received an unexpected rebuff by nationalist forces that recouped under the leadership of President Ram Baran Yadav and army chief Rukmangad Katawal, though that victory is still shaky. Still, the world is waking up to the West’s insidious political games to undermine the sovereignty of former colonies, or regions like Afghanistan that were inadequately ‘pacified’ (read crushed) in the past.

<b>Intrusion for subversion</b>

Whichever way one looks at it, the American intrusion was pure subversion. Given that the American government recently admitted parking a submarine in the icy Arctic waters to keep on eye on the Soviets during the Cold War, Johan Yettaw cannot be dismissed as an innocent or a crank.

He not only violated the security and immigration conditions of his visa – something white evangelicals do routinely in India – but was doubtless deputed by his government to communicate a specific message.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party won the 1990 elections. But the generals ruling Myanmar wisely refused to let a pronouncedly pro-western leader, with marital ties to a white Christian, rule the country. The current outcry by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Canada, the European Union and UN chief Ban Ki-moon (a South Korean Christian) only confirm western designs upon this resource-rich nation in India’s neighbourhood.

A western foothold in Myanmar would put pressure on both India and China, and it is high time these two large Asian neighbours began to look out for their mutual interests and concerns, rather than aggravate foolish rivalries.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) initially refrained from comment on the situation in Myanmar (a member-nation), but finally under pressure from European foreign ministers at a meeting in Hanoi, expressed ‘grave concern’ over Suu Kyi’s treatment; but did not directly condemn her trial.

In a rare concession, the ruling generals allowed diplomats and some Myanmar journalists inside the prison to witness Suu Kyi’s testimony. India and China would do well to stand by their beleaguered Asian sister nation. New Delhi’s recent propensity to go along with western colonial intent against friendly neighbours is to be deplored and discouraged.

The writer is Editor, www.vijayvaani.com<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's not only local christian politicians marrying alien christians. There's also such things as local christian media personalities marrying alien christians. Anita Simon 'Pratap' - LTTE Public Relations imager - married to Norwegian ambassador whose best man at wedding was Eric Solheim (Norwegian diplomat famous for funding LTTE); and Prannoy Roy (relation of Suzanna 'Arundhati' Roy), the anti-Hindu crypto christo news-spin entity who's "mother is not Indian, she is English" apparently), Mira Kamdar with an alien parent.

All of this <i>christianism</i> will get buried in history under the innocuous term 'secularism' too, the way christobrits are buried under 'British'. History never reads straight after that.



Not on the topic of Burma, but about this bit:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s presence in Myanmar is akin to the West’s imposing former Unocal executives in office in Afghanistan, and similar stooges in former Soviet Republics. Mikheil Saakashvili, who became President of Georgia in January 2004 after a well-funded ‘Rose Revolution’ in November 2003, is married to Dutch-born Sandra E. Roelofs and, if memory serves me right, has an American passport.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dutch? Connected to NATO?
WWII history and go a little back from there too. All of this world-wide drama today derives from there. A clear and <i>relatively</i> concise example - small-scale case - is to be found in Yugoslavian WWI and WWII history and recent/present and what it reveals about NATO-US 'interventions'/western christianism's international global policies:
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/...ace.html#powers <- Always a great page. Recommended reading, IMO.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>"THE BIG POWERS" & THE CIVIL WARS IN EX-YUGOSLAVIA:</b>

In 1990 American and German politicians push Yugoslavia off the cliff.
Yugoslavia, member state and one of the founding states of the U.N. is derecognized in record time. This was done in disregard of ALL international laws. The multinational state is butchered into 5 (five) different countries. The masterminds of the Balkan tragedy reside in America and Germany.

Hitler called it: "New World Order"
The basic methods remain the same. <- must read page.

NATO attacks Yugoslavia
The self-proclaimed World Policeman shows his true face.

Western mass media and "morality"
The obedient media gets to do its role in the New World Order: The journalists get the job of twisting the truth. Big PR firms help them in the art of lying. The corporate owned media publish the lies as presented to them by PR firms. Anyone willing to join the lynch mob is welcome.

Mass murder for the camera
MASS MURDER FOR THE CAMERA was done for the sake of American media and their PR war against the Serbs. In KEY events in Bosnia it was used three times.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Some</b> of the articles linked to from the above srpska-mreza page 'Hitler called it: "New World Order"':
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Balkans Politics Of US-German New World Order:
New World Order (Again!)
Hitler called it "New World Order". And nothing have changed...</b>

"YUGOSLAVIA - ONE OF CIA's GREATEST HITS"
by Mark Zepezauer

"THE WAR AGAINST THE SERBS AND THE NEW AMERICAN FASCISM"
by Barry Lituchy, CUNY, NY

"The New Rome & The New Religious Wars"
By Gregory R. Copley, Editor "Defense and Foreign Affairs" - global information, collection, processing and analysis system which for over 25 years has satisfied the strategic intelligence needs of policy-level clients in governments worldwide. The author claims that USA, as Global Empire, follows in the footsteps of the Roman Empire.

"The New World Order and Yugoslavia"
a book by Gerard Baudson. In the preface the author says: "The New World Order is American hegemony: control over the world economy through GATT, IMF, NAFTA, control over United Nations Security Council for purpose of interference and embargo, control of Europe through NATO... control over petroleum reserves through Gulf War, control over minds through media disinformation."


The Capitalist Power Pyramid
Who rules this planet? Ukrainian Canadian, Mr. William Dascavich explains how the Pyramid of Power functions.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yugoslavia was not only in the way of America's plans in the region, Yugoslavia was <i>also</i> considered 'Unfinished Business' for the nazi west. Croatia's supporters in the 90s Balkan war were Germany and America: Germany speaks for itself, as for why America is also obvious, can refer to http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJu...Americans.html


Also see:
http://vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayAr...spx?id=601
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Obama’s Animal Farm: Bigger, Bloodier Wars Equal Peace and Justice</b>     
James Petras
28 May 2009

“The Deltas are psychos…You have to be a certified psychopath to join the Delta Force…”, a US Army colonel from Fort Bragg once told me back in the 1980’s.  Now President Obama has elevated the most notorious of the psychopaths, General Stanley McChrystal, to head the US and NATO military command in Afghanistan.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comment by I think Come Carpentier de Gourdon (sp?), who seems to sign his comments as CC:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Deltas and certain other special forces are indeed made up of obsessive borderline people who can be dangerous to others...<b>Their training and ideology is inspired by the Waffen SS "Death Stormers".</b> A high proportion of them end up murdering close relatives or becoming addicted to hard drugs, alcohol and sado-masochism.   
  CC 
  28 May 2009<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's a lot of nazi Germany in the US (govt and through it education and media). What am I saying, US had a lot of nazism in it even before Hitler and nazism came along to give it the word (Hitler copycatted the *US* eugenics program; read also about Hitler's colleague and benefactor Henry Ford and The Protocols of Zion.)


<b>ADDED:</b>
From the Ford article:
The following is interesting, says something about societal character.
http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The average correspondent, it was reported at the time, �if he digs deep and earnestly, will be amazed at the elaborate spy system in Henry Ford�s organization. The spy system of the Kaiser�s German Government had nothing on it."43</b>
(Fascism is ingrained in America. The KKK movie "Birth of a Nation" - from just after the 20th century dawned - about the 'perils of miscegenation' with Africans and its 'moral' of 'why Africans should not get any equal rights let alone power' is exactly what nazism was about, but the targets were different. The targets were Jews in the latter case.)

          <b>The most notorious employee of Ford�s detective agency was Boris Brasol, a Russian monarchist who had immigrated to the United States in 1916. Brasol was a rabid anti-Semite who once boasted that he had written books �which have done the Jews more injury than would have been done to them in ten pogroms.�44 Brasol was a former member of an anti-Semitic society known as the Russian Black Hundred.</b> In 1911, Brasol and his fellow Black Hundred members had attempted to blame the gang related murder of a youth named Andrey Yuchinsky on an innocent Jewish boy. The boy, Brasol claimed, had killed Yuchinsky in order to drain his blood for ritual purposes. After a two year ordeal, the boy was finally declared innocent by the courts, much to Brasol�s eternal disappointment. After arriving in America, Brasol was able to gain a high level of influence in the U.S. Government. He was appointed to a position in the Department of Justice during the tenure of Henry C. Doherty. <b>He was utilized by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer as an �authority� on Russian radicalism. Brasol also had connections to Dr. Harris Houghton, a member of U.S. Army intelligence. It was Dr. Houghton�s Russian secretary, Natalie De Bogory, whom Brasol had translate The Protocols into English.45 Brasol represented an extremely sinister aspect of the Ford detective agency. As an anti-Semite, he verged on the psychotic. �There are going to be the biggest pogroms and massacres here and elsewhere,� he once bragged, �I will write and I will precipitate them.�46</b> Brasol was �officially� employed by Ford for two years, but remained in contact with him until 1939. He would later become a writer for the anti-Semitic priest, Charles Coughlin, and a Nazi agent, visiting German officials �to give rather than receive advice.�47 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is not a secular accident of history. This is christianism. It is very very ugly. Very irrational in its hatred, but very grave in the consequences. Its tentacles are spread wide through the world and it reaches them down from history (anti-semitism in christian Rome's time) into the present (American and German and Russian nazism).
The stuff of nightmares haunting waking life.


<b>EDITED:</b> to correct how Anita 'Pratap' Simon's husband is not Eric Solheim (who's rumoured to be a "hard core catholic" in a Yahoo answers link posted by K.Ram), it was another Norwegian. Solheim was the best man at her wedding to Arne Walther, the Norwegian Ambassador to India.

[Husky]

Radha Rajan's comment on the above article "Aung Sang Suu Kyi: just quit Myanmar" by Sandhya Jain:
http://vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayAr...spx?id=608
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->  The Myanmarese have a better sense of national security if they have barred people married to foreigners from holding constitutional posts.<b> India is the only exception that not only can persons holding the highest constitutional posts be married to foreigners (President KR Narayanan) and Rajeev Gandhi, some Chief Ministers like Farooq Abdullah and now MPs, allegedly Shashi Tharoor,</b> but you could actually have an imported wife not only aspiring to rule the country constitutionally and when that failed sitting in ou parliament and ruling it as an extra-constitutional power center. The BJP has a lot to answer for - its total inaction on such critical issues when it was in power between 1997 and 2004 being one of them.   
  Radha Rajan 
  31 May 2009<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Who are these people married to? What nationality are their partners, and also, what religions?

[Husky]

Related to the above.

http://vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayAr...spx?id=608
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->    An insightful writeup by Sandhya Jain. Incidentally late KR Narayanan was a converted christian (crypto). That indian evengelicals can flout all rules , is to be seen to be believed. I saw playback singer yesudas , on landing in Chennai ,was not only allowed to jump the queue but was whisked away by a crowd of pastors / bishops , (whatever they call it) whereas secular hindus accompanying him for his overseas programme were denied that privilege.   
  Anon 
  01 Jun 2009 
(Is there any truth to KR Narayanan being a christian? Radha Rajan - see post above - said he's married to a foreigner. It certainly is more common for Indian christians to marry a non-Indian than for Hindus to, but that's no guarantee since nowadays secular types marry out of the Hindu tradition as well.
<b>ADDED:</b> Actually http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2007/06/pra...t-of-india.html implies twice that KR Narayanan is christian.)
   
 
  Aung San Suu Kui with her Catholic faith is a Western plant in Myanmar, the surreptitious programme of Catholics to convert South Asia to Christianity, be it Nepal or Sikkim prince married on to the Catholic tuition teacher, or LTTE in Sri Lanka or even Antonio Maino, so successfully inducted into the billion strong Indian population! ## Myanmar's military rulers with its tottering economy are aware of the dangers to Buddhism once Aung is released and Western influences are allowed, as is the experience of LTTE, now annihilated by Rajapakse. ## India should help Myanmar improve its infrastructure and standards and bring the country into its ambit along with Sri Lanka to protect Buddhism/ Hinduism as initiated by Rajapakse now, banning conversion activities to all faiths other than Buddhism and Hinduism, the only recognized faiths to add further shrines in the island. 
  Kumar 
  02 Jun 2009<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[ramana]

Need to revive this thread...







Pioneer Op-Ed By Maj Gen. Ashok Mehta

EDITS | Wednesday, July 21, 2010 | Email | Print | | Back





Realpolitik over morality



Ashok K Mehta



The picture is indelible. US President George W Bush strode, against the magnificent backdrop of the Purana Qila, to the microphone on the improvised stage from where he addressed India during his visit to New Delhi in 2006. He didn’t quite say what India wanted to hear, least of all, on Myanmar. He said, “India’s leadership is needed in a world that is hungry for freedom. Men and women from North Korea to Burma to Syria to Zimbabwe to Cuba yearn for their liberty…” and urged India to back American efforts to help the people of Myanmar get back their liberty. India’s response was a sharp setdown. “India does not believe in thrusting democracy down others’ throats,” said an official spokesman on the same day, when asked to respond to Mr Bush’s exhortation.



American policy towards Myanmar is changing. For the first time since 1966, a US President, Mr Barack Obama, met leaders of South-East Asian nations, including Myanmar, last year. Although it was a ceremonial occasion — the 32nd anniversary of Washington’s relations with ASEAN — the meeting was attended by the Prime Minister of Myanmar.



Now, ahead of Mr Obama’s proposed visit to India, one of the most important foreign visitors for India is due to come to New Delhi next week —Senior General Than Shwe, the head of the Burmese military junta. Gen Than rarely travels out of Myanmar (few invite him). But after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Myanmar earlier this year, Gen Than Shwe’s trip to Delhi assumes new significance.



First, the physical facts about Myanmar. Its biggest trade partners are neighbour Thailand and Singapore, besides China and India. Investments in oil and gas are virtually global. Western NGOs use devious routes to visit Yangon. India, which sent Buddhism and later its last Mughal Emperor to Burma has had to rework its relations from one of isolation to constructive engagement of the military junta. It did not abandon Aung San Suu Kyi or democracy but, guided by realpolitik and national interests, cultivated the Generals for inducing internal reform.



While this policy switch addressed India’s security concerns — namely North-East rebel sanctuaries and China’s influence in Myanmar — it did little to hasten democratic change. India’s need of Myanmar is for connectivity to the North-East denied by Bangladesh; as a bridge to the East; and for oil and gas as an alternative to Iran. A strong and effective military-to-military relationship has been developed over the years. Yet India has to ensure that it is not on the wrong side of history.



Myanmar is the only ASEAN country with land borders with four insurgency-ridden states. With its western flank resting on the epicentre of terrorism in Pakistan, India can ill-afford an unstable easternfrontier. The Generals run the most durable military regime anywhere and cannot be wished away as long as China and Russia have their veto.



But these are the bare facts. The complexity is introduced by two elements: The fact that the military regime has said elections would be held in Myanmar soon; and that Myanmar’s ethnic minorities are playing merry hell on its border with China.



An excellent report by ICRIER for the Asia Society outlines the problems that Myanmar has in engaging with the outside world. On the one hand, the regime is demonised and ostracised, while more repressive regimes elsewhere are tolerated and even feted. This leads Myanmar and the ruling regime to foster intense nationalism, which feeds on strong suspicion of foreign countries, especially neighbouring countries.



This nationalism is handy when Myanmar deals with China. Largely because of the void left by Western countries as well as India till 1988, China moved in to ‘assist’ Myanmar in a very big way. While this engagement suited Myanmar fine, China, tired of being lambasted by the international community for supporting a variety of repressive regimes all over the world, has now begun suggesting to the Myanmarese junta that it loosen its grip a bit.



The problem is, while Myanmar is grateful to the Chinese, it fears them — especially in northern Myanmar (Mandalay) where unbridled immigration from China has practically turned the region and its Shan and Kachin states into part of the Yunnan province in China. China is also constructing river, road and rail transport infrastructure through Myanmar to connect landlocked Yunnan province with the Bay of Bengal. If China were to acquire full sway over Myanmar, it would control the economy and surround India’s north-eastern States. There is evidence to suggest it is getting there. Effectively, it is clear that Myanmar has the potential to hurt India more than it can hurt Myanmar.



There is much that India can do: Offer Myanmar food-processing plants, create facilities for Myanmar to exploit and possibly export natural gas (because bringing it to India through a pipeline is not feasible). China has cottoned on to this. During Mr Wen Jiabao’s visit in June, Myanmar and China agreed to fast-track the $ 1.5 billion oil pipeline and a $ 1.04 billion gas pipeline, the construction of which started in October last year.



The pipelines will run parallel to each other and enter China at the border city of Ruili in Yunnan province and terminate in Kunming, capital of Yunnan while the 2,806-km natural gas pipeline will extend to Guizhou and Guangxi. The pipeline will diversify China’s crude oil import routes from West Asia and Africa, and avoid the sea route through the piracy-prone Strait of Malacca.



Now why didn’t we think of that? But then, it is to New Delhi that Gen Than is coming, not to Beijing. India should put aside its residual discomfort at supporting a military regime and offer Myanmar development aid and help in the spirit of generosity. All said and done, with China, Myanmar’s relationship is instrumentalist. The regime recognises this and is looking for other baskets in which to place its eggs. India should be able to offer this, even if at the cost of annoying China. New Delhi makes a big deal of its Africa policy and denies it is in a race with the Chinese in the continent. Why not develop the same approach to Myanmar, which is a neighbour after all ?