Hope for Myanmar

I can not seem to blog about anything when my mind is being bothered in what is happening in Yangoon. We live very close to Burma and our closest friends here are all Myanmar nationals. I know their stories, their sufferings and their hopes that someday Myanmar will become a free country. My heart breaks when soldiers and police started firing at protesters and killed people in the process. The monks who mobilized the masses to join the protests are all forcibly locked up in their respective monasteries. According to the news the protests falter after the crackdown. “The streets of Myanmar's two biggest cities were eerily quiet on Saturday after a brutal crackdown on demonstrators seeking to end 45 years of military rule. Soldiers quickly snuffed out one small demonstration in Yangon, dragging several men to waiting trucks.”

This development is really sad as I ponder upon the sacrifices that the monks and the people made for almost a month. I do not want the protests to end. I do not want it to end this way. I want it to end the way it should be, attaining its goal—freedom for Myanmar people. But there is still hope. My hope has been kept alive by people who have been protesting in their own countries where the Myanmar embassies are located. Hope has been kept alive by Christians who are not only praying for a peaceful change in Myanmar but for Christians who follows the biblical mandate to speak against injustices and be in solidarity with the suffering people of Burma.

This is accidentally posted here.

The picture is from Yahoo! News

Protests in Burma

I wrote in our church bulletin last Sunday about the situation in Burma. We need to pray for Burma as the Buddhist monks initiated protests in Rangoon and other cities. The number of protesters is growing each day. And because most of my co-workers are from Burma, I’m hearing a lot of humors. The Burmese security forces started firing directly on the protesting monks and demonstrators. My friend told me that the government means business and that they are ready to kill to stop any revolution. I don’t that the revolution that happened in the Philippines in 1986 will also happen here. The Philippine revolution against the Marcos regime was successful because the military turned their back against the government and joined the people’s movement. Here I don’t see that happening, at least not yet.

The Bush administration issued statements about the situation in Burma. According to Irrawaddy, Burma’s leading authoritative news paper, Bush announced “three major measures against the military regime. First, he said, the US will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers. Secondly the US will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights, as well as their family members. Thirdly, the US will facilitate the efforts of humanitarian groups working to alleviate suffering in Burma.” But one wonders, is that what America can do for a country who have been suffering from an oppressive military regime for more than twenty years? The international community has been enraged with what happened to Burma as it has been suffering under the military regime who rules the country with tyranny and violence. People suffer from hunger and disease, illiteracy and ignorance, poverty and despair.

I received an email imploring me to join the protests. The email expresses something that is so true and I have been witnessing everyday as I worked with Myanmar people from different ethnic groups. Here is the content of the email.

Burma is ruled by one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world. For decades the Burmese regime has fought off pressure--imprisoning elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and democracy activists, wiping out thousands of villages in the provinces, bringing miseries from forced labour to refugee camps.

But last Tuesday Buddhist monks and nuns, revered in Burma, began marching and chanting prayers. The protests spread—now they're growing by tens of thousands every day, as ordinary people, even celebrities and comedians join in.

Peaceful protesters numbered 20,000 on Saturday, 30,000 on Sunday, 100,000 today. This week, they could win a new life for their country. In the past, Burma's military rulers have massacred the demonstrators and crushed democracy. This time it can be different—but only if the world stands with the Burmese.

Global leaders are gathering now in New York for the annual United Nations summit. In speeches and press interviews, we need them to show Burma's military junta how grave the consequences will be if they crush the protesters with violence this time. Click below urgently to sign the emergency petition supporting the peaceful protests in Burma, it’ll be delivered to UN Security Council members and the UN press corps all week.

If you want to join the peaceful protests and be counted in please click here.

At this point, I still do not know how Myanmar Christians are being involved in the protests. But we are one in our desire and aspirations for a peaceful change in Burma.

The picture is from Avaaz.org-Stand with Burmese Protesters

It was Aung San Suu Kyi' birthday too

My wife found out out that the 19th of June was also the birthday of Aung Suu Kyi and proudly told me that I share my birthday with too many famous and great people. Although I know little about her before, working with people who come from Myanmar afford me to hear stories about her sometime.

Aung Suu Kyi is Burma's nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma), and a noted prisoner of conscience. A Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship.

In 1990, the military junta called a general election, which the National League for Democracy won decisively. Under normal circumstances, she would have assumed the office of Prime Minister. Instead, the results were nullified, and the military refused to hand over power. This resulted in an international outcry and partly led to Aung San Suu Kyi's winning the Sakharov Prize that year and the Nobel Peace Prize the following year in 1991. Her sons Alexander and Kim accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. Aung San Suu Kyi used the Nobel Peace Prize's 1.3 million USD prize money to establish a health and education trust for the Burmese people.

Aung San Suu Kyi spent her 62nd birthday under house arrest o­n Tuesday while her supporters marked the event at her National League for Democracy’s headquarters in Rangoon.

According to Myint Thein, a spokesman for NLD, about 100 people—most likely from the government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association and the “Swan Arr Shin,” a paramilitary group—were gathered outside NLD’s headquarters when Suu Kyi’s birthday was celebrated.Wikipedia and Irrawaddy News Magazine