Myanmar Aid - Donations

As some of you know, my friend Michael Shirk has been living and working in Yangon, Myanmar since 2005 as a band director. He is currently there, helping the Red Cross distribute food and water, bags of rice, and clean water in Yangon. Because of the lack of volunteers, and the difficulties imposed by the Burmese government upon granting visas to aid workers makes the support of those already in the country that much more imperative. The first UN Aid plane arrived in Myanmar only today. The Burmese government has stated it will accept international aid, but it will be distributed by the government - the corrupt military junta that has been in power since 1962. US officials believe the death toll may reach 100,000.

Because of the difficulties imposed on aid organizations in getting aid into the country, I am depositing money in his bank account via Paypal to use for direct relief efforts in Yangon. Mike currently has cash in the country, but due to Myanmar's infrastructure, it is difficult to send money of any sort in. This deposit will either repay his personal investment, or if it is possible to do so, his mother may be able to wire transfer the money to Myanmar when services are more restored. Every little bit helps in a country where people scrape by on less than $2/day and rice currently costs $40/bag.

Please let me know if you would like to help donate to his efforts in Yangon or if you would like further clarification. I will forward the information to him and his mother and give information on how to send funds via Paypal.

As always, your good wishes and prayers are also appreciated.

"Paranoid, insular and inept"

This is a recent description of the military junta in Myanmar. They continue to rule in the same way they have ruled since quashing the 1988 rebellion through brute force and placing Nobel Peace Prize Winner (1991) Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest after she won elections. Recently, they cut off the internet, and are now restricting visitors to the country.

The part I find most fascinating about all of this is the influence of the monks. When I went to Myanmar, there were monks everywhere. They are constantly interacting with the people, although they didn't really seem to say much, other than an 8 year old monk who told us that his parents wanted a monk in the family and he was the one chosen to join. Their moral support really invigorated the protests, and now the military has basically occupied the monasteries to prevent more of this sort of behavior. Myanmar is Theraveda Buddhist, a minority part of the Buddhist family, and is a very devout country. It would seem that the junta has decided not to kill the monks in the protests, as they are currently killing the civilian protesters, because of the public uproar it would cause.

There's not much about President Bush's policies that I like or admire. There's not much to admire. But at least someone is paying attention to Myanmar now - certainly no one was in 1988. The scale of poverty in that country simply breaks your heart. It's about time they got a better deal than they have been, but petty dictators seem to have a way of holding on long after they ought to have been gone.

If our goal was to oust a nasty military dictator....

We should have picked Burma, aka Myanmar. While the weather is entirely too hot for me, I really enjoyed visiting the country. The people are in general quite nice, especially if they're not trying to sell you something, and there are some really incredible historic monuments. The scenery is also quite lovely if you're into tropical stuff (I'm not). Pictures from this spring.






Just read an article summarized from the Washington Post about the Burmese government's latest push to eliminate the threat of Karen militants, an ethnic minority in Myanmar. Instead of fighting the ones with guns, the government of course realizes that the best way to break the back of the resistance is to torch their homes and villages, destroy their crops, and plant land mines in their villages so that they can never return. There are about 3 millions Karen, and almost 2 million are currently displaced. This is only one example of the kind of brutality of which the Burmese military dictator, General Shwe is capable. There aren't dirty enough, or derogatory enough words to describe what he's doing to his country's own people. No one will try to stop it though, because the military has a stranglehold on the entire country.

The only ones who dare to resist are jailed, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Read her book, if you have the chance. I haven't finished it, but what I read when I borrowed Mike's copy was excellent. He actually hasn't finished reading it either, because he's not allowed to take it into Myanmar and reads it during vacation in the US.

Myanmar has gone from one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia to one of the poorest. British imperialism may have been bad, but it was nothing compared to what this military junta is doing to its own people.