Showing posts with label military junta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military junta. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Thai Elephant steps on Burmese landmine

Elephant tears (Tasos_49/Digifancanon/Flickr)

(Telegraph.co.uk) Soraida Salwala of the Friends of the Asian Elephant conservation group in northern Thailand says the pachyderm's left foot was severely hurt in Sunday's blast in Burma's Kayin state.

Salwala said Tuesday that the elephant named Pa Hae Po was taken by truck to the group's hospital in the Thai city of Lampang and is expected to recover.

The elephant is the 14th such injury to be treated at the hospital since it began operating in 1993. He joins three other landmine victims that remain hospitalized at the facility. Rights groups say both the Burma army and rebels have laid mines during decades of conflict.
Buddha's Kapilavastu relics to go from India to Sri Lanka
The relics were excavated in the 19th century by Alexander Cunningham, the first director of the Archaeological Survey of India. The place of excavation, now called Piprahwa in Bihar, was known as Kapilavastu earlier [leading to Indian claims that the Buddha was born in India proper rather than in an outlying region, be it in what is now Afghanistan or Nepal]. Indian and Sri Lankan officials on Saturday unveiled a 16-foot tall [statue of the] Buddha in the Sarnath style from the Gupta period, installed at the entrance to the International Buddhist Museum complex...

Monday, July 18, 2011

India trying to woo Burma from China

Harsh V. Pant (special to The Japan Times)


LONDON — Even as a senior Burmese diplomat in Washington has defected, Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has suggested that some people, both at home and abroad, have deceived themselves into thinking a new government has brought change to her country.

Political dynamic is undergoing a slow transformation in Burma (aka Myanmar) and the neighboring states are being forced to respond accordingly.


Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna was in Rangoon (aka Yangon) last month to engage the new civilian government which came to office in March. His visit came a year after the visit of Myanmar's reclusive military leader, Gen. Than Shwe, to India.

[As a ruthless military dictator supported by relatives in China, Than Shwe] heads the State Peace and Development Council. India rolled out a red carpet for him and signed a raft of pacts including treaties on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, counter terrorism, development projects, science and technology and information cooperation. More

(quicktake)

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Legal slavery under Burma's dictatorship


uscampaignforburma.org

Elsewhere in Asia, policeman attempts to beat Tibetan Buddhist monk to assert Chinese rule (damncoolpictures.com). China is Burmese dictatorship's main support.

Why Being Forced into Military Labor Can Be a Death Sentence for Convicts in Burma
TIME.com
Yay Zoe was not yet midway through an 18-month sentence in Miektila prison in central Burma when he found himself among some 70 inmates assembled for transfer. He assumed he was destined for one of the government's many labor camps.

Authorities, however, felt he would be more useful to them elsewhere: he was bound and trucked to the country's eastern border, where he was forced to serve as a porter for soldiers fighting ethnic-minority forces.

A group of porters carry goods for Burmese soldiers in a village in Karen state (undated photo released by Free Burma Ranger/AP).

The backbreaking duty of carrying mortars and rice sacks all day with meager provisions of food and water was the least oppressive part of his ordeal. The 21-year-old said he was regularly beaten by soldiers and forced into veritable suicide missions.

On three occasions, he was ordered at gunpoint to spearhead patrols through a minefield by prodding the ground with a bamboo stick. "Whenever I touched a landmine, I was forced to dig it out with a knife. My hands trembled because I assumed I was about to die." More